Grape Juice and Wine

what and where to buy in Brazil

Brazil is not generally considered a country with a deep viticulture, at least not with all the sexy caipirinhas and golden sweet-water beers the land is so famous for. At least famous within the country for. But as for the continent, the wines of Argentina, Chile and even Uruguay have grown over the years in popularity among the world wine conoseurs, finding their place among those from France, Italy ann Nappa Valley. Living in South America, i have a much greater access to the wines of South America as 1) i am not distracted by the local Washington, Californian, Australian and French wines that were actually affordable to me while in the States and in France and 2) there is a much greater variety of them here to choose from. We are neighbors after all, and the import duty on South American wine appears to be lower than those from Europe and North America. So after eight months of having only (like it's a bad thing) wines from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Brazil, i don't find myself missing French wine, Washington wine, or Australian wine at all, and i've managed a list of quite a few goodies, and baddies, for wine lovers on a middle class budget, because that's what we drink on. As for Brazil itself, drinking wine in Brazil takes skill, stealth, lots of plugged noses and a plea to Bachus for your sanity. There are two things to remember when ordering drinks in Brazil: never order a single glass of wine anywhere, and never order a latte with a flavoring. Just don't do it.

In Brazil, there is a small pea shoot of a selection that can be considered wine, the rest is suco de uva, or grape juice. In much of Brazil, wine means juice that gives you a buzz. You go to the store and you have three options: vinho seco, vinho meio-seco, or vinho sauve. Alright so you got that seco means dry and meio-seco demi-sec, but the literal Greek translation of suave is possum vomit. It's true. It's actully a bottle of Welche's mixed with a cup of sugar, a bit of acid and some type of rubbing alcohol. To top it off, it's kept in the fridge. I'm not exactly sure how it's made. The suave wine is so sickly sweet it has to have been fortified with sugar. Good heavens, you're asking yourself, when did she become such a snob?

The truth is, we're not snobs, we just like wine. The Editor makes reference often to the fact that until i showed up on the doorstep, he didn't give a care for wine. It's considered a pretentious, snobby upperclass beverage. Out of my league, he explained to me. Good thing i changed the errors of his ways. We usually spend between 10 and 15 reais per bottle of wine. Before he was born again, he too was victim to the sticky sweet grape juice that averages between 3 and 10 reais a bottle and is available at most bars, gas stations and grocery stores. Not that great of a difference in price. That is because the problem is not due to the price, the problem is in the taste. For some reason the majority of Brazilians appear to prefer sweet wine. Even the more expensive varieties of suave are displayed first among the wine setups at grocery stores, and when ordering the driest wine you have while grabbing the waiters shirt in an iron fist at a restaurant, suave is likely to be the only choice available. They actually like it. For a case study example, say i purchase a merlot from Argentina and give my mother in law a taste. To me, merlot is already one of the sweetest or rather fruity red wines in reasonble meaning of the word "sweet", yet when she tastes it her face scrunches up and she wants to add sugar. All of this goes to say that the real wine market, meaning wine for the sake of wine and not for a cool sweet grape cocktail, has a relatively small public in Brazil. However, as more and more Brazilian vineyards put out quality affordable wines, the more the Brazilian taste buds change (hopefully).

The majority of Brazilian vineyards are located in the south of the country in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The Serra Gaucha, Campanha, Sao Joaquim, Serra do Sudeste and Vale do Rio do Peixe regions predomenantly grow Bordeaux varieties of grapes and produce a huge spectrum of wines both in quality and price. Ironically, the majority of the wine we buy casually due to both price and taste, come from northern Brazil in the wine region Vale do Sao Francisco. Controlled wine production is still young in Brazil compared to many of the big contenders in the wine industry who have been regulated for centuries, but like the rest of Brazil, it's getting there and at quite a remarkable speed. It may be difficult, and expensive, to find Brazilian wines outside of Brazil now, but in a few years take another look. Or, get a visa and buy a plane ticket.

