GUD FEATURE ARTICLE

Commitment to the Vine

Two Cavas were poured, side by side – one a venerable, well-known producer, the other a relatively unknown label, new to the U.S. market. We stuck our noses into our glasses, tasted each, and ultimately agreed that the latter was fruitier and more pleasurable. That sort of intense expression of natural fruit is a hallmark of Ferndale’s Vinovi & Co., a new boutique importer specializing in Franco-Iberian wines.

My hosts that afternoon were Núria Garrote i Esteve, owner and driving force behind Vinovi, and her husband, Elie Boudt, proprietor of Royal Oak’s Elie Wine Company. We were drinking Cava Vall Dolina, one of the company’s initial offerings.

Núria is a mechanical engineer by day, tending to her nascent business over lunch, at night, and during weekends. Born in Catalunya, the culturally and historically distinctive region of Spain around Barcelona, she is in many respects the perfect candidate to build an importer of Spanish wines: She’s familiar with the culture, the language, and the wines. And it so happens, the 37-year-old business owner is born of the same generation as most of the winemakers she represents.

“You cannot relate winemaking to the old guy that is on the farm anymore,” Núria says. She recounts one of the first building blocks for her business, a series of meetings in Barcelona four years ago. While the formal program showcased larger brands, informal side gatherings were commonplace, and it was there she began to identify potential partners: “I said to Elie, ‘Do you realize that like 80% of these winemakers are from my generation?”

That many of the winemakers in her portfolio are young is perhaps surprising. Arguably more intriguing, though, is that this group is re-embracing the tradition of winemaking from its very roots – farming.

“The producers, what they do, is that they are hands-on in the vineyard,” Núria explains. “That’s why you get the intensely fruity, aromatic wines.  They pay attention to the vines, they harvest at the right time, and then they don’t overdo it with the wood [barrels].”

I found it compelling to hear her speak so passionately about what younger generations are doing in Spain since it ostensibly parallels what’s happening with urban farms, upstart food companies, craft cocktails, and other aspects of the American food movement: Young people are going back to traditions long past and creating authentic, new products.

As Núria was striking out across her homeland looking for these types of producers, she had three elements in mind: uncommon vines and varieties, emerging areas that have been historically overlooked by other importers, and people who were attempting to redefine classic styles.

Starting with a clear philosophy has obvious selling points, but it also means that from a practical business angle, Núria was starting from something of a disadvantage. “It seems to be obvious, but it’s not that easy to find producers who are committed to their land,” she laments.

That commitment tends to be found in fairly tiny operations. Small production, though, isn’t always an indicator of quality. It can’t be a stepping stone to a drastically larger operation.  Rather, it has to be a consequence of focus and drive to make a heartfelt wine. That Núria’s producers focus on farming – the dirty, difficult work that is the source of every bottle we drink – is a telling sign.

But how did she secure the business of these farmers and winemakers? First, she had to find them. “[These wines,] you cannot even buy them in Barcelona,” she says, noting that all these producers are very tiny. Their products are often bought up by a handful of fashionable restaurants or may even stay within their immediate regions.

As her husband Elie pours two glasses of red for each of us, he chimes in on some of the challenges in building a relationship with these types of winemakers.

“I used to listen when customers would say to me and say ‘Oh yeah, the best stuff from Italy stays in Italy, or the best stuff from France stays in France.’” As a shop owner, he initially thought it a bit naïve. But now, he concedes, “there’s a grain of truth to it. When we talk to these people who make small amounts, they want to keep it around.”

Noting that many of the producers they’ve met in Spain want to earn the respect of their peers and their regional customers, he elaborates, “If he sends everything he makes to Detroit, we have the market to sell it, but they’re looking for that local echo.”

However, they’re also looking to make a living and to acquire the prestige that comes from being in the U.S. market.

It’s a bit of a paradox, but that’s where Vinovi & Co. has been able to connect with these Spanish winemakers. As a native who speaks Catalan and Spanish, as well as French and English, Núria was able to establish a rapport with producers hesitant to export or who were interested in the U.S. market only with the support of a trusted importer.

Elie returns from checking on their daughter and notes that several of Vinovi’s potential producers were also concerned about the United States’ penchant for heavily manipulated wines aimed at getting big scores with popular wine critics.  He motions to our glasses, pointing at Alcor – a rich, food-friendly wine made from a blend of both native and non-native grapes in Catalunya – and said, “he wasn’t even interested in coming to the U.S.”

Núria mentions that the other wine we’re drinking, Sot Lefriec, was imported by a different company and scored well with the U.S. press. But the winemakers were unhappy. Speaking more generally, Núria continues, “They’re not going to bring their wines here to have them sit in Virginia in a warehouse… but if they feel like they have the right importer, well, we didn’t have any problems.”

