The Comissão de Viticultura da Região dos Vinhos Verdes (CVRVV) and the European Union are holding a grand tasting of Vinho Verde wines on Tuesday March 20th in New York City The event will take place at Saxon + Parole, one of New York hottest restaurants, and feature some of Portugal’s best Vinho Verde producers, showcasing the fresh 2011 vintage.

The event is for TRADE AND MEDIA ONLY, and will be held from 1 PM until 4 PM, so please RSVP as soon as possible to secure your spot to taste these amazing wines. You can do so by sending an email directly to VinhoVerdeRSVP@rfbinder.com, or by calling 212-994-7576.

I will be in attendance pouring several wines from our friends and producer Quinta de Gomariz, who is quickly becoming one of the best producers in the region. With a hallway full of regional, national and international awards for their wines, you’ll definitely want to come check these wines out. I hope to see many of you there, so be sure to come stop by the Quinta de Gomariz table!

–Michael

It seems Portuguese producer Quinta de Gomariz isn’t finished yet! After being recognized as one of the “Top Portuguese Value Brands” in the June issue of Wine and Spirits for their 2008 vintage, the 2009 vintage looks to be just as impressive. As reported by Decanter, Quinta de Gomariz swept the board at this years Vinho Verde awards, bringing home the “Best Of” awards for their Avesso and Branco wines, as well as six gold medals and two silver medals for their various other wines. Equally impressive is the fact that Quinta de Gomariz released their first wines in 2005, so this comes as a huge accomplishment for such a young producer. We’re very excited and extremely happy for the team at Quinta de Gomariz and can’t wait to see what the future holds for this amazing producer- Congratulations!!!

Cheers,

Michael

It has been a year this month since we first started importing the amazing wines from Quinta de Gomariz, and they are already making a name for themselves! In the recently released June issue of Wine & Spirits Magazine, both the 2008 Alvarinho and 2008 Loureiro were recognized as “Top 100 Values of the Year” and the winery itself was recognized as one of two “Top Portuguese Value Brands.”

This is quite an honor for such a young winery- the first vines were planted in 1999 and their first harvest was in 2004. We’re very excited to be working with such an up and coming producer, especially as the Vinho Verde region gains more attention in the media and the competition stiffens. We’ve been fortunate enough to be working with Vitor Mendes from Vinixa, who has been instrumental in helping to make these wines available in the US.

I will be in New York City next week for an event hosted by the Vinho Verde Commission and will be pouring these fantastic wines, so if you live or work in New York please register for the event and make sure to stop by and try the new 2009 vintage!

Cheers,

Michael

We’ve just finished tying up all our loose ends and are ready to set out for our third year attending the Pennsylvania Wine Week events- with a little detour in Chicago for a Vibrant Rioja event! the three events this year are again being held in Pittsburgh, Hershey and Philadelphia, and we always look forward to making the journey to Pennsylvania. While we have attended the Pittsburgh Wine Festival and Philadelphia Wine Festivals before, we are excited to attend the Wine Festival in Hershey for the first time. If you live, work or play in either area, these events are always a fun and informative way to spend your evening tasting some amazing wines from all over the world. More importantly, all three events will be benefiting great organizations such as the Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital, Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC, UPMC Cancer Centers, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

This year we’ll be pouring some fantastic wines from Spain and Portugal. We will have several different red wines, such as crianzas from Bodegas Ondalan, Bodegas Miguel Angel Muro and Bodegas Ruiz de Vinaspre. We’ll also be featuring an amazing reserva from Bodegas Medrano Irazu, all from Spain’s famed Rioja region. (Click here for a great post on the Rioja classification system by Catavino.net) We’re also excited to feature the amazingly fresh, crisp and refreshing white and rose wines from the Vinho Verde region of Portugal. These are a real value and the region is receiving quite a bit of attention lately for it’s quality to price ratio- it’s definitely worth seeking out wines from this region! Quinta de Gomariz is a young producer from the region and is already making a name for itself by gaining 92 points for its Alvarinho and 88 Points for its Espadeiro Rose from Wine & Spirits Magazine – both were featured as “Best Buys” in the August 2009 Issue.

We’re looking forward to sharing all these wines at the events and hopefully many of you will be able to attend one of the three!

Salud,

Michael

After trying several samples from the Portuguese producer Quinta de Gomariz a few months ago, I knew we had stumbled upon a very special producer. With the help of Vitor Mendes, our good friend from Vinixa, we were able to visit the winery and meet the team behind these fantastic wines. Their wines are very direct, beautifully produced, and especially in the current economic situation, are priced extremely well. After submitting them to several different purchasers in different markets around the US, we had positive responses from all of them- even without any press. While this may not seem of any importance, trust me, it was quite the accomplishment.

These days it seems if a wine is submitted to ANY purchaser without ratings, it is almost automatically dismissed as a “substandard” wine. So to have the Quinta de Gomariz wines ordered without any US press or ratings is a testament to the hard work the team in Portugal has been doing for the four short years they have been in business.

Fast-forward several months and a few submissions later, and it seems the Quinta de Gomariz wines have solidified their status as quality wines. In the July 2009 issue of Wine & Spirits Magazine, the 2008 vintage of Quinta de Gomariz wines have proven that they can contend with the bigger, well-known Portuguese vinho verde producers.  All three wines, the Loureiro, Espadeiro (Rose) and Alvarinho were all selected as “Best Buys” by the magazine, as well as scoring all above 88 points.  The Alvarinho received 92 points, the Loreiro 90 points, and the Espadeiro 88 points- and was the only Portuguese Rose to be reviewed.

Needless to say, we are very happy the wines have finally received some press in the US (and positive press at that!) and we can’t wait to make these wines available in your market. They will be available in the US late this summer (late July/early August) in various markets throughout the US. Please feel free to contact us if you’d like more information on this up and coming producer and where to find their wonderful wines!

–Michael 

It has been a great start of the week for P.R. Grisley Co. as news has been flying in from Europe on two wineries we import from, Quinta de Gomariz from Portugal and Baron de Montfort from France. Both wineries have received awards for their wine making in their respective countries and we couldn’t be happier for both wineries!!!

 Our good friend Bertrand de Sercey and the team at Baron de Montfort have been awarded two silver medals in recognition for the 2006 vintage of BOTH the Chateau Lagrange Monbadon and the Chateau de Monbadon in an annual competition held in Bordeaux. The “Concours de Bordeaux” is a certified organization that was set up to allow Bordeaux producers to compete with each other and all wines are blind tasted by wine professionals. We currently sell the 2005 Chateau de Monbadon and the 2003 Chateau Lagrange Monbadon in selected markets, but we look forward to receiving the 2006 vintage of these wines in the future. It’s encouraging to know that Baron de Monfort continues to produce award-winning wines and we look forward to enjoying these upcoming vintages.

 Quinta de Gomariz had a VERY big weekend, taking home five awards in two different competions for their fantastic vinho verde wines. The first competition was the annual Vinho Verde Competition and was held in the city of Braga in northern Portugal. Gomariz took home the “best of” award for their 2008 Loureiro in the varietal category, as well as the 2008 Espadeiro (Rose), also for the varietal category. The big winner was their 2008 Colheita Seleccionada, which took home the gold medal in the white wine category. The other competition was the Lisbon National Wine Contest, where the 2008 Loureiro and 2008 Colheita Seleccionada were awarded silver medals. We’ve been working very closely with our good friend Vitor Mendez from Vinixa, who helped make the Gomariz wines available in the US market. As a brand new producer whom we just began working with and recently visited in May, this is very promising and we can’t wait until the Gomariz wines are available in US, which will be in the next month and half.

So, congratulations to both Quinta de Gomariz and Baron de Monfort, keep up the good work and we’ll be sure to raise a glass to you both!!!

– Michael 

After wrapping up all our loose ends after nearly a month on the road, I finally found some time to sit down for a new post and edit the hours of footage to make a short video for everyone to enjoy. We had an absolutely incredible trip that began in Pittsburgh before moving on to Philadelphia for wine shows during the Pennsylvania Wine Week. The shows went well considering the current economic situation, and we were excited to show some new wines at both shows such as the recently available Alana-Tokaji Late harvest Furmint. This wine received wonderful responses in both cities and we were glad that everyone enjoyed it! We were also quite lucky to have Paul Sharp from Europvin join us in Philadelphia to help educate consumers about sherry, which also went over well with the crowds. I think with Paul’s amazing wealth of information we were able to change some opinions about sherry and hopefully expand some more palates.

After the Pennsylvania shows we headed to directly to Spain where we spent some time with friends in Madrid. They took us to some “secret” tapas bars around the city and introduced us to some new foods, which I’m sure we’ll try to recreate in our kitchens. I’m always amazed at the diversity of food Spain has, it seems every time I return I try at least 10 new items I’ve never had before.

