TRAVESSIA Winery Blog

Notes from the Wine Riot

This past weekend Travessia participated in what may be one of the coolest wine tasting events around.  It’s called The Wine Riot and its second edition took place on Boston's Waterfront at the John J Moakley Courthouse.  The event is organized by The Second Glass.  Here are some notes I took away from the event.

Are these grapes real?
For Saturday’s Riot sessions we brought in some grapes picked early in the morning from Running Brook Vineyards in Dartmouth.  These are some of the grapes that go into the making of Travessia wines and they are about to be ripe for harvest.  We displayed them at our table along with our wines as another way to educate people about growing grapes in Massachusetts and truly locally made wine.  Reactions varied from disbelief… “these are not real!?” to “can I have some of that Pinot?”

Realize that not every single person will like your wine... ever.
The vast majority of people seemed to enjoy our wines, some even reacted with amazement when they realized that our wines are made with 100% locally grown grapes.  But we’ll not forget the guy who tasted our three wines and gave us a 0 out of 3, meaning none of the three wines we brought were any good for him.  Thankfully, he did give us some encouragement… “keep trying and maybe in 5 years you will have a decent wine”.  Try we will but it’s no secret that in the wine world you can’t (and should not even try) to please everyone’s pallet.

To Crushpad or not to Crushpad
When I was considering my options for starting a winery, I took a serious look at Crushpad.  I decided that I did not want to get into the wine business by “playing” in the $30+ price point (who knows maybe one day) and that was that.  At the Wine Riot, I met the owners of Triumvir, a Crushpad virtual winery.  Their 2007 Pinot Noir is one of the best American Pinots I have tasted lately. If you have $40+ to dish out, the Triumvir is a great Pinot Noir... I highly recommend it.  We talked about Triumvir's challenges and difficulties in distributing their wine.  Like never before, it is obvious to me that I made the right decision to not follow the Crushpad model as the way to establish my winery.  I’m sure that Crushpad is looking into ways to improve and facilitate the distribution of their non-California based virtual wineries.  But for now, if you own a Crushpad virtual wine brand and your intention is to sell your wine in Massachusetts, you better have some inside connections with the big boys (read distributors).

Women rule the wine drinking world
My observation... at least 70% of the attendees who came to Travessia’s table were women.  I don’t think that it was because of our good looks.  Those in the wine industry know that women account for over 60% of sales of wine in the US, so no surprise.  I see nothing wrong with this.  In fact, having worked for several years in a field that is mostly dominated by man... I love it.

Visit to Long Island

I recently visited the North Fork of Long Island for the first time along with Pedro Teixeira, one of the owners of Running Brook Vineyards.  I made the trip primarily to pick up a few used French Oak barrels.  Making the trip was easy… 1 ½ hour drive from New Bedford to New London, CT where I drove right into the ferry.  Then a 1 ½ hour boat ride across to Orient Point.  Another 20 minute drive and we were at Lenz Winery where Eric Fry awaited us.  If you have read my previous references to Eric here on the blog, you understand how much I appreciate having Eric as sort of a mentor. I’ve met with Eric several times and every time I walk away a richer person… in knowledge.

Eric poured several of his wines for us.  All around very tasty wines, including his lesser-oaked Chardonnays. Then he took us to his cellar and we tasted through three of his yet to be bottled reds.  These were some of the best red wines I’ve tasted from an East coast winery.  These wines show great balance and it’s easy to tell that they were aged with patience and care.

We then met Kareem Massud, winemaker at family owned and managed Paumanok Winery.  I was very excited about tasting their Chenin Blanc and the wine delivered big time.  Excellent wine with gorgeous floral notes that I expect from a Chenin.  We took a trip out to the vineyard to take a look at their plantings, both new and old vines.  Paumanok is the only winery in the region to grow Chenin which is surprising to me despite knowing that Chenin is not a very popular grape.  If Travessia ever ventures into planting its own vineyard… Chenin Blanc will be there.

