We had a staff tasting dinner last night with the irrepressible I.V. Kimberly, a regional manager for Billington Imports, the folks who bring in Cousino-Macul from Chile and the Catena family of wines from Argentina. I won’t go into detailed tasting notes, but I will say that for the first time I came away from an extensive tasting of South American wines with the impression that the quality of the wines has come a long way just in the past five years. At Cousino-Macul, which has always produced rather rustic versions of Cabernet, Merlot, and Chardonnay, the emphasis has finally come around to producing wines in a consistent, international style. On its face, this may seem a bad idea–since it is terroir that is the guarantor of a wine’s individuality–but in this case, not so.
While the company has introduced a new premium line called “Lota,” its bread-and-butter remain the basic varietal wines. In my opinion, these will never be particularly distinguished, but they do have a card to play, which is consistency. And consistency is what sells in the mid-range international market. Cousino-Macul Antiguas Reservas is never going to be great, but it is a good, solid, dependable Cabernet, vintage in and vintage out. The same can be said of the other varietal wines.
Meanwhile, at Catena, there have been some major changes. For one thing, the value-priced Alamos brand is now marketed separately from other Catena products, and has its own new winemaking facility. Next year, there will be an Alamos premium brand called “Seleccion” that will be made from the best fruit from the Alamos-owned vineyards as well as fruit bought in from growers whose properties border on the Alamos vineyards. According to Kimberly, much will be made of the commitment of these growers to providing Alamos with top-quality fruit.
Finally, the Catena wines themselves are coming into their own. The Malbec and Malbec Alta have been throttled down from fruit-bombs to wines with more balance of fruit, tannins, and acidity. The ‘02 Malbec Alta in particular came across as almost European in its fineness. Don’t get me wrong: There is still plenty of forward berry fruit, but the wines have broken away from the old syrupy mouthfeel. At dinner, I made a joke about Catena deciding to break away from Robert Parker’s influence, but the joke was on me–he scored the ‘02 at 96 points, if I recall correctly, the highest score he’s ever given to a Catena wine.
No, I’m not a sudden convert to the point system. I’m just trying to be realistic–Parker’s points still carry huge marketing clout, and it is nice to see him reward Catena for making a serious attempt at getting past the “blockbuster” approach to winemaking.
Finally, a little anecdote about why winemakers need courage as well as good products: Cousino-Macul recently introduced a Sauvignon Gris ‘06, but sales are already stalling, not because the wine isn’t selling but because so far Cousino-Macul has been a bit timid about stepping up production. They’re worried that if they make a lot of it, it won’t sell, and they’ll be stuck with it. But if they don’t step up, they’ll never find out, now will they? Kimberly says Billington is pushing hard for the company to put out of the wine; time will tell whether the winemaker decides to step up to the challenge.