Best wines from Bobal grapes
Best wines from Bobal grapes
Ver mensaje de Juan SuchThe Bobal grape is getting a renaissance for making good red wine in DO Utiel-Requena. Cellars are finally discovering that working with indigenous grapes have an international appeal. In the Parker forum a fellow forumite asks me for the best wines made from Bobal (http://fora.erobertparker.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/1/40547.html?)
Apart from Bodegas Mustiguillo (Vino de la Tierra El Terrerazo, located in Utiel-Valencia) with their Mestizaje (made from young vines), Finca Terrerazo and their ultra-premium Quincha Corral (probably the best wine from Bobal I have tried) what are your favourite wines (red and rosé)?
Right now I have two red wines in my mind: Casa Don Angel Bobal (from Vera de Estenas, Do Utiel-Requena) and Alterón reserva (from Coop. San Isidro, D.O. Manchuela), which has an incredible QPR at about 3 euros. In rosés the selection can be wider.
Re: Best wines from Bobal grapes
Ver mensaje de Juan SuchFor some strange reason, a significant amount of the Bodegas Mustiguillo 2000 Quincha Corral was available in the US for a mere $20 -- half of the best price available in Spain. I hear the $75 2001 is probably better but, for the price, it is hard to beat the 2000. (Paco and I both have TNs about this wine on the Notes side of verema/en.)
Re: Best wines from Bobal grapes
Ver mensaje de Juan SuchBobal wines are getting better, but we must have patience...
Coronilla from Bodegas Schenk may be another good choice, Sybarus bobal from Bodegas Torroja, and a sweet example, Dominio del Arenal Bobal dulce.
Re: Best wines from Bobal grapes
Ver mensaje de Juan SuchLet me add two more:
From a very small producer (Pagos del Molino): Arras de Bobal, not a ’pure sang’ but almost.
And a sweet wine old-style: Dulce Tertulia
TN (sorry in Spanish):
https://www.verema.com/comunidad/vinoscatados/vino.asp?vino=6313
https://www.verema.com/comunidad/vinoscatados/vino.asp?vino=6990
Cheers
Price strategy for new wines
Ver mensaje de WaltZalenskiWalt, your comment about the Quincha Corral prices raises a more general question. What do you think about new wineries selling new wines at high prices? It’s clear that this has been a marketing development frequently used in recent years. The usual argument (in this example was the case) is that the winery tasted its wine with others of a peer group and valued its quality. Then decided the price. I think this price strategy is wrong because you are comparing only intrinsic quality in a given time (and without knowing anything about the potential for evolution in bottle) but not the cost (in terms of time and money) of implantation of a new brand.
For instance, imagine that, after a blind tasting, you could say that you liked Quincha Corral more than Clos Martinet (they are very good friends and collaborators, I hope they will not be angry with this comparison ;-) and then the winery say we are going to sell QC a little bit over the price of Martinet. Yeap, but Clos Martinet has been around since the 1989 vintage, it has an established brand, etc.
In other words: I don’t like new wines positioning high in prices. I prefer the Vega Sicilia approach: to start at moderate prices and increase the price when the brand is more established and are more bottles (price strategy employed in Alión and now in the new Pintia)
What do you think about?
Re: Price strategy for new wines
Ver mensaje de Juan SuchThis is not an issue to which I give a lot of thought, Juan. Obviously I would always prefer to have world class wines available cheaply. On the other hand, if consumers were only willing to pay a pittance for new wines until such time as the wine had a long and impressive track record, how many new projects of a certain type would be developed? The projects that I am talking about may be characterized by the purchase of old vineyards (or perhaps vineyards that are not so old but where the yields are drastically reduced for the sake of quality), perhaps with terrain that is difficult to work efficiently (usually the best environment for the fruit), and a spare-no-expense attitude about the vinification process (best equipment, barrels, oenologists, etc.). The fact that the marketplace has been somewhat receptive to new projects of this type has permitted more and more of them to develop. Far fewer would be started if they were guaranteed to loose money for many years. (Or they would be started with far more compromises about the types of factors that ultimately affect quality.)
The focus must remain on quality. I also know of projects of the general type I have described where, for whatever reason, the wine simply is not that good. The winemaker might be able as a matter of economics to justify why his costs associated with the project necessitate a $50 price tag. The problem is that any knowledgeable importer or merchant who tastes the wine knows that it simply will not sell for that price because it simply is not that good. Ultimately expenses never justify a high price. Only quality does.
Sometimes I do worry about the number of new $50 - 75 ";trophy"; wines that are emerging from Spain, even if they are of very high quality. How many can the market absorb before it reaches the saturation point? I vacillate about this point quite a bit regarding Spain, however. In many cases we are still at the point that a Spanish wine in this price range is among the small handful of best wines from its particular DO. How much would you expect to pay for one of the top 3 or 4 wines of an appellation in France or Italy?
Too many new wines at high prices
Ver mensaje de WaltZalenskiWalt you say: ";The winemaker might be able as a matter of economics to justify why his costs associated with the project necessitate a $50 price tag."; Do you really think that any wine in the world can justify, based only in its costs of production, $50?
I agree that a new winery focused on quality wines that has purchased old vines (or has made an important reduction of production per hectarea) and has made an important investment on a new winery building has much more costs that and old one winery not focused strongly on quality. But not to the point of selling brand-new wines at a $50 price tag. Specially, if they release their wines only two years after the harvest, breaking the Rioja tradition of selling at 3-7 years after the harvest.
In the end, as always, market supply and demand will put every wine in its ";equilibrium"; price (and some wineries will get bankrupt in the process). You mention France and Italy regarding top wines but this countries have a much more developed commercial network around the world (starting with their restaurants) than Spain. Again, it’s not a matter of intrinsic quality only but of commercial presence on a global market.
I’m afraid that right now there are two many new Spanish wines asking for a $50 or higher retail price in markets like USA. At least in Spain I see too many new Spanish wines at more than 20 euros (retail price). Too many new wines and too much money asked to discover them, I’m afraid...
Re: Too many new wines at high prices
Ver mensaje de Juan Such";Do you really think that any wine in the world can justify, based only in its costs of production, $50?";
We are getting way outside my area of expertise, although I would like to learn more about the economics of wine. With respect to new wine projects I suppose the answer to your question depends on your time assumptions for the retirement of land/equipment acquisition costs. If your assumption is that such costs will be recouped quickly then, yes, I would expect that a $50 is frequently ";cost-justified.";