Négociants With A Mission

A look at Maison and Cork House wines

Up until about twenty-five years ago, the world wine market was largely dominated by négociants, wine dealers who bought grapes, must, or wine in various states of completion from smaller producers, and assembled it all into their own signature wine programs. Because individual producers couldn’t make enough wine, were too small to afford production equipment, or had limited access to consumers, they’d sell to a négociant who could make better use of it.

The last couple of years has seen a resurgence of négociants in the wine industry. It was bound to happen. In retrospect, the return of the wine négotiant seems inevitable.

The growth of the Washington wine industry has been nothing short of explosive. In 1999, there were a mere 160 bonded wineries in the State, and according to a report by the Washington State Liquor Control Board, there were 686 wineries operating with non-retail licenses in 2010. According to a recent report by the Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers, grape production increased by three percent in 2010 from the prior year, which may seem small until you consider that this number represents a record high in Washington. We crushed 160,000 tons of wine grapes last year, whereas we were producing a mere 70,000 tons back in 1999. As far as bottling goes, we bottled 21,468,124 gallons (equivalent to about 81,265,690 1.5-litre bottles) of still and effervescent wine in 2010, and in 1999, we bottled just 6,815,620 gallons (about 25,799,924 1.5-litre bottles) of still and effervescent wine. And consumption? According to statistics from the Wine Institute, nationwide wine consumption was at about 2.02 gallons (about eight bottles) per person per year in 1999, and has increased to 2.54 gallons (about ten bottles) in 2010.

	1999	2010	% +/-
Washington Wineries	160	686	+328.8%
Washington Grape Production (tons)	70,000	160,000	+128.6%
Washington Wine Bottled (gallons)	6,815,619	21,468,124	+215.0%
U.S. Wine Consumption (gallons per capita)	2.02	2.54	+25.7%

The question, then, is where’s the limit? Wine consumption continues to grow, but it doesn’t appear to be growing nearly as fast as production. The law of supply and demand would dictate that either prices should fall to move more goods, or that supply should decrease to match the demand. What we’re seeing is a little of both.

With the economy in the crapper, we’re still seeing trends of increased wine consumption, but by and large, the increase comes from less expensive bottles. Some wineries have adjusted the pricing of their wines, and some, to protect the integrity of the brand, have released second labels with lower price points to generate revenue through volume rather than margin. Still more are simply bottling less. But, if you’ve got contracts on the fruit, or you’ve got an estate vineyard, bottling less means that you’ve got a bunch of leftover vino that you’ve already paid for with dollars and labor that becomes a financial liability. If you want to recoup your costs, you’ve got to liquidate.

That’s where the négociant comes in.

We’re all familiar with the Charles Shaw model (now a Trader Joe’s exclusive)–buying up surplus wine at pennies on the dollar, dumping it all in the hopper and churning out cheap wine by the tanker-full. Savvy business move, and occasionally even palatable, but as anyone who’s consumed any amount of Two Buck Chuck will tell you, you never know what you’re going to get. My friend Valerie once told me that she’d go to Trader Joe’s and buy one bottle of Chuck, open and taste it in the car, and if it was drinkable, go back in to buy a case.

Today’s négotiants aren’t peddling cheap bottles of plonk, though. On the contrary, we’re seeing talented winemakers buying up nearly-finished surplus wines from premium wineries and seizing an opportunity to blend tasty vino that can be sold at a value price. And some of them, like Paul Beveridge and Travis Scarborough, are also using négotiant wine programs  to pursue worthy causes.

Pico Maccario 2009 Barbera d’Asti Lavignone

*Bottle #112: Pico Maccario 2009 Lavignone Barbera d’Asti DOCG

*Price Tag: $15

*Running Tab: $1,415

*Restaurant: La Vita e Bella

I once worked service. Okay, I worked the restaurant scene for nearly four glorious years. Still haven’t made as much paper as I did when I was shaking up cocktails and cutting off frat boys.

As much as I loathed my last culinary employer (I will not name!), it did lead me down the path of wine and its service that followings. So, thanks, I guess, sexist, hellism restaurant chain I worked for.

