Posts from the ‘News’ Category
2016 turned out to be a big year for Golden Vines with the last 4 months of the year being historic with new records for sales.
We [Ben and Anthony] both got a chance to travel to visit our producers in Europe as well as source new wines and this proved important to balancing out our portfolio to include some exciting new regions like the Rhone and Sicily to name two. Those producer visits always sound romantic for an outsider but include much traveling and tastings in a short period of time. Also the pressure to get as much done as possible to make the trip worthwhile is very stressful. There is also the big issue of not liking the wines that you traveled miles/KM for.
Though it’s fun to travel we are both still needed back at home to sell those hard to find wines at this time but hopefully things will change as we brought in some [3] salespeople by the end of the year. One Friday night in December we even did FIVE in-store tastings!
We also opened up the state of Connecticut and are wines have proven quite popular to many of the top stores in the state. We like to think that it is the beginning of the public becoming aware that like the food they are eating, the wines they are drinking are filled with many additives. Did you know the US government allows over 80 different additives. Small farms equal clean wines!!
We look forward to more good things in 2017 and glad you have come along for the ride!
The Rhone Valley has always been a favorite wine region. From the mystically delicious Condrieu, to the spectacular Cote-Rotie; from Crozes-hermitage to Chateauneuf du Pape the wines of the Rhone Valley provide endless pleasure to wine drinkers.
When we started sourcing French wines for Golden Vines, we did so by sourcing wines from a region notorious for being expensive; Burgundy. However, we wanted to be different. We are not interested in sourcing wines for collectors, speculators or investors, but simply for wine lovers. People are often shocked when we bring in Pinot Noir form Burgundy that tastes great and retails for under $25. How about a killer Nebbiolo that will blow most Barolo out of the water, but won’t break the bank! Our job as wine importers is to find the hidden gems. While it is easy to find a great bottle of wine that retails for $50 Ben and Anthony have sourced 150+ wines and 120 of them retail for under $30, the majority under $20!
It is with this dedication to price for quality that we started hunting the Rhone Valley for gems. As you can expect we have no Hermitage, but rather a delicious wine from a small organic estate making wine in a tiny village you never heard of. Grignan-les Adhemar is the northernmost wine-growing AOC in the Southern Rhone. The unique micro-climate, exposition and great soil provides mouth-watering wines at delicious prices. We are pleased and honor to be working with Domaine Serre des vignes.
For our next producer, we kept it more traditional, and went with Domaine Roche Audran, a bio dynamic producer located in Buisson. His Cotes du Rhone blend is earthy, well-balanced, with notes of strawberry, fig, and hints of mint and licorice, the long finish has melt in your mouth tannins. We are starting with his Cotes du Rhone that is a classic Syarh Grenache blend, from low-yielding 50-year old vines.
We are so grateful and honored, that our project, our dream that is Golden Vines, has enabled us to continue to expand and source new wines from new regions in the unending quest to bring new, interesting wines to the US.
Thank You So Very Much For All Your Support!
As you build a wine import ‘start up’ from scratch there are so many things to do that tending to your website sometimes slips through the cracks. We do apologize but hope you have been following us on social media.
We added Instagram and Twitter to our original Facebook posts and it is there that we keep up a regular presence. Just look up Golden Vines and surely you will see our posts on food, wine – sometimes other things that catch our attention. Since our last post we have so much to share from Ben’s sourcing trip to France especially the Rhone Valley to all the wine events and tastings that we have been doing.
Besides all this we have added new producers and wines to our portfolio that we hope you will love. Don’t forget emailing us at info@golden-vines.com to share your thoughts and ideas.
Cheers!!
We are happy to announce that we were given approval by the Connecticut State Liquor Authority to begin selling wine in this beautiful state starting today!! Connecticut being so close to where we both live in Westchester County, gives us an opportunity to expand our exposure to another growing wine population.
Craft Beer, Craft Spirits, Farmer’s Markets, Farm to Table Restaurants = just a matter of time for people to recognize that Golden Vines is a leader in Craft Wine Imports.
Know where your wine comes from, who’s working the vineyards, what are they spraying on their plants, what are they adding to their wine…who’s hands are in your wines??!!!
Thank you Connecticut
We were excited to see both Sergio Arcuri [Calabria] and Bricco Maiolica [Piemonte] highlighted in a recent article by the food, wine and travel writer/TV personality Dave Eckert. Check out this link…
Dave said: ‘…will get several hundred thousand hits. Chowtown is owned by the Kansas City Star newspaper #2 food blog in the country last year’
http://www.kansascity.com/
Wow, does time fly since it only feels like yesterday that I returned from a whirlwind visit to Italy.
Annually I try to get to the Vinitaly wine fair in order to meet most of our Italian producers at the country’s largest wine event which is held in the picturesque town of Verona. Besides meeting our current producers and tasting their new vintages in one place it also provides me an opportunity to taste many other potential producers at one time. Obviously the best part is that I need not drive from North to South in order to taste wine from different regions. The problem is this takes place in four days so from about 6am to midnight it is one long taste-fest. This always sounds amazing to people but when you factor in that I end up hardly ever swallowing wine, the glamour soon rubs off. Now I won’t accept any sympathy either since this year I mixed it up with a visit to Campania and the Amalfi Coast to taste with potential producers plus the weather was a consistent 70 degrees with bright sunshine for the entire visit.
Combine all that, plus finding two new producers including one from an unrepresented region [I'll wait until it is official before I announce the new producers] and you have one successful trip! Cent’anni!
Well after the last 2 winters felt like they lasted forever it has been nice to enjoy some warmer temperatures in February and March. This in turn made everyone start to crave the wine of the moment – rose’. Rose’ is made all over the world but like most things when it comes to wine, the French lead the pack and the others follow.
Generally rose is made by letting the skins from the red grapes spend a little time with the clear juice that is produced when the grapes are crushed, leading to a pink or darker tint to the wine. The should not be sugar sweet [unless they are junked up with sugar - not very unusual these days] but should offer a bridge between a white and a red. Some fruit is ok but pick one of those pink things next time at the store and close your eyes when you taste it, tell us what you taste. If your teeth ache – we understand why!
Unfortunately more and more importers are pushing their products onto the market in order to beat the rush though these wines are not ready yet and in the end the quality suffers – can you say ‘market bubble’!! WE are slightly more patient and will wait for the wine to actually be ready to drink because our shareholders trust us first and foremost, besides we are not looking to sell out for the quick buck!
Please try our rose wines this spring and summer – heck rose is great all year round. This year we will add Domaine du Vistre’s Costieres du Nimes to last year’s success stories, Daniel Reverdy Sancerre Rose, La Braulterie’s Rose [Bordeaux] and Sergio Arcuri’s Il Marinetto [Calabria]. By the way this last one won’t arrive until May and even then it is pushing it but boy will it turn your head when it comes to rose’.
Cheers!
February 2016 opens with bang as we start with a Burgundy wine taste off! We will taste our wines side by side against another great importer, Eric Foret of Table to Table at Rouge et Blanc the sensation restaurant in the Village. Check out the link below for more information.
https://madmimi.com/p/332136?fe=1&pact=8532-129568720-8324520015-20587260d8d3ec87b1f23c00c93d4edbf7c04232
On the same day [Wednesday February 3rd] we will be hosting a wine tasting paired with small plates with Ignazio Giovine of L’armangia at the Upper East Side wine bar Bar Prima. Ignazio is in town because he won another pair of Slow Wine awards and we are excited to have him visit the NY market.
Thursday February 4th at 6:30 we will be up in Peekskill at Gleason’s where Ignazio Giovine will be the star of a wine dinner paired for each of his wines. The link below will give you more details…
http://gleasonspeekskill.com/wine-dinner/
Friday February 5th we will pour some of artisanal wines at International Wines in the Columbia University neighborhood [Broadway and 114th St].
We look forward to seeing you!
Wow, were we surprised by all the calls regarding Sanfeletto’s Product Placement at the end of HGTV’s hit show Property Brothers. When you watch the video you will clearly see that the hosts pour Sanfeletto Prosecco as they celebrate their 100th Episode.
Congratulations to Property Brothers and the same to Imelda and Paolo of Sanfeletto!! We are proud to stand amongst such good company. Can you say product placement…??
Cheers!!!
We are proud and confident in the wines we import. We work hard to import small-production, artisanal wines that many describe as “hidden gems.” We literally taste hundreds of wines, and only a few make it. Most of our producers are truly “under the radar” which enabels us to bring in excellent wine at affordable prices. However, and as is inevitably the case, our hidden gems get discovered; they appear on the radar. This has happened in the past when, for example, a couple Burgundy producers appeared in the aptly named Article “Top Ten Burgundy producers under the radar.” Or when wine critic Matt Kramer cited Bricco Maiolica as the best producer in Diano d’Alba.
We are super excited to learn that a couple weeks ago, Jancis Robinson ( Master of Wine, most respected wine journalist in the world according to Decanter magazine, wine writer for the Financial times, co-author of the World Atlas of wine) recently wrote the following about our producer Jean Baptsite Ponsot:
“The Côte Chalonnaise is the halfway house between the Mâconnais and the grand Côte d’Or. Too often Chalonnaise wines taste a little rustic but Jean-Baptiste Ponsot, Montpalais Premier Cru 2013 Rully is finer than many a grander white burgundy and will improve further.”
Fine Wines from one of the most respected wine writers