Between The Wines september 2022
hidden Treasures
Hidden Treasures
Trends & observations
Vie di Romans In Northeast Italy, near the Slovenian border lie the hills of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The wines from here (along with those from nearby Also Adige) are generally considered to regularly produce many/most of Italy’s best white wines. It is such an ideal region for wine-growing that—unlike most other great regions/appellations, the regs allow for about a dozen varietals that thrive here to be sold under the DOC. Though the overall level of quality of the DOC & DOCG wines is very high, there is still a hierarchy of growers, and--surprise—today’s ‘Hidden Treasure’ estate is inarguably at the top level: Vie di Romans. Though the property has been in the family for over a century, the family didn’t start making their own wine until 1978. Patriarch Gianfranco Gallo has managed the estate since that time. They originally wanted to sell the wines under the family name… but it was already taken by a different Gallo family (!), so they opted to name the brand for a local, famous Roman Road that connects two of their estate vineyards—the ‘road of the Romans’.
Separate from the benign environment of mineral rich, alluvial soils and the climactic effects of the Dolomites, Vie di Romans winemaker Gianfranco is very, very technically adept, so the results are always among the past of the vintage. We offer three varietals from them—not inexpensive, but super values in their class: a piercingly vibrant Sauvignon Blanc, a lovely creamy yet lively Chardonnay, and what we think is one of the world’s greatest Pinot Grigio’s: Dessimis. And one of the most nimble food-friendly wines we’ve ever had. The color of the Dessimis is copper, but it is not a ‘ramato’ type of Pinot Grigio (a category getting tons of love lately). It is copper-colored for a different reason, and for those of you who care to know why, do to their website and click on the ‘in depth’ tab…fascinating reading. In the meantime, do yourself a favor and check out these fabulous wines!
What's New
Quotation of the Month: “If you tasted a new wine variety each week, it would take you 40 years to try them all.”
Trends & Observations
Between The Wines September 2022
invasion of the body snatchers Though the Pandemic stuff is mostly behind us now, there are still some ripples on the water’s surface that are impacting local businesses. To wit: where are all of the workers? Its as if they’ve disappeared from the face of the earth. Though we know all sorts of industries are having challenges finding staff right now, it seems that restaurants continue to be the businesses where we see it most intensely. We cannot count the number of restaurants that have cut their hours and/or closed portions of their restaurants when they are open due to staffing issues—both in the front and back of the house. We know of one restaurant in Northern Michigan that was unable to find a single bartender for the entire summer season: servers took turns playing bartender each night trying to stumble thru it—not exactly the standard the restaurant wanted—and when someone orders something simple like a Negroni and the ‘bartender’ has to look it up in a book…its sortof a buzz kill. Closer to home, we have our own challenges with dozens of open positions currently at Great Lakes Wine & Spirits as we write this. To be specific, at one point in July, we had open positions that equated to almost 8% of our total roster…that’s significant! However, there is good news buried in this fact: we have an employee referral program that will grant anyone on our staff up to $1,000 if they refer someone for a job at GLWAS (and they stay a year). If you are in sales and don’t want to see anymore ‘held routes’, talk to your friends, your family, your neighbors.
You’ll help the company, help yourself, and frankly, help the new potential employee…because we know this is a great place to work!
What's New
A fairly new category in the wine business referred to as ‘Lifestyle Wines’ has a new entrant: The Simple Grape. Its from our friends at Kobrand—a renowned wine producer and importer that usually get things right—so we have high hopes, and there are some distinctions about it that make The Simple Grape unique.
Between The Wines September 2022
PS the packaging is beautiful on these. Nice work Kobrand!
These lifestyle wines typically contend they are ‘healthier’ --a slippery slope when talking about an alcoholic beverage-- since they usually lower in alcohol. These producers usually also tout the fact that their products are ‘sugar free’ but that’s a bit misleading: most dry wines are pretty near sugar free already, so the difference is negligible. And finally, most (all?) of these wines spotlight how green/sustainable/virtuous they are, typically citing they have most or all of these values: sustainable, vegan, gluten-free, low carb…and use lightweight packaging. The Simple Grape wines indeed claim all of these characteristics, however they are unique from most in the category in that they are ‘full strength’, i.e., 13.5% alcohol. We’re guessing that’s why they taste better than most! They also list all of the nutritional information on the back label like food products do; something not currently required, but likely to come to all wine back labels at some point soon.
Quotation of the Month: “If you tasted a new wine variety each week, it would take you 40 years to try them all.”