“Cuvée Unique”—our selection process
On the face of it, importing wine can seem simple—find some wine, buy it and bring
it back home to sell. Yet to find the finest wines, whether they hail from the top
appellations or from some obscure corner of the world, takes a bit more work. Each
of our customers expects that we go the extra mile to find the best—and finding
the best is the basis of what we call “Cuvée Unique.”
In essence, “Cuvée Unique” is a relationship. We work together with our partner
winemakers—some for more than two decades now—to make sure that what ends up in
the bottle that’s on your table is the finest wine it truly can be. It is a respectful,
engaging partnership. The winemaker contributes their technical know-how, their
insight, and the best raw materials they can muster, while we contribute our knowledge
gathered through decades of tasting, our honesty in criticism and our tireless passion
for quality. The end result is a bottle of wine that we believe is the best it can
possibly be—selected and bottled exclusively for our customers.
In practice, “Cuvée Unique” is a lengthy, involved process that requires perseverance,
deep respect for the challenges of winemaking and a lot of time on the road. It
starts with the new harvest and ends, only symbolically, after a wine has been bottled
and set on its way to our warehouses in the United States. In reality we are always
working to perfect our selection process, with one vintage’s lessons carried over
to the next. To help you better understand, let’s walk through the process together.
1—A first taste of the new harvest
We try to be in the cellars of the winemakers we work with in all of our regions
just after the harvest, usually in October (or April in the southern hemisphere).
The reason for this is simple—we want to personally sample the raw material and
taste the juice under the press. We also want the straight word, as it were, on
the vintage from the grower who’s been knee-deep in the fields for the past three
weeks and is too tired to spin or play PR rep. This is an important time, as we
can get a good sense of the early promise of a vintage. If we like what we see,
we schedule a follow-up in the spring with the winemaker.
2—Following a wine as it matures
We’re back in the spring (sometimes more than once) to taste the wines again, post-fermentation
and either post-malolactic fermentation or mid-malo. It’s a interesting time to
taste, as the wines are still changing. Yet what we’re able to do during this tasting
is see if our initial assumptions have so far held true, in terms of the overall
quality of the vintage and the individual quality of the different wines.
It’s important to note that we taste everything—literally every lot of wine from
every tank and every barrel. We don’t just try the best stuff that the winemaker
has chosen to show us. We want honesty. Our long-time partners in this process appreciate
this, as it shows them just how dedicated we are to their craft. We have good discussions
about the wines, and then schedule a time to return and taste again to make our
selections.
3—The selection process
Selecting wines for our “Cuvée Unique” bottling is a bit like a painter setting
up his palette. Our colors are the different barrels or tanks of wine; our painting
is the final bottle with our special label affixed to it. We again go through a
cellar with the winemaker and out of his or her often already-limited selection
of wines, further whittle down the process to the few barrels or tanks that we think
are truly superior. Sometimes we select a full barrel; sometimes we decide that
the sum of two different barrels would be better than the individual parts. However
we structure our selections, the goal is clear—to isolate and highlight the finest
expression of each vineyard or appellation possible. The wines we select are then
set aside, to be bottled, often unfined and unfiltered as is our general preference,
and affixed with a special label, “Cuvée Unique.”
4—Bottling and importing
The whole process brings us back to the beginning, or to the harvest, where we both
get to taste last year’s selection after it’s been in bottle for a bit as well as
the new crop of fruit under the press. It’s a time where we discuss with the winemaker
the decisions we made together, and what we could have done better or differently.
Each year the process is refined and perfected, and our working relationship with
the winemaker becomes more knowledgeable and rich. And you, the customer, are the
beneficiary.
While we’ve simplified the process here, it’s important to understand that “Cuvée
Unique” is both a systematic and cooperative process, between us and the winemaker.
The only way to truly ensure quality, from field to bottle, is to be in the cellars
as often as possible and watch and taste as the wine matures. We can say with confidence
that few other importers are as diligent, or as thorough, in their own selection
processes. Yet this process is why we as a company take such pride in our wines—we
know exactly what’s in each bottle and are assured that each bottle is the best
wine it ever could be.