Between The Wines February 2023

Between The Wines Between The Wines

February February 2023 2023

Hidden Hidden Treasures Treasures

There are many ways to become a winemaker. Or better said, many ways to create a wine brand. The traditional path is to have a farm (vineyard), you grow grapes, turn them into wine, bottle it, create a name and voila. Another way--the way the big guys usually do it is to create a name, do marketing studies, then figure out what price you want to sell it for, and then go out and buy some bulk wine or fruit and voila. Then there is a route somewhere between: where a person/family either owns some vines somewhere (ie, a rich dentist with ½ acres of grapes at her Napa vacation home) or perhaps an assistant winemaker somewhere has access to a vineyard somewhere and agrees to buy some fruit personally; they then ‘borrow’ some winery’s facility/equipment and make a little batch of their own product, comes up with a name and…voila.

This latter version is sometimes referred to as a ‘custom-crush’ wine and it is more prevalent than some might know. Semifrequently, these little projects hit the market’s funny bone and they take off and grow and become bona fide brands. This is the story of Row 11.

Winemaker Richard de Los Reyes was able to find select parcels while doing his day job and purchase the fruit, use some winery’s facilities at night or on weekends paying along the way for the fruit and winery ‘rental’ and created Row 11, named after the first special lot he talked some farmer into selling him. Row 11 is a Pinot Noir brand and has now evolved into a three-sku ‘brand’, with three different appellations and three different price points… sortof like ‘good, better, best’.

hidden Treasures

Trends & observations

What's New

Quotation of the Month:

“Love, like wine, gets better with time ”

Hidden Hidden Treasures Treasures Continued.. Continued..

row eleven

All three are correct, luscious, fruitforward, friendly Pinot Noirs.They all taste like Pinot Noir, which is no small feat at the $12 wholesale cost the ‘Vinas 3’ (three vineyards) comes in at.

We have perpetual consternation when it comes to finding a good Pinot Noir for under $20 retail…and then we remember Row 11 If you don’t know these wines, you should!

Quotation of the Month:

“Love, like wine, gets better with time.”

Thoughts & Thoughts & Observations Observations

point of sale 'POS' point of sale 'POS'

For the uninitiated, ‘point of sale’ is what the industry calls the sales enhancements/back cards/racks/et cetera which aid our customers in selling wine & spirits. Our reps know that properly merchandised displays, shelves and cold boxes are an important part of the overall ‘store conditions’ which enhance a retailer’s sales activity Due to the large number of top suppliers we represent, we have LOTS and LOTS of POS: our point of sale warehouse is 24,000 square feet larger than most of our competitors wine warehouses!

Due to recent growth, we recently needed to relocate all of our POS to a new warehouse, which was quite a task, and also very eye-opening. First, we noted that there has been a slight move away from the traditional norm of having metal racks and back cards for every wine in a store: many operators prefer ‘a less busy’ look and/or smaller POS and signs. Additionally, as costs rise for wineries (like the rest of us), some suppliers are cutting POS production, a way to tighten your belt and help reign in these costs.

This said, not everyone is cutting back: as we were sorting through our inventory, we found many instances where we had 300 back cards for brands we only sell 200 cases of a year And then we have some instances where we get say, 20 very cool wooden racks, but we have a need for 75 of them; clearly sales and marketing at some of the wineries are having their lines crossed.

The point of this missive is to remind all our staff and our customers that POS is alive and well (very well). Though it has shifted in format, we still have PLENTY, and it still works Our new POS pickup point should be good to go in the next couple of weeks. Store conditions matter, so take advantage! If you need something to draw attention to your wine and spirit business we can help.

What's What's New New

Between The Wines Between The Wines

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It’s hard to be a ‘pioneer’ in an established area Especially so in a region that is deeply traditional with established protocols. But when Telmo Rodriguez took over his family estate Remelluri in the early 90’s, he took on that mission and Rioja has not been the same ever since.

Good, old-school Rioja is delicious, and its fans are liege. However, Telmo felt that the formula was more about the process meaning extended ageing in barrels-virtually obliterating any varietal character, and especially any sense of place. The regulations scarcely mentioned geographic requirements other than delineating the sub-zones of Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Oriental (fka Rioja Baja), and indeed using single vineyard names or village names was essentially banned. First committing his family winery to a new direction, Telmo then started a company with his friend Pablo Eguzkiza, a vineyardist, called Compania de Vinos Telmo Rodriguez with a mission of re-discovering some of Spain’s abandoned vineyards and varietals in places like Ribeiro, Toro, Rueda…and Rioja.

Their first move was to un-learn what they had been taught and re-discover how Rioja was made pre-phylloxera, pre-machines and pre-herbicides. The project has now morphed into several projects around Spain, and Bodega Laganza is the Rioja anchor.

Focusing on Lanciego, a village where the Cantabrian mountains meet the cold Atlantic, they produce a couple of wines from tiny (one only 1.5 acres) oldvine, hard-to-work sites, as well as a traditional single village wine called ‘Corriente’, in honor of an old tradition of making a simple, communal wine for all in the village to drink throughout the year.

These wines are special, and we are proud to represent them!

Bodega lanzaga