WTN: An organic wine from Brazil*

2007 Hex Von Wein Cabernet Sauvignon 12.6%
The name is silly wordplay (Witches' Wine) but I couldn't resist the first Brazilian wine that I've ever seen made from organically grown fruit. And one with a promising alcohol level. This is made by a cooperative called Coopernatural in a town I've never heard of called Picada Café in the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul (where most Brazilian wine is made). Initial aroma is sour cherry, nothing more. On tasting, a strong note of anis emerges. Before food, everything disappoints: tannins are weak, acid and fruit are deficient. After food, it tastes dilute. Disaster. But after this low, it breathes and gains some body, developing meaty and saline characteristics that leave an improved final impression. Marcia comments that we're so used to finding overripe fruit in the acid deficient wines that we taste that it's puzzling to find both deficient. Though this was inadequate, I'd like to think their heart is in the right place (no sign of acidification, chaptalization or overripe picking). But they are probably dealing with very young vines and 2007 was a mediocre vintage in Brazil. Maybe someday. I hope I didn't depress anybody.

* I know there are no organic wines, only wines made from organic fruit, but the title would be too cumbersome.

[David M. Bueker]

Everybody has to start somewhere.

Lurking posts after a three months absence I saw this and was compelled to make a contribuition.
Juan Carrau, from the well known uruguaian family, makes wine with organic cultivated grapes in Brazil since 1997. The grapes started to be produced in the organic system in 1994 at Cerro do Chapeu, Santana do Livramento, Brazil, bordering Rivera in Uruguay. The wines are made at Velho do Museu Vinhos Finos, Caxias do sul, Brazil.
He´s the only wine producer in Brazil organically certified. There are others, like Da Casa and many others that make wines with organic Labrusca grapes, but untill now no one have a Demeter certification. Juan Carrau has a plot near his relatives of Carrau Pujol, just that he is at the brazilian side of the border.
The certified grapes are cabernet sauvignon, semillon an gewürztraminer. The brands are Velho do Museu and Juan Carrau.
I´ve the pleasure to drink his 1999 organic cabernet sauvignon, year by year, and by 2004 they were drinking nicely with a quality level above the brazilian average. Unfortunately the batch of corks he used apparently could not withstand much more than these 5 years because around 2006-2007 VA went beyond the tolerable for my palate.
I live in Rio but I have a ranch in the brazilian Pampas that is located 40 miles from the Carrau´s bodegas at Cerro Chapeu and they really have a nice and modern winery on the Uruguaian side and organic cultivated plot the other side of the border. Juan Carrau´s wines are more "civilized" than those of his relative Francisco, specially the last one I´ve tasted, a tannat named Ysern. A wine with severe and powerfull tannins that only knees in front of a fat leg of lamb cooked at a uruaguaian "parrilla". Or a technique they use to bland the wine: barbecued lamb are served with a mildly sweet strawbwerry sauce.
It´s my opinion that this region, the Campanha Gaúcha, is much more promising for wines than the traditional brazilian regions. Recently, I paid a visit to a new winery, at the brazilian side, named Cordilheira de Santana, and tasted a Gewürztraminer beyond brazilian parameters. The region has a thermal range in the summer between 12-14ºC night and 35-37°C during the day. Altitude been only 200 meters ASL, the aromatics I sensed in this 2008 gewürztraminer were pretty much similar to a good Alsacian gewürz.

DISCLAIMER: I am passionated for wines, biased for organics and marvelled with this southermost frontier between Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.

Olyr Correa

I'm very glad to see a post from another Brazilian, welcome! Many of us here have the bias you describe, but we also know that becoming organic or biodynamic can be a marketing ploy and is no guarantee that a wine is any better (some of the best organic or biodynamic winemakers refuse certification because they want to have the freedom to do what they think is best, rather than follow a dogma).

The few Velho do Museu wines I've tried were disappointing, but your post makes me want to keep trying.

I was initially enthusiastic about the Campanha Gaúcha because it was so hard for grapes to reach organoleptic maturity in the Serra Gaúcha, but then I tasted some absurdly modern and souless wines made by Lidio Carraro with ridiculously high alcohol levels. I then realized that some producers are going to the Campanha simply to make wines with a modern profile, with more alcohol and less acidity and tannins. From there, it is only a short leap into thinking that they want to emulate the commercial success of modern Argentinean and Chilean wine. So I went back to becoming more interested in what Bettú is doing in Garibaldi and Tormentas in Campos de Cima da Serra, both of which are more European climates.

Look forward to your notes on Brazilian wines!

I do believe in organic, in the sense of grapes free of pesticides and chemical fertilizers in order to better translate environment and soil caracteristics.
As for biodinamics, I am not so sure I can take it seriously , but at least here we have a commitment of no intervention and can result in a more pure wine.
I´m not saying good wine because even my own taste sometimes surprises me...
I agree with your opinion regarding "famous" winemakers of Campanha Gaúcha like Carraro and Miolo. Even this guy at Tormentas, Marco, made some syrups with Carraro at Encruzilhada. Hope things are better up in Cima da Serra.
As for Bettú, like Carraro and Vila Francioni, he is beyond what I´m willing to pay for a Brazilian wine.
If you can, give a try on the wines of Santana do Livramento and Rivera. Not including Almadèn (now Miolo), spoof has not arrived...yet.
And, even been under the umbrella of Campanha Gaúcha,they are really a distinct wine region as soil, thermal amplitude and precipitation in veraison and harvest are different of the other places comprised by Campanha Gaúcha.
Re Velho do Museu, I cannot agree or disagree. Drank a bottle many years ago and do not remember well. Probably you are right. My opinion is restricted to Juan Carrau Cabernet Sauvignon.
Best