From the point of the server and from the patron, I believe the best wine service is when you’re challenged.

In true duel format, you order a Nebbiolo Langhe based upon its dryness and dark red fruit, your server tells you that you should order the Barbera d’Asti instead and a staring contest commences as he convinces you with free tasters.

Relinquishing your arms, you take on his win and realize that he was correct. This Barbera is what I wanted.

At least this Barbera. From the well-known Barbera specialist, Pico Maccario Barbera is placed in Mombaruzzo, Piedmont, falling into the Asti DOCG. The vineyards on the estate cover nearly 173 acres, making it the heftiest of the individually owned vineyards in the Piedmont region.

A Few Last Minute Wine Reviews Before The Apocalypse

With only one day before the rapture, I realized I had to hurry to taste all the wine I had left in my cellar. By taking one sip from each bottle, I could sample everything. Below are the reviews entered into my tasting journal on 5-20-11.

8:00 am. 2004 Brunellos: These have aged well. What a great vintage for Italy. Good structure and use of tannins. Finding it difficult to keep samples to one sip.

8:30 am. 2002 Burgundies: Delicious! Still young but what potential! Great power for such light body. Must try harder to keep samples to one sip. Lots of wine to get through today.

9:00 am. Woo Hoo! On to the Bordeaux! Who gives a crap about fruit and balance! All I know is these wines are AWESOME! One sip samples blow!

10:15 am. CalifoooorrrrnnnniiiiaaaWiiinnneeess!!!! This is MARLBOROUGH COUNTRY!!! Finally figured out how to keep samples to one sip: DO ELEVEN OF THEM!!! HAHAHAHAHA!

12:20 pm. Oregon Pinots: I lov Ponits! Do goodly drink for everyone.

Wine Rocks Contest: Results

The winner of our Wine Rocks contest has been selected! Our trained spider monkeys, led by Siegmund the shop steward (a real sum’bitch), went on strike today, so we had to pick the winner the old fashioned way: with a random number generator.

We made a list of all the entrants by order of submission time. Then, we went over to random.org and had it generate a random integer within the range of the number of entrants. It produced the number 9. So, we chose the 9th name on the list to declare the winner.

And, the winner is: Kevin Barmish!

Like the other entrants, Kevin downloaded his free music playlist from Vinyl Wines, and sent us the deets. His favorite song on the playlist was Barstool Blues by Trev Everett.

Not only did Kevin get a free music playlist, but he also won a pair of free tickets to Wine Rocks tonight. He and a guest will get to sip on wines from thirty different wineries, while listening to bands rock the house, including winemaker Chip McLaughlan from Vinyl Wines.

Congratulations, Kevin. We’ll see you tonight.

Wine Rocks Contest: Free Music, Free Tickets

We are one day away from the fourth annual Wine Rocks event in Seattle. On Thursday, June 9, the sold-out event will rattle the Georgetown Ballroom off its foundation as Jamie Brown of Waters Winery, Rob Newsom of Boudreaux Cellars, Gordy Rawson of Chatter Creek, and Chip McLaughlin of Vinyl Wines take the stage with their bands and perform while wine enthusiasts sip wine from thirty Washington wineries. This is a gig we wait for all year.

This year’s Wine Rocks has sold out, and we’ve been getting a lot of questions about how people can still get tickets, so we’ve partnered with Vinyl Wines to give away one pair of free passes. Not only can you get free tickets, but you get free music just for participating.

Vinyl Wines is a unique winery concept in that winemaker Chip McLaughlan has found away to combine the two things he loves the most, wine and music. When you buy a bottle of Vinyl, you get a code on the cork to unlock a free music playlist download from their website. You can hear songs from Chip’s band along with about twenty others that have been carefully selected to participate in Vinyl’s program.

With wine and music being packaged together so handily by Chip and company, we thought this would be a perfect tie-in for a contest to win tickets to the Wine Rocks wine/music extravaganza. Not only do you get a chance to win tickets to Wine Rocks, but you get free music without pirating on the internet. Sounds perfect. Ready to get started? Here’s what you do: