Followers of the Vine,

This week kick starts an all-new component of Spanish Vines: webisodes. We think it’s so important for you all to know what’s happening in Spain as well as the United States, and these webisodes will be your window!

This first video we’re launching today is a lot of fun. It characterizes the feeling of what happens in Spain: the fast-pace environment, the excitement, laughter, concern, and most importantly, the dedication to bringing you all the best wine possible for the money. So enjoy and pass it along to as many friends and family as possible!

Saludos y Entender es Disfrutar!

~Josh

Spanish Vines family,

You know how to tell when the founder’s blog is actually written by the founder? When it’s not published at the same time on the same day week after week. This past week has been absolutely crazy. I’ve just arrived back home to NYC after spending a few days in the Carolinas. Then I’m head back down south this Saturday in order to travel around the Carolinas, GA and VA. In addition to all this hopping around we’re looking to hire for some new positions right now so needless to say, things are hectic at the Vines.

I write this blog every week without knowing how many people are actually reading. Of course I want the readership to really increase and grow, but I write because I love talking to you all, especially if it’s face to face. But because it’s impossible to personally talk to everyone at once, this is my platform to write about the wine industry, Spain, wines, my travels, and really whatever is on my mind that I want to share.

This week I want to ask you all for a favor. We’re trying to expand distribution in Florida, and next month we have a huge meeting with the largest alcohol distributor in FL- in fact, they’re one of the largest in the country. We have to convince them that they should bring on Spanish Vines. WE are ultimately the ones that will make a difference in introducing Spanish Vines wines to new areas of the country. And when I say ‘we’ I’m referring to You- to the Spanish Vines family, the members of our Facebook group, the readers of this blog, the followers of our Twitter page and so on. It’s us against the big boys, as they say

So please, let’s interact as a family. Post fan pictures up on our facebook page, spread the word to your friends that we have Twitter & Facebook, and simply request Spanish Vines when you go to restaurants, grocery stores, or wine shops. This makes such a huge difference, and with one request and interaction at a time, we’ll grow Spanish Vines together to be one of the most unique phenomenons in the wine industry.

The incentive: if you have a picture of you enjoying or requesting a bottle of Spanish Vines or any of our brands, please post it to our facebook page or email it to info@spanishvines.com, and we’ll post it. The most interesting picture (voted by our Facebook family) will receive a free case of mixed Spanish Vines wines

Let’s keep up the fight and grow this together.

Entender es Disfrutar!

~Josh

Dear Readers,

In continuation of my last blog, I’d like to explain another reason why I went to Spain a few weeks ago and how Spanish Vines spent more time looking for a particular wine (as well as the Tempranillo I talked about last week) than any other wine search we’ve done thus far.

Early next year Spanish Vines plans to launch a bottle of wine that will have a very low price but still have top-notch quality. We’re trying to do something with this brand that could be revolutionary, not only  for the Spanish wine world but for the wine world overall; we want introduce people to ‘real’ wine, at a truly affordable price while highlighting how incredible Spanish wines are for the money. This new wine will be the first wine in what we’re calling the Spanish Vines evolution map, where you start slowly with this brand and then move onto the next, one by one until you get up to ENATE Varietales. It’s an incredible introduction into the quality driven, value oriented wines from Spain, and we have fought hard for it.

The fighting for this new wine came because of what we decided to do as opposed to what we could have done. Many brands in the $6.99-$7.99 price segment taste a certain way because of one common factor: added sugar to the wine. In general, these wines have no real sense of place or any character to one varietal over the other; sugar takes that defect and makes it attractive.

Imagine, for example, eating a raw un-ripe peach. The sensation is completely bitter and not very tasty. Now, take another piece of that same un-ripe peach and cover it with sugar. The taste is better, only you have this sticky sensation on the roof of your mouth and maybe even a bad aftertaste. That’s exactly the experience of a lot of the high-production, low-cost wine brands in the market today.

What’s the alternative to adding sugar then? Well, this is where our new wine will be different. We did not want to hide anything in the wine, so we’re going to let the grapes sit on the vine longer and wait until 2011 to launch. We want to fully express the Chardonnay variety with which we chose to work.

The European style or preference to white wines is generally more acidic, citrus-y, and possibly bitter to the American pallet. To mask this, sugar could be added to the wine to make it more “fruity,” but where’s the honor and authenticity in that? The solution? To continue with the peach example, leave that peach on the tree just a little longer, and it will take on totally new characteristics, all while maintaining the integrity and quality of that peach.

