In an era when both the number of wines for sale and their quality continue to increase, building an identity for a California winery is hard. But that task would be child’s play compared to the challenge facing Alfonso Alfaro.
A 32-year-old Mexican with a master’s degree in wine and spirits production earned in France and training as a chef, he is charged with the responsiblity of selling wine from his homeland in the United States.
Sell Mexican wine? Since the stereotype image of Mexican beverages starts with beer and ends with tequila, it is difficult to know where to begin in establishing credibility.
But Alfaro thinks he knows. Drawing on a passion for matching food and wine he developed in France, he has been luring Americans to try more than a half dozen varietal wines produced by L.A. Cetto in the Guadalupe Valley of Mexico’s Baja California.
Founded by an Italian immigrant early in this century, the winery is no boutique. It produces a great quantity of wine yearly, much of it made into brandy or private label wines. Even as the company’s relatively limited premium operation, the L.A. Cetto line accounts for 900,000 cases.
The initial varietals included sauvignon blanc, chenin blanc, riesling, cabernet sauvignon, nebbiolo and minor plantings of other Italian grapes. Fairly recent additions have included petite sirah, zinfandel (used to make a white zinfandel) and a fume blanc blend.
Alfaro used three of his Cetto wines to good advantage last month. Working with Priscilla Satkoff and Geno Bahena of Topolobampo restaurant here, he prepared and presented a four-course lunch at the Western Avenue headquarters of Paterno Imports, which distributes the wine in the United States. The 1992 fume blanc, fresh and herbal, was paired with a grilled shrimp and guacamole appetizer. A soup-stew featuring vegetables, cilantro and purslane didn’t mar the charm of the ruby-colored, rich 1991 petite sirah. Next the graceful, agreeably spicy 1989 cabernet sauvignon successfully complemented a pepper stuffed with goat cheese, fruit and nuts. The Cetto 1992 white zinfandel was served with a custard and chocolate dessert that made it seem pleasantly tart and citric.
The result? A sense that these are well-made wines well-suited to food that can be served without apology, especially with the knowledge that they sell locally at retail for $5 to $6.
As the winery’s international commercial director, Alfero is eager to erase other stereotypes about Mexican drinking habits and food. In the past five years, he says, wine has become increasingly popular in Mexican restaurants and homes. He even attempts to throw cold water on the vision of Mexican fare being laden with red hot peppers by asserting “real, sophisticated Mexican food isn’t very hot. It has spicy flavors, but they don’t overwhelm the palate.”
About two-thirds of Cetto’s production is sold in Mexico, while an impressive 250,000 cases are exported to Europe. Although cabernet sauvignon is the most popular of Cetto’s reds in Mexico, the petite sirah is the company’s sales leader in Europe. With its soft, Rhonelike charm it should do well in this country too.
All in the family
In the maze of labels or listings that confront the potential wine consumer at a shop or in a restaurant, it is difficult, if not impossible, to see the family ties that may link several wineries or brands.
Yet in this case, knowledge-that attractively priced wine X is a second label of highly rated (and highly priced) wine Y, or that winemaker A is responsible for both wines-can bring savings and satisfaction.
Here is the tree of a winery family that is among the most consumer-friendly of California producers in its seemingly sincere conviction that quality comes before price, and price should relate to market conditions.
The company is Franciscan Estate Selections and its American wines are Franciscan, Mount Veeder, Estancia and Pinnacles. Franciscan, in the Napa Valley, produces chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, zinfandel, a meritage red and Johannisberg riesling. Estancia, with vineyards in the Alexander Valley and Monterey County, specializes in chardonnay, cabernet, red and white meritage, sauvignon blanc and a token production of sangiovese wine. Pinnacles, also in Monterey, makes pinot noir and chardonnay. (Specifics on Mt. Veeder follow.)
Franciscan also markets the Chilean wines of Caliterra and Errazuriz.
The company is led by Agustin Huneeus, a personable winemaker-merchant with a philosophical bent who foresees a steep fall in prices because “there is no relationship between price and quality” in the marketplace. (Franciscan Estate Selections, it should be noted, are bargain-priced in relation to wines of similar pedigree.)
In the Old World, he points out, the wines that rise above a certain base price do so because they come from exceptional vineyards and exhibit consistant quality from vintage to vintage. In this country, instead, he says, prices are set for reasons of ego or a sense that the American public believes that if a wine costs more it must be better.
He hopes current price resistance might presage an era when consumers will look beyond numerical ratings of a single vintage and consider a winery’s performance on a wider scope, pay more attention to a wine’s terroir (a combination of soil, climate, grape variety and clone) and pressure critics to make “drinkability” a far more important criteria than aging potential in judging the quality of young wines.
Despite his criticism of current practices, Huneeus considers himself an optimist. He thinks a trend toward enjoying life more fully has begun in this country; that it will encompass increased consumption of wine and an expansion of the narrow base of American wine drinkers, and will be spurred by increased dissemination of research showing wine is not bad for us. At the same time, he foresees (and fervently hopes) small companies such as his will be drawn into the limelight as people assert their individuality and put more weight on the quality of what they buy.
A sense of how Huneeus’ philosophy works in his organization can be gleaned from Monique Thompson. A graduate of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, she is general manager, at age 27, of the 8,000-case, 40-acre mountainside Mount Veeder estate that overlooks the Napa Valley.
With considerable confidence, she echos Huneeus’ concern that the marketplace is being dominated by brand-name wines from large producers that are “clean, consistent and not necessarily distinctive” and are treated “like a commodity instead of an aesthetic beverage.” The hand-crafted, small volume wines of Mount Veeder are bred for character and distinctiveness, she suggests.
The winery, which Huneeus purchased in 1989, has been transformed in several ways. With the twin aims of maximizing quality and producing rounder, softer wines that taste good at an early age, the dry mountain vineyards were equipped with a drip irrigation system. In the winery, blending of red grapes was emphasized, while the white chardonnay was aged in new wood casks, put through malolactic fermentation to make it less harsh and more supple, and allowed to age sur-lie (on the yeast) to add complexity. Zinfandel was dropped because it “skewed” the “European, traditional image” the winery was seeking.
In addition, artist David Goings was commissioned to update the label he had designed 25 years earlier and a decision was made to market the wine primarily through restaurants. Finally, a new price structure brought suggested retail prices down into the teens. Currently Mount Veeder chardonnay is $13, cabernet $15 and meritage red $18, a drop of $10 or more for each of the winery’s three wines.
“I want these wines to be sold by someone who loves them,” enthused Thompson. “I’ll be happy if we can get them on 10 great wine lists.”