We stopped at a couple other wineries and eventually ran out of time.  We loaded the barrels at Bedell Cellars and waited for Shinn Vineyards winemaker Anthony Napa to meet us just to say hi.  A.Napa used to be winemaker at Running Brook back in 2005.  I had spoken with him a few times over the phone so it was great to finally meet him in person.  I’ll have to make another trip and taste his wines at Shinn.

A few final notes…

-    Most white wines I tasted were excellent. Most reds were good but in my personal opinion, overpriced.
-    Long Island’s climate is very similar to Southeastern Massachusetts.  Yeap, we aren’t that distant.  So, generally, our vintage quality will match theirs.
-    Every winemaker or person I met was welcoming and eager to share their knowledge.

In the end, the trip was worth it for the people I met and the wines I tasted.  The barrels were a perfect excuse.

2009 grape growing update

Many people have asked me about the effects of this year’s weather conditions on the vineyards and grapes here in Massachusetts.  New Englanders don’t expect weather consistency.  Neither do we expect week after week of hot days, cool evenings and low humidity.  But rain/humidity every other day, and what seems to be a constant cloud cover is a bit too much.  The report: it SUCKS.  I would be lying if I didn’t say so.  The impact on the grapes and eventually the wine?  Well, a lot remains to be seen since it’s just early August and we have at least two months ahead of us before harvest is normally underway, but here is what we know thus far.

1. Due to temperatures a bit lower than normal and more clouds than sun, the vines are running about two weeks behind schedule.  This could result in difficulty ripening the grapes this year especially if Fall’s cool temperatures arrive early.  Think lots of Rosé and Sparkling wine if things don’t improve.

2. We’ll have less than normal crop size this year.  The reason is that we had poor fruit set and as a result there are less clusters on the vine.  Meaning?  Less grapes to make wine with.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for quality since the vines will have less grapes to ripen.  I’m eager to see what will be the actual impact of poor fruit set in the final quality of the grape crop.  From a business perspective, poor fruit set is a terrible thing since there will be less grapes to harvest and make wine with and therefore, a loss in revenue.

A couple of images to illustrate poor fruit set…

Here is what a normal Chardonnay cluster looks like:

 

 Here is what a Chardonnay cluster with poor fruit set looks like:

By the way… word “on the street” is that all the cloudiness in the Northeast this Summer is directly related to the eruption of the Redoubt volcano in Alaska back in March of this year.

One stage at a time

Have you been following the Tour de France?  I have and I’m surprised as to how much I’ve enjoyed it.  I don’t fully understand all the tactics and unwritten rules that seem to play such an important role in the race.  Lance has no chance to win the Tour this time but it’s still quite impressive that he’s even able to compete at the highest level of his sport after being out for 4 years.

But I’m not following the Tour just because of Lance Armstrong.  I’m following because I’m captivated by the tolerance for pain that these cyclists are able to sustain, day after day for three weeks.  And I haven't decided what is more impressive... the uphill grind or the downhill speed.

From the interviews, most of these cyclists seem like pretty humble guys.  Most of them really dream of winning just a single stage not the entire race.  Most are just happy to reach the finish line in Paris.  The few who aspire to win the Tour seem to take a stage at a time, slowly reaching to their goal.

This week Travessia reaches an important stage in its 7-month old life.  We are having our very first Wine Club Day.  On Saturday, July 25th, our wine club members are invited to come to the winery for a Members Only event.  They will be picking up their very first wine club package which includes 3 wines and a few other goodies.

It’s been a lot of work to put this wine club together.  One of the biggest difficulties we have faced is the fact that most people around here (and by that I mean a wide area, not just New Bedford), aren’t familiar with how wine clubs work.  Well over 90% of Travessia Wine Club members have never been members of any wine club.  So, explaining how a wine club works has been a challenge.  Despite this, we have over 100 members in the club which far exceeds my expectations at this point.

If you are interested in joining, you can do it at the winery or via the Travessia website.   If you like our wines and think that you could drink three bottles of Travessia wine in the span of three months… what are you waiting for?