While dining at a nice restaurant or at a steak house in Brazil, you can order good wines from Argentina and Chile by the bottle for extremely steep prices. Luckily, many quality grocery stores such as Pao de Acucar stock affordable wines, affordable meaning between ten and twenty five reais. If you find yourself lost in the wine aisle of a Brazilian supermarket, look for Argentina and Chile tags. Now, Salty Cod recommendations will not match those found at the fancy pants websites of true wine experts as there is no way i can afford to feed the habit in such a way. As such, our wine list is for the common man who doesn't mind completing a bottle in one night with a pizza and a movie. There are affordable good wines. When buying in Brazil, we recomend Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon from the labels Benjamin and Finca Flichman from Argentina, and Sunrise and Reservado from the Concha Y Toro valley in Chile. Brazilian labels worth looking into include Terranova and Adega do Vale from the northern Vale do Sao Fransisco wine region. If in the mood for celebrating and have a few extra bucks to throw in the bottle, look for Salton or Miolo.

So which vineyard did i go to for these shots? None. These vineyards are about fifteen minutes from my house. The Sao Paulo countryside is full of farms specializing in anything from sugar cane to potatoes to lettuce to mangoes, corn, and of course, grapes. Now to be honest, i would probably never buy a bottle of Indaiatuba wine, but i might buy a box of grape juice. It's amazing how less than two minutes outside of a small yet bustling city are sprawling rows of grapes. It's only the start of spring here so the grapes are only baby greens, but delicious looking none the less. Walking through the grape field reminded me of cutting grapes in the Loire Valley with that little terrier, those are the best kinds of deja vu.

Excuse our month long absense please, we're in the process of searching for a new direction here hopefully for the better. There's too much Brazil to report on to not.

a bientot

Vinho do Porto

Aladin's Real Caves of Wonder
Salty Cod in Portugal Series Episode 2
Port comes from the city of Porto. C'est vrai! Perhaps I may have tasted port prior to my affairs in Porto, but I could not remember. What I could remember was hanging the print of the iconic Sandeman on the wall of my mother's vintage themed French country kitchen , but I had thought the vinho to be naught but a table wine made of grapes grown in Portugal, but oh no. No, once you actually taste a port, the idea of it's being just a wine, or even in the wine family itself is washed clear from memory, leaving you with sticky smiling lips, wide glossy eyes, and perhaps a little extra rouge touched onto those raised cheeks. Port is not a wine, it is a wine concoction. Allez viens!

If it is raining, or just particularly unpleasant out, you should pass the day in the caves--so I was instructed. Caves of what? Port caves. Oh, where are those? Look behind you, they are all of those buildings that make up the entire southern bank of the river--damn. I thought those were billboards. I'll pretend I didn't say that. Oporto is the city of bridges, therefore there are many that cross the Douro river, a river that seems equal in breadth to that of the Seine, but when the river is crossed, Porto is left behind and the city of port wine is entered: Bem Vindo de Vila Nova de Gaia, the birthplace of each and every real bottle of vinho do porto.

How am I supposed to choose? I muse as I tramp across the ponte Dom Luis I (Porto, as I am now repeating, is known as the city of bridges, those being the Ponte Maria Pia, Ponte Dom Luis I, Ponte de Arrbida, Pont de Sao Joo, Ponte de Freixo, and Ponte Infante Dom Henrique) My umbrella has seen better days as the Douro's gust attempts to render carnage of its frail skelette. Ahk! I am completely soaked! I thought Portugal was supposed to be, perhaps, sunny!? (wait until the next post where instead of the rain, I bitch about the sun and the heat) Heres the thought: la plus proche, i.e. the first one I pass. Therefore, number one: Calem. The tour is 2euros, which includes tasting. Tasting? I'm in.

