|
COPYRIGHT 2001 Hiaring Company
Spanish wines are a hot import category in the U.S. Consumers are learning that there is more to Spain than Rioja. As new wine regions become known, interest in Spanish wines is growing.
Stephen Tanzer, in the September! October 2000 issue of his influential publication International Wine Cellar, wrote: "Spanish wines remain red-hot in the U.S. market, and not just the established stars of Rioja and Ribera del Duero. Wine lovers are seeking out everything from the penetrating minerally Albarino wines of Spain's cool, damp northwest corner to the super-ripe, roasted wine of Priorato--bottles that can make even ripe-year Chateauneuf du Pape seem wimpy."
Spain has strengthened its hand in the international market by focusing on "wines from a place", recognizing that in the super-premium market buyers want wines that are not part of the crowd.
The Ferrer family, owners of Freixenet winery, the world's largest producer of methode champenoise wine as well as a wide range of table wines, realized several years ago that to effectively compete in the global wine market, they had to move toward the super-premium segment.
"We decided that the best way to do that was to create a number of smaller estates in various regions of Spain," said Pedro Ferrer, president of Freixenet during a recent interview. "We wanted estates from which we could produce limited release wines from several of Spain's denominaciones de origen. We felt that this was the way for our company to move and that it would also benefit the image of Spain."
The overall group of estates is called The Heredad Collection. Heredad means a country place or estate in Spanish.
There are presently five of these terroir-based estates, located in four of Spain's DOs, and there is a possibility of others being added in the future. Overall winemaking responsibility is held by Adolfo Heredia, although each estate has an onsite winemaker as well.
The five estates are Rene Barbier and Segura Viudas, in the Penedes DO. These estates have been owned by the family since the 1980s and form the base of the Heredad Collection. The other three estates are Vionta in the Rias Baixas DO, Morlanda in the DO of Priorato and Valdubon in Ribera del Duero.
David Brown, director of marketing for Freixenet USA, who is based at Gloria Ferrer, the Sonoma sparkling wine house owned by the Ferrer family, said the wines started to come into the country last fall and were initially well-received by the trade. He took a group of sales...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
