Who said the economy is all bad?Thanks to the financial situation of most wine consumers and, in turn, retailers, wholesalers, brokers and wineries, there is a lot of unsold wine and, more to the point, unsold fruit out there in wine country. This is a huge opportunity for enterprising winemakers to find tremendous quality grapes at ridiculous prices.
The upshot, of course, is lower prices for quality wine.
This week, we tasted wines from Sean Minor, a young winemaker who has connections at some of the top vineyard sites in California thanks to his years of work at BV. He started an eponymous label a few years back with an eye toward producing Saturday night quality wine at Tuesday night pricing. He has long term contracts at wonderful vineyards for half of the fruit that he secures every year. The other half he plays the spot market, buying up that orphaned bulk fruit that needs a good home. The contract blocks are a way to hedge against the danger of negociant activity, because it guarantees a certain level of quality. On the flipside, playing the spot market for the rest brings the price of the whole down significantly.
Anyway, the goals have been met. Actually, they've been surpassed at a trot. The wines are great. Our customers especially seemed to enjoy the Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon, but all five wines are really quite something.
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