Traveling to Spain 4 or 5 times each year, she’s in touch with her winemakers often. And she maintains trust by keeping a close eye on their products: “I keep everything temperature controlled when I bring it on the boat to all the way when it gets here.”

Beyond that, Elie underscores the importance of her multi-lingual background – the insight it provides. “People ask me why I specialize in French and Spanish wine, and I say ‘because that’s all I can wrap my mind around.’ I have to know the culture, the language, and everything that really contributes to what the wine is.”  He continues, “I’m not saying I’m an expert, but I’m always learning all these things. I mean, here I am and I don’t speak Spanish, but I’m hoping to do so.”

Quickly, Núria interrupts, “Ha! We’ll toast to that!”

Jokes aside, that simple conversational ability is an important foundation. Núria’s work on the other side of the Atlantic was “a lot of visits, a lot of reading, but a lot of conversation, you know?”  But she never forgot her principal commitment to farming, “Every time visiting the vineyard, not necessarily the winery.  We don’t pay much attention to the winery – but the vineyard.  And to the people.”

Those people are a diverse, interesting lot. And they produce a diverse, interesting group of wines.

That fruity, dry, biscuity, bright, delightful Cava we were drinking, Vall Dolina’s Naturally-Brut Reserva, was made by two men in their early 30s using organic farming methods with vines about 25 years of age – one of only a few “grower Cavas” available. She imports a beautiful, edgy, dry Riesling, Ekam, from Raül Bobet, an outspoken winemaker with a PhD in chemistry who spends his weekends tending to what Núria believes may be the most elevated vineyards in Spain.  Then there’s the expatriated Englishwoman Charlotte Allen, whose brand “Pirita” is named for the Spanish word for pyrite, so abundant in the relatively barren soil of her western frontier vineyards that the ground shimmers.

Some of these wines are treated to oak; others are fermented in 12th-century stone vessels. Some are raised in heirloom plots; others are grown in inhospitable areas that have gone virtually ignored by other winemakers. But all of these wines are vinified by growers who care about their crops, harvesting by hand from vines with low yields.

Núria searched for years to find these producers and their wines, but surprisingly – to me, at least – there weren’t many bureaucratic hurdles stateside.

“Nothing was difficult…  It’s lengthy in terms of time and if you go in blind and you underestimate their procedure, you’re gonna fail. But there are manuals online for everything. It’s a matter of knowing what it takes and just following.” she reveals. That’s not to say everything always goes smoothly: Núria has been waiting for about six months for Michigan to approve the label for a product that she’s hoping to debut in metro Detroit this spring.

They open a wine that they hope will be available in a couple of years – Pirita Blanco. Ripe but explosive, it’s a beautiful, balanced wine, and like her red, it’s made from indigenous, unheralded grape varieties and fermented using native yeast.

This bottle prompted Núria to relay a quick story about the winemaker and the nature of her tiny, remote operation. “She came driving a car with a French plate because she had lived in France,” Núria continued, “and she was speaking English because she’s British.  People in town there are very isolated, mostly old people. So they call her la francesa, which is ‘the French woman,’ because they recognize the plate but they don’t recognize the English language.”

I’ve purchased some of Núria’s wines from Elie’s shop in Royal Oak, including a few bottles of Pirita, but I asked how business has been going otherwise. Thus far, she’s brought in more than 25 pallets totaling about 15,000 bottles of wine, and of the 17 labels currently in her portfolio, many of them have been placed in local restaurants.

In particular, she cites Joseph Allerton of Roast (Detroit), Christian Stachel at Café Muse (Royal Oak), and Antoine Przekop of Tallulah Wine Bar and Bella Piatti (Birmingham) as sommeliers who have embraced her approach.

Retail customers looking to try her wines will find a wide array of prices – from around $10 to upwards of $100. “The price structure was not intentional at all,” she explains. But in cases where she was genuinely interested in a winemaker that made multiple wines, she was careful to select at least one that fit lower prices.

Of course, as Vinovi & Co. grows, its pricing structure is bound to change. And while Núria intends to retain her principled approach, plans to move beyond Spain are already in process: She’s working with winemakers in France and Portugal to bring in their products, hopefully as soon as this year.

Regardless of what the future holds, don’t expect Núria’s approach to change. She’s after quality that comes from commitment, and there’s no way to fake that: “You look for small production, hands-on in the vineyard, and a strong personality putting a vision into what they do.”

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Vineyard and winemaker photos courtesy of Núria Garrote i Esteve.

Posted on 2012.03.04 by Evan Hansen at 7:32 pm
This entry was posted in Features and tagged business, imported, Inside Detroit, Spain, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

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