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When wines go from being wine boutique wines to supermarket wines

What happens when a wine thats one of the good ones in a wine store, is sud denly sold in the biggest supermarket in your country? Does the producer se ll his soul to the devil and go from hand harvest to machine harvest, over extract his grapes, and add more water and sugar to counter?

We had the case of Marq de Riscal .

I've seen other Rioja wines go the same route:

Bordon Reserva was in a wine store and still is, but the biggest supermarke t in Denmark now sells it. Now, the wine store has crianza and gran reserva too, but the supermarket only has reserva. The price is almost the same (1

5E), except when the supermarket has sales where it is 5-8E! Wine experts i n Denmark say that in supermarkets it is the sale price that is the correct value. I've had examples where that is true (woodbridge, nugan La Brutta), but also some where the normal high price is "just right" (comparing the w ine to similar wines in wine stores and the price in the homeland) (e.g. La mberti Amarone)

So far it is still the same wine as the wine store had and it is my favouri te budget Rioja currently. but I guess I should keep an eye out over the ne xt years if it declines rapidly.

Another example:

Campillo Rioja Crianza, Reserva, Gran reserva. The more luxury version of faustino (I do like faustino gran reserva). A wine store here had Crianza 2

001, reserva 1998, gran reserva 1994 at prices 20E, 25E, 30E. And they were beautiful . next after LdH these were the best rioja available here. Even the crianza was better than faustino gran reserva. ( and in verticals withi n the same brand I normally like GR best then R and C - and not joven at al l. fasutino I only like the GR).

The supermarket has a "reserva selecta (12E)" and a reserva 15E (sometimes on sale for 8E) of new vintages. Actually another wine store had the new vi ntages too, at around 20E. These are not even close to the 199x version the first wine store had. I do nt know if it is the lack of age - if they will transform magically in 10 y ears like the cornasses I like do - or if they simply changed production me thods?

Lol, seems this pattern happens a lot with rioja, or I just keep an eye out for rioja more than other types of wine :)

Reply to
Michael Nielsen
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Michael Nielsen wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

The producer probably has an amount to sell because a new harvest is coming and they need the barrels, the bottles warehouse to be ready for the new juice.

When you are a boutique winery, that's a problem. When you are a huge winery, like Bodegas El Coto, and make like 20 million bottles per year, it is a huge problem. So, if their upscale channels are not able to cope with supply, they have to find less prestigious channels.

Bordon Crianza was a wine that was very typical at wine bars in Spain, but quality has been going down for a couple of decades. I have not had Reservas. I had one 1970 in January with the best provenance, and it was very good if a tad bland.

Faustino is now supermarket wine in Spain. Campillo is a better wine, I agree completely. Also it is a different style, more meaty, more concentrated.

The particularity of Rioja is the model of production. Wineries, and specially big wineries, do not own the vineyards. THey have agreements with hundreds of small growers and they purchase the grapes from them. So they can be very big without the need to invest a lot of money in the process. The fact that there is a huge atomization in the vineyard holders make it very convenient for large wineries too, because there was an unbalance of power between winery (large) and winegrower (small).

However, this very same reason is behind the problems that big wineries from Rioja are going through: good winegrowers that knew they were producing great grapes because of a good terroir or working better in the vine started to make their own wines and therefore some of the better grapes are not going anymore to the big wineries.

Who is surviving this effect? Wineries that own or control the vineyards: L?pez de Heredia, Vi?a Real. Probably Campillo is the wine from the own vineyards of Faustino Group. Coto Real from Bodegas Coto (their Coto Crianza is awful) is an excellent supermarket wine, priced at 15 euro too, and according to their website is from their own vineyards.

There are plenty of "young" winegrowers making a revolution in Rioja. The problem is that they make smaller productions and therefore it will be not easy to find in every spot, as was usually the case with large wineries.

Reply to
santiago

is the wine

So the decline is not as it goes to supermarkets, but it already happened s ince the 70s?

How's Marqués de Cáceres viewed in Spain?

The G.R. is 33E here. Oh, the description actually states that its style is a fusion of rioja and bordeaux.

Reply to
Michael Nielsen

Is Vina real and CVNE the same producer? I always see those names together.

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If I were to try one of these, which one has most earth and leather? Perhap s the CVNE Tinto Gran Reserva Imperial 2007?

Reply to
Michael Nielsen

Michael Nielsen wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Yet more plonk.

I used to purchase a bottle of the big names in every big vintage. 94, 95,

96, 01, 04, 05... wines like Marqu?s de C?ceres. The '96 I remember being a very nice wine at a nice price. But from that year, I could not find another great one.

I think I commented that Faustino I Gran Reserva 2001, which I purchased at a supermarket a few months ago, was nice and good buy for the price (but I did not buy more).

Reply to
santiago

Michael Nielsen wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Same group. CVNE stands for Compa??a Vin?cola del Norte de Espa?a. They make several wines like Cune Crianza / Reserva / maybe Gran Reserva too. And then they have the Imperial line (only Reserva and Gran Reserva) which is a step up in quality and then there is Vi?a Real which is a different winery from the same group, where my guess is that they own the vineyards around the winery and was built more in a Bordeaux style. They also own Vi?edos del Contino which is a very good winery, a bit more modern.

I do not know what do you mean with "earthy" and "leathery", but my guess is that you may enjoy the wines from La Rioja Alta better because they tend to be leathery and meaty. Look for Vi?a Arana Reserva, Vi?a Ardanza Reserva and, specially, 904 Gran Reserva. Retail in Spain: 15 euro / 20 euro / 30 euro respectively.

Regarding Imperial Gran Reserva 2007, please note that 2007 was a difficult vintage for Rioja, as was 2008. Of course, good wineries make good wine also in difficult years. I would bet on 2001, 2004 or 2005 better.

In that shop from the link, they are offering Vi?a Real Reserva 2010 which I have recommended several time. That would be my pick.

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Reply to
santiago

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