I arrived for the English guided tour, but soon discovered myself to be the only anglophone present among Italians, Germans, Chinese, and, well, we'll just say a "Northern" country. The tour comprised perhaps a demi-hour, an explication of what makes a port a port, the history of the big-name company, differences in port varieties and grape cultivation, and then finally a tasting of both a white and a red--one a velhote and one a tawny. What is a velhote and a tawny you ask? Perfect, I'm glad you asked (or didn't), but you know I will tell you. After touring three other big name caves, once more in English at Offley, a French Session at Croft, and a sneaky Portuguese catch at Taylors, I felt not only quite tipsy (I jest, this was spread over 2 days) but as if i had just graduated from the University of port wine making. To spread the knowledge I so greedily gobbled, I will share with you what I took from these tours, tastes, conversations, and the chouette book I purchased at the fnac (my dear fnac, oh how I will miss you) on all that is vinho do porto.



To be a true vinho do porto, bottle mark and legality included, the wine must not only be derived from grapes grown in the Douro Valley, but must also be processed and bottled in the river region, a decree that was first established in 1756. Port wine begins like any other wine, however, it's fermentation is stunted after only a few days at which time Brandy is added. The addition of brandy is what makes a port a port--the brandy stops the fermentation process, allowing the grapes to retain their natural sweetness and color, while at the same time skyrocketing the alcohol content percentage. For this reason port is a bitingly sweet wine, and is always had as aperatif or digestif, never accompanying dinner. For dinner the Douro produces many others for the table, reds, whites, and the exclusive vinho verde.

Brandy Wine is Port (yeah yeah I thought the same thing too!) but there is much poking that can be done to make one port a stranger to another. There are three main categories: branco, ruby, and tawny; from which a plethora of minor categories are procured. Among these categories are special categories (yes I am spinning a web) there is the Vintage, which is a wine produced from a single crop that was deemed 'exceptionally superior' by the Instituto de Vinho do Porto, and must be bottled within three years of its harvest. The LBV (late bottled vintage) derives from the same 'exceptionally superior' crop year, however is bottled after 3 years from the harvest (usually 4-6) and is less full bodied that the Vintage. The Colheita is a dated Port, such as 1994, is a wine that also derives from the 'exceptionally superior' crop, but is aged in wood for no less than 7 years before bottling, and as an aged wine through the oxidation process its bouquet (aroma, nuance) becomes less sweet, more spicy, woody, savoring strongly of dried fruits. These are the ports to buy to age, for with time they become more complex, smoother, and the color begins to lighten towards gold. A port with an indication of years, such as 10 years, is a wine made from mixing two variant batches of wine--one being over 10 years, and the other under, and whose average produces the noted number of years, be it 10, 20, 30. A Reserve is the same process as of combining two variant years to produce a median age, but with an 'exceptionally superior' crop.

Now, I did buy one of those. Can you guess which one? Let's play a game, who knows Mallory the best.

The wines are all stored in the caves along the river bank, though there remains, for posterity (and perhaps for the tourists) many rabelos--o barco do Douro. The boats that at one time perhaps did transport port barrels up and down the river and have now become iconic of port wine and the city of Porto itself. There are many many many variant wine port wine marks that make home on the Douro bank of Vila Nova de Gaia, aside the big name marks (who tend to be of English names did you gather? This is due to the meddling 18th century Englishmen who, in a sense, owned the Douro valley and made the wine famous through its high volume exportation to Brazil, United States, and Russia) there are many small marks, family owned, and available--and recommended--at most wine bars and cafes in Porto.

Il faut que vous goutez le port a Porto. Take the time to visit a wine bar for a few hours, especially with strangers recently acquired as friends. Lone-star travelers like myself, I find, are more than willing to try the house suggested branco, ruby, tawny trio while snacking, of course on dried fruit and chocolate. (Georgetown and Donut I speak of you.) Port is devilishly delightful to sip, but it is more so in company. And if you do buy a bottle of expensive port to be aged, don't wait a lifetime for the moment to open it, whether it's within the next year or the next 5, for a port from Oporto, you'll know when the time is right. But don't think you can wiggle your way into my bottle, it may already have plans.

