Slow Days, Fast Companies

With wine sales sluggish nationally, marketing schemes become important. De Los Campos, for instance, is a line of light-styled wines targeted at Latin American and Southwestern cuisine restaurants. Charles Shaw Winery in the Napa Valley makes the two wines in the line, Chardonnay and Tinto.

The latter is a Gamay Beaujolais--an excellent choice for drinking with Mexican food, if restaurateurs only knew it. The problem is that Mexican restaurateurs are traditionally uninterested in stocking wine, and as a result wine salesmen often don’t bother with them. For this reason, Shaw is selling through a beer distributor, rather than a wine distributor.

Another marketing idea is Buena Vista’s Bistro Style wines. These are blends of Chardonnay with Semillon and Symphony.

“People were telling us that Chardonnay was starting to taste monotonous,” says winemaker Jill Davis, “so in one of our brainstorming sessions, we came up with blending Chardonnay with other varieties. With the Semillon we added a creamy note and with the Symphony we added a spice.” The wines, which retail for about $10, will soon be seen with a redesigned label.

One of the more successful marketing ideas is selling wine in the one-liter bottle--a third larger than the standard 750-milliliter size, but a third smaller than the so-called magnum, 1.5 liters.

The San Luis Obispo winery Corbett Canyon pioneered this size in 1984. Few wineries followed it, but today 60% of Corbett Canyon’s expanding sales are in the larger bottle. James Fox, Corbett Canyon’s director of marketing, says it’s due to restaurants’ by-the-glass programs.

The 1989 Chardonnay is fresh and floral with good acidity. It sells for $7, which would be $5.25 if sold in a standard 750-ml bottle. The best of the line is the 1989 Merlot ($8), a richly flavored wine with ripe, jammy fruit and a soft, quaffable finish. Also excellent is the 1989 Cabernet Sauvignon ($7), which uses 60% Napa grapes in the blend.

Another clever packaging idea is from R.H. Phillips in Esparto. His 1988 EXP Mourvedre ($13), an excellent Rhone-style wine, comes in an unusual Italian bottle called the Futura. The tall, slender black bottle holds only 375 milliliters; an ’88 Syrah, soon to be released, will come in 500 milliliters.

Also using unusual bottles is Martin Brothers, the Paso Robles winery that makes some excellent wine from unusual grape varieties. The 1990 Martin Brothers Aleatico ($10/half bottle), a lovely not-very-sweet dessert or aperitif wine, is packaged in an attractive tapered Italian bottle that could serve as a vase or olive oil pitcher after the wine is gone.

Another approach is to offer a Napa Valley estate-bottled wine at a slightly lower price without hurting its image. Flora Springs Winery will soon release a line of wines called Floreal. The wines will be off Flora Springs’ own ranches.

With sales in this country slow, Cuvaison general manager Manfred Esser took still another marketing tack. He went overseas.

Austrian-born Esser has traveled in Europe for years, slowly building the winery’s image. Today fully 20% of Cuvaison’s 50,000 cases a year are sold in Europe, probably the highest percentage of any U.S. winery. The market is largely Germany, England and Switzerland--the latter because the Schmidheiny family that owns Cuvaison is Swiss.

Tasting Notes:

1987 St. Clement Cabernet Sauvignon ($20)--This is a marvel of complexity, with black cherry fruit, a trace of cedar and superb richness on the palate. The wine has only a trace of the astringency often found in richer-styled wines, yet surely will age beautifully. This is the best red wine Dennis Johns has ever produced at St. Clement and one of the best Cabernets of the 1987 vintage.

1989 Shenandoah Vineyards Serene ($7.50)--Here Shenandoah is blending the Rhone grapes Syrah and Grenache and the southern French variety Carignane. It is a lighter-styled red wine with decent fruit and a light peppery note. Nice quaffing wine to go with simple pasta dishes.

1990 Grand Cru Chenin Blanc ($6.50) and 1990 Hacienda Chenin Blanc ($6.50)--These two Sonoma Valley wineries traditionally make some of the best dry Chenin Blancs in the state--from grapes grown in the Clarksburg area, near the Stockton delta--and this year is no exception. The Grand Cru has a trace more melon in the nose, the Hacienda a bit more leafiness. Both are elegant lower-priced alternatives to Chardonnay.

1989 Sichel Riesling ($6.50)--This German Riesling, which fortunately has an easy-to-pronounce name, has lovely floral notes with a trace of the typical oiliness and a nice mintiness in the finish. With only 9.5% alcohol and just a trace of residual sugar on the palate, it is an attractive wine to match with lighter foods.

Wine of the Week

1989 Chateau de Baun Chardonnay ($10)-- This Sonoma County winery, which has made wine almost exclusively from the Symphony grape, has at last made a Chardonnay. Winemaker Jamie Meves made it light and crisp, a delight for those who like wines of good acidity. Those who prefer big, rich, buttery wines may not like this wine as much, but I find the citrusy/spicy notes refreshing.