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A Visit to Uraguay
By: Steve Hamm
December 19, 2009
On a stone wall of the Carrau family winery on the outskirts of Montevideo, Uruguay, there’s an iron plaque listing the names of eight generations of Carrau men who were winemakers. So Francisco Carrau can trace with his fingers the legacy of his family, from his father, Juan Carrau, who re-established the family winery in Montevideo in the mid-1970s, back in time to his many-times-great grandfather, Francisco Carrau Vehils, a fisherman who started the original family winery in the village of Vilassar de Mar, north of Barcelona, Spain, in 1752. “This is something that motivates our passion,” says Carrau.
Francisco, the production manager, runs the business along with his elder brother, Javier, and his sister, Margarita. I met the three Carraus on a trip I took to Buenos Aires and Montevideo in early December, 2009, with my friend, Tim Chegwidden. The Carrau connection came via Tim, who is a wine importer and marketer in New Haven, Connecticut, and has represented Vinos Finos Juan Carrau in the United States since 2004.
It was a great pleasure to meet the Carraus, not just because of the warm welcome the family gave me but because their saga is a fascinating tale of transplantation from the old world to the new--both of a family and of an intriguing grape variety, the little-known tannat.
Francisco is pursuing a quest. He wants to spread the word about Uruguayan wine, and the Carrau wines in particular, to wine sellers and consumers in markets spanning the globe. And he hopes to make the name tannat recognizable worldwide as one of the best grapes for making red wines capable of holding their own against the strong savory flavors of grilled beef and lamb. He believes tannat can follow in the footsteps of malbec, the grape that over the past decade made Argentina famous among wine lovers from New York to Hong Kong.
To be sure, his quest is a bit quixotic. In Argentina, a huge and wealthy industry got behind the marketing and exportation of malbec wines. A host of Argentine restaurants in New York and other major cities helped spread the word . Uruguay is a tiny country, with a population of only 3 million, and has only 10 major wineries that specialize in tannat. So it doesn’t have the marketing clout of Argentina.
Francisco has nothing negative to say about malbec, but he believes that tannat has qualities that could spike its popularity, too--if given a chance. The grape was first used for winemaking in a small area of southwest France, but only found its true home when a Basque winemaker, Pascal Harriague, brought it to Uruguay in the 1880s. There, the vines flourished amid Uruguay’s mild, sunny climate and long growing season. They produce bunches with ample space between the fruit, which, when the plants are properly pruned, helps avoid disease and assures consistent ripening. It’s a rugged grape. When you crush a bunch in your fist, the juice runs red, which is rare among wine grapes.
Wines made with tannat are dry, strong, and well structured--meaning the taste lingers in your mouth. The “secret sauce” of the tannat grape is its abundance of tannins, which provide acidity and body. They’re also a rich source of antioxidants, so the saying that a glass of wine per day is good for your health is even truer when that glass contains wine made with tannat grapes.
I don’t have the expertise to describe technically the experience of tasting Carrau tannat wines. To me, they’re rich, full-bodied wines that go great with steak. But I asked Tim to provide an expert description, and this is what he came up with: “The first thing you notice is the color is rich and dark--darker than the color of almost any other red wine. The second thing you notice is the aromas of dark fruits, like wild raspberries. On the palate, it’s dry and full-bodied and consistent in covering the whole mouth. It tastes of boysenberries and black raspberries and wild grapes. There’s a bit of dried lemon and dried orange fruit--acidic, but at the same time very complex. There’s also a hint of chocolate that rounds out the flavor.”
Keep in mind, Tim’s a wine marketer and Carrau is his client, but he swore to me (his oldest friend; of more than 40 years) that his description was honest. He spoke frankly when I asked him if tannat has any flaws: “The main weakness in tannat wine in general is it’s too dry and acidic for the tastes of many consumers, especially if they don’t drink it with a meal.“
Tim also introduced me during our travels to Diego Bigongiari, an Argentine who is the writer and publisher of several wine and travel guides, and whose encyclopedic knowledge makes him the Hugh Johnson of Latin American wines. Diego says tannat doesn’t have the same market potential as malbec because it’s not as versatile and because Uruguay is so small compared to Argentina, but he says quality is another matter. “If you’re talking about quality, the best tannat wines become amazing with time. Some of the very expensive malbec wines decline over time,” he says.
Tim and I tasted several Carrau wines during out visit to Montevideo. During a dinner at a restaurant with Francisco and his wife, Joyce, and his middle child of three, Cecilia, we started off with Sust Vintage sparkling wine, named for a Catalan grandmother, which was dry but fruity, with many small bubbles that tickled our noses. Then we quaffed Tannat de Reserva, 2006, an everyday drinking wine that retails in the US for about $14. At lunch at the family bodega with Javier, Francisco, and Margarita, we sampled a refreshing 2009 Sauvignon Blanc Sur Lie, a delicate 2008 Pinot Noir, and a big tannat from 2005, Amat, which was named after yet another Catalan grandmother. This wine was a perfect match for the roasted veal in white wine sauce that we were served along with roasted potatoes and salad. The Amat retails for about $30 in the US.
The dining room of the bodega is where the family blood line and wine tradition converge. On the walls and in glass cases are paintings and photographs of ancestors. Margarita showed me a photocopy of an ancient legal document, written in long hand, which included a list of the property and assets of the original Carrau winemaker upon his death in 1783.
He had established his first vineyard next to the Vilassar de Mar cathedral , where he grew parrelada, a white wine grape good for making cava, or Champaigne-style wine. The wine business quickly expanded and prospered. Later, after the global financial crisis of 1929, when bank credit became ultra-tight, the present generation of managers' grand-father, (get name), decided to sell the winery and leave Spain for South America.
Why Uruguay? Relatives had already established a branch of the family in Montevideo, and they were in the wine sales business. Once in Uruguay, the Carraus bought a parcel of land and began to grow grapes, and teamed with two other men to start a winery. They later bought a failed winery from an Italian immigrant about 12 miles inland from Montevideo proper and established they own independent business. Javier says his father, Juan, set great expectations for the family business. “”He told me our objective was to reach as many countries as we could with our wines and to make our winery the best in Uruguay and to be competitive with our wines all around the world,” Javier says.
The family business is quite successful. The Carrau’s ship wine to about 35 countries, with sizable sales in Brazil and Canada, and promising footholds in the United States, Poland, and the Scandinavian countries. In 1997, they established a second winery in the north of Uruguay where the soil is sandy and well-drained like that of the south of France.
As a longtime technology journalist who wrote many stories about Silicon Valley, I was impressed with Francisco’s entrepreneurial and innovative spirit. He has a PhD in chemistry and puts it to work every day. He showed us test fields where he’s trying out clones of ancient tannat vines--looking for the versions that do well in particular microclimates. He’s also experimenting with various fermentation techniques. In stainless steel tanks lined up side by side, he is trying different yeasts and different methods for rotating the lees--which are the mix of skins, pips, and juice. Though the Carraus have not sought official organic certification, they engage in sustainable farming techniques. These include using organic fertilizer, establishing the first gravity-fed winery in South America, and developing their own yeasts to avoid the use of preservatives and other additives.
On December 10, as I was writing the story of my visit to the Carraus, I received an e-mail from Javier. He was in Brazil, in Cerro Chapeu, near the border with Uruguay, and he had just signed a contract to begin the construction of a new winery, primarily to serve the fast-growing Brazilian market. “Next week they start building!!!” he wrote. So a new chapter in the Carrau family saga begins.
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