Até à pròxima & A bientôt

To Faire Les Vendanges

I find myself here, in France, repeatedly experiencing that surreal yet fleeting sensation of being joyously content merely to be alive and occupy a coordinate position on this planet. La joie de la vie is the phrase I suppose. Or perhaps its just the wine.

Yes, we learned this lesson from all the hats out there, the new and old, Goerthe, Thoreau, Frost, Russel Crow, etc. But I risk here the most pretentious of boons, that of cottony dramatics steeped in other worldly prose to the extent of possible Hallmark employment, but there is something about the French country that is undervalued by the limitations of human language, English or French for that matter. Beautiful, breathtaking, comfortable...damn all fall short and denote cliche. Suffice it to say I love Paris, but there is something in the fields and air out there that seems to whisper to me a confirming ticket of belonging.

Though only a day trip on a sleepy September Sunday, my first trip south to the French countryside--to Château de Nitray just east of Tours--was a joy on par with the train ride and Spanish chicklets. A lesson on wine making: to faire les vendanges at Château Nitray, to cut grapes, taste wine, feast, dance, taste more wine, get lost in the woods on ancient bicycles, and just witness life being lived for the sake of ever present laugh lines is one of those times. En effet, pardon, I have finally become a wine fille, and not just the whites anymore, no my friends, I have tasted the grapes on the vines.

Nearly three hours south of Paris lies Château de Nitray, a vineyard and production facility of wine since the middle XVe century, though the chateau was constructed in the mid XIIIe century. Nitray's architecture is one of the most distinct in Touraine, characteristically Italian and decorated on the exterior with Boticelli shells, the Château is a typical, though quite modest and petite, batiment of the Loire Valley. The history of Nitray is a facile tale of changing masters and marriages up until the twentieth century when the chateau's long corridors were forced to quarter German soldiers during World War II, stalling the chateau's wine production until 1955. The festivities offered by the chateau today include romping through the vines with sheers and bagged feet, wine tasting, a lunch banquet, and dancing. Though the majority of party goers exceeded the jeunesse age of sixty, the time had by all surpassed a disco night club on every level. On arrival one is greeted by the patrons of Nitray--two red faced men who clearly dine with wine from dawn til dusk singing, laughing, l'anglais horrible, and laden with wine, cheese, bread, and meat. Once snacked, the caravan moved to the fields for harvest, a surreal treat of sun and seedy grapes. Ah mon dieu.

Toilsome labors harbor burgeoning appetites, and the dejeuner proffered nothing less expected of traditional French country: our vegetarian friends, you sadly save no place for existence. Rouge with lunch lunch of roasted chicken and potato gratin, salad of Nicoise, cold meats, patte, assorted fromage of chevre, brie, and roquefort, tarte au pomme, un cafe, et plus encore du vin. The accordion humming, the laughing voices rising with digestion and consumption, the petite Jack Russel Terrier on my lap finishing my plate (this is France) and then the dancing. Everyone dances in France. A spiraling conga style line formed of the elderly French, the middling Czechs, and we the American girls. Twirling and dotting about a game of handkerchiefs and bisous (cheek kisses) the afternoon slipped by in a surreal geriatric perspective of cloudy happiness, life as it should be, in the moment and without worry of table spills, missing shoes, the dog under the chair, or disheveled hair, just pleasure and laughter. C'est tout.

We were offered to gouter a Sauvignon blanc, Cabernet, and Rose--the tasters tripartite. I am traditionally partial to whites, I order the Chardonnay at every bar and cafe fearful of the sour rouge. A miracle though has passed at Château de Nitray that has brought forth the taste for reds. Now I can enjoy France, I muse as I peddle a rickety bicycle through the silent and ancient chestnut woods of the vineyard, the Jack Russel tearing alongside me. There is a feeling of home in those woods, in the vines, in the rosy cheeks of the comte as he waves aurevoir in the evening sun, there is much more to France than Paris. Though the city has merely been dusted in my two weeks thus far, the country towns and villages appear to be tapping on the doors of weekends to come. Aside from the wine and dried figs, this country has so many people, and dogs to meet.