We then bid farewell to our friends in Madrid, and met two purchasing agents from the PLCB at the Madrid airport and flew directly to Vigo where we stayed the evening in an amazing hotel right on the Spain/Portugal border as we all tried to recover from our jet lag. The next morning we spent an incredible day in Portugal where we visited Quinta de Gomariz in the northern Vinho Verde region of Portugal. Here we toured the winery and met the people behind these incredible white wines before heading south to the Douro region to visit Quinta de Carregosa, a small producer making excellent red wines. The Douro was an incredible region that was quite literally mountain after mountain completely terraced and covered with vines. The Douro was one of the most breathtaking places I have seen, I hope to return one day and spend some more time enjoying the region. We had an amazing dinner later that night courtesy of the hard work from the fine people  at Vinixa who had set up all of our visits to the various wineries. The family team at Vinixa has been an immense help to us since we began working together last February and we couldn’t have accomplished our tour of Portugal without them. Before and during the dinner, we met and tasted through the line of Quevedo Ports along with Oscar Quevedo. The ports were absolutely incredible with Portuguese dishes like grilled lamb chops, roasted veal, and an amazing chocolate dessert with an orange cream sauce paired with Quevedo’s LBV and Tawny 10 year- delicious! 

With our one day, one night whirlwind tour of Portugal over, we headed north back to Spain to the Galicia region in the northwestern part of the Iberian Peninsula. There we visited with our good friends and winemakers at Coto de Gomariz to try their new vintages of amazing red and white wines that really impressed all of us. Their red wines were quite a surprise as they are made with interesting local varieties rarely seen outside of Galicia, let alone Spain. Souson, Ferrol, and Brancellao are native red varieties that were almost lost to the region during many political upheavals that Spain has experienced throughout its history. Luckily, there are several producers such as Coto de Gomariz who have dedicated their work to restoring these native varieties and producing incredible wines with them.

After Coto de Gomariz we headed southeast to Ribera del Duero to visit the famous Vega Sicilia family of wines, which include Bodegas Alion and Bodegas Pintia (which is located in nearby DO Toro). We had an amazing tour of the facilities at both Alion and Vega Sicilia before sitting down to an incredible meal where we had the unbelievable opportunity to try wines such as the ’99 Unico, ’02 Valbuena, ’05 Alion and ’06 Pintia. This was the biggest lineup of wines I have ever had the chance to taste, surely one of those days I will never, ever forget for the rest of my life. After our tasting, we had the chance for some down time at the hotel, so we passed the time talking and enjoying a beer for a change on the patio with a cool river running right below us. The next morning it was on the road again, by this time we were getting good at the stop and go schedule we had lined up.

We then headed out to the Rioja region where most of the bodegas we represent are located. We had a few jam-packed days visiting the bodegas and sampling the new vintages and new wines that many of the winemakers have been working on. We first stopped at one of the most famous producers of classic Rioja wines, La Rioja Alta. We visited their amazing facility as well as tasted through their family of wines. I always love to try these wines as you are able to taste and feel the history of Rioja when drinking these delicate, delicious wines. We had fantastic meals at every bodega, and even had the classic Riojana dish “chuletillas a la parilla” (lamb chops grilled over last years dried vines) at both Bodegas Ondalan and Bodegas Medrano Irazu. We also had the opportunity to catch up with “Mr. Non-stop,” Miguel Angel from Bodegas Miguel Angel Muro. This man has more energy that anyone I have met and he has been busy creating a wonderful new reserva wine, which we were able to enjoy. We also caught up with the husband and wife duo of Charo and Julian from Bodegas Ruiz de Vinaspre, where we had the opportunity to try their new line of wines that didn’t disappoint. At Bodegas Santiago Ijalba we were able to try many of the new vintages, and I was most excited to try their new organic wine.  Even with all these visits in a short amount of time, we were also able to enjoy some free time in the village of La Guardia. This turned out to be absolutely chaotic as there was a huge soccer match between Barcelona and local favorites, Atletico Bilbao. People were partying in the street setting off what seemed like quarter sticks of dynamite based on the sound of the explosions- and this was even with their loss to FC Barcelona! Europeans are soccer crazy to say the least……There is always something new to experience in Rioja; I think that is what keeps us going back! 

Once our tour of Rioja had ended, we drove up north to one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, San Sebastian. This is still one of my favorite cities to visit as they have the most incredible gastronomy scenes in Europe, it’s unbelievable. From the hundreds of tapas bars and a visit to a traditional sideria, we experienced some amazing food and wine while finally being able to relax a bit as our non-stop schedule had finally come to an end. Our visit to San Sebastian was the perfect way to end our wine filled tour of Spain and Portugal and reflect on all the amazing sites and generous people we had seen and met.