It is the same exact idea with the chardonnay grapes for our new wine. After realizing what we wanted to accomplish with the style of this white, it had to come from mother nature, not a laboratory. The winery agreed to designate a certain acreage of Chardonnay grapes solely for the white. We’re going to leave those grapes on the vine just a little longer in order to get that full bodied, round ripe fruit in perfect harmony with great acidity, a wine we can ultimately be proud to promote. Had we chosen to launch right away, we would have compromised a lot, and that’s just not what we’re about.

Entender es Disfrutar,

Josh

Followers of the Vine,

I knew Tempranillo was a finicky grape, but I had no idea it was so dramatic.

I have a rather long but important story to tell you regarding the most recent Spanish Vines events. I had to make a spur-of-the-moment trip to Spain last week, and it was a hectic and frustrating trip to be sure, but in the end it was all worth it. Let me explain:

On the homepage of our website it reads: “Spanish Vines is unique among importers because our long-term commitment is to you, the consumer, not the individual winemaker. Instead of signing long-term contracts with a winery, we blind taste an assortment of wines each year to fulfill our house style. As a result, you bring home the same bottle of juice we would bring home — at a price that’s truly affordable.”

We have had to work extra hard these past few months to preserve and sustain our mantra. Two months ago at our Oviedo blind tasting we tasted tempranillos specifically for our Spanish Vines tempranillo seleccion. At this tasting, an attempt to choose the ’09 tempranillo, the winery we used for the ’08 tempranillo absolutely soared. We all left the tasting 100% confident that our new tempranillo would be from the same winery two years in a row! Logistically this is great, but at the end of the day it’s always about you the customer, so we have to be sure, absolutely sure.

As we do after every successful tasting, we have the chosen wines sent to the USA for a final stateside evaluation before placing the final order. But when we got together to taste the wine in its traveled condition, the wine was different. It wasn’t even close to the wine we tasted in Oviedo at the blind tasting!

We explained this to the winery immediately following the tasting, and they sent further samples back over with some minor changes. When these samples arrived, we were hoping to be convinced that this would be the final look and final test. But we were far from the solution to the tempranillo search. The samples they sent were not the kind of wine on which we would put the Spanish Vines name. So what did we do? Tim and I took off to Spain to fix this in person.

After being up for about 20 hours straight (an overnight flight) we began the tasting in the winery’s laboratory. After about 3 hours of tasting different styles of tempranillo we realized that this wasn’t our spot. The bottom line was that the quality wasn’t to our expectations. So where did we go next? Well, our Crianza from Spanish Vines is one of the best value tempranillos we’ve ever found, so we decided to go take a look at that winemaker’s wines. Conveniently, that winery is right around the corner from the winery we just left. You can imagine in a region that consists of 9 wineries the drama involved with switching from one winery to its neighbor- even though it’s business, it can get personal. We began tasting his younger, joven-style tempranillos and there was no comparison – it was a much higher level of quality.

At this point our exhaustion was really starting to set in, so we left the winery for the day and returned the next morning. This tasting was probably one of the most amazing wine experiences of my life. The winemaker tells Tim, Javier, and I, “well, here’s the tempranillo that is about to go into new French & American oak barrels that will eventually make the Spanish Vines Crianza.” This particular tempranillo is hand-harvested, comes from vines that are 40 – 50 years old and has a gorgeous color. The wine was explosive, ripe, and delicious. It was an amazing wine, with tremendous flavor. On the spot Tim and both said, this is the one. This is the one for our new Spanish Vines Tempranillo.

The winemaker, Javier, and the president of the winery all interjected and said, “but it’s not filtered, clarified, nothing. It’s straight from the vine. It’s too much of a monster.” Tim and I looked at each other and smiled, saying “well, that’s exactly what our customer wants.” They were completely shocked, and it was at that point we really were able to connect the two cultures. The wine maker said, “well great, less work for me. This style of tempranillo hasn’t been touched or worked. The way you want it is as pure tempranillo as it comes – straight from the vines, into the tanks and later right into the bottle.

How beautiful is that? Completely raw tempranillo, never manipulated or touched. I love it. The point of the story is that we’re here for you all on our branded wines, be it Spanish Vines or Cinco Joses. And when we decide to represent a winery, know that we’ve done our absolute best to search the best producer within that region. So I can’t wait for you all to taste the new Spanish Vines tempranillo ’09, hopefully hitting the States this fall! And please write us at info@spanishvines.com to let us know your thoughts!

Entender es Disfrutar!

~Josh