It is difficult to relay, but the moments don't seem to leave you. If you are ever fortunate enough to stand in a dusty courtyard and are handed a roasted date wrapped in bacon, don't hesitate, you will regret it for the rest of your life. Take it, savor it, and then remember to sip slowly so as not to spill, for le petit chien has had enough to drink for one day.

A bientôt

To Wine and Dine with Diana

Early August evenings in Seattle are particularly enjoyable for those who prefer comfortable and tepid weather, warm enough to forget blankets, but cool enough for sweaters. Clear skies with rose streaked clouds makes necessary the ray bans instead of the umbrella precariously perched on the porch. While the weather may be held at a steady room temperature, the wine, however, is to be kept on ice. The Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery; not only a beautiful backdrop for a secluded country pick nick, but an unrivaled venue for live music. On this particularly beautiful evening in Woodinville, the grounds of Chateau Ste. Michelle were honored to host Diana Krall; Canada's princess of ivory. Jazz is a fascinating subject, it has sparked revolutions, defined and made heard cultures and regions, and has accompanied and carried movements throughout history. It represents change and pain, while at the same time tradition and pleasure. The versatile nature of jazz has carried it through myriad generations of listeners, musicians, and connoisseurs each with their own unique needs for it. Yet, the songs remain the same. Those played by Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole have been carried by Sinatra and now by Bublé and Diana, but each rendition is wholly fresh and varying from the others as black varies from white. Lounging on blankets in the lazying sun while over-consuming the Chateau's reserves paired with classic bowls of fruit, dried meats and fish, soft cheeses, and croûtons is truly the description of relaxation and luxury--if not clichéd images of snobbery and the overindulgent bourgeoisie class--yet such luxuries can be taken humbly and without guilt, if only one is willing to take such evenings with gratitude and acknowledgment of how truly lucky one is to be found present in a setting of such beauty, sound, and taste.

The bragging rights of Chateau Ste. Michelle are many, as the oldest and most established winery in the state of Washington, Ste. Michelle hosts a trophy arsenal to rival those of many American wineries. While the wine is processed and distributed at the chateau in the Seattle suburb of Woodinville, the vineyard can actually be found in the dry and warm deserts that lay east of the Cascades in Eastern Washington. The ancestral roots of the winery reach back to 1934 when the Pommerelle and National Wine companies were formed. In 1954 the two merged, and in 1967 a premium line of wines deemed Ste. Michelle Vintners was released, followed a decade later by the building of the Woodinville chateau. The wines produced are many, the pearl of the vines being their Ethos Cabernet Sauvignon, described to exude "aromas of black fruit, molasses, cocoa, cedar, earth and a touch of black olive." Described so as I have not had the privilege of its acquaintance, my wine palette is much more naive, uncultivated, and virtually pleased by anything. As such my sister and I were satisfied with 2005 Chardonnay and Semilon, whites to counterbalance notre pere's ardor for tepid reds.

We were met at the concert by a few of my dad's work mates, who, in saintly fashion, came leaden with ground blankets, mini chaises, pick nick foods, and drink. Though our brie, smoked salmon, and fruit salad paled in comparison to the excessive wicker basket loaded with silver candlesticks, crystal glassware, and tinned pate of our neighboring pick nickers, it was more than perfect for the evening whose focus was pinned on wine, and more acutely on Diana.

Food, music, and drink: the primordial triforce not to be meddled with. They all say it; memories with loved ones are predominately created around said social situations. Food and drink brings us together in company and conversation, music playing the accentuating factor. This is a universal human trait. Miss Krall was amazing, better live than any I have heard, a true musician whose untampered with voice can stand on its own. Surreal bacchanalian situations such as these are the definition of escape--no work, no worry. Jazz puts you at ease (with or without the wine), and, as witnessed, is coddled by a vast range of ages that for each represents something entirely different. So, eat, drink, and if you can, just listen.

A bientôt