This past weekend Travessia participated in what may be one of the coolest wine tasting events around. It’s called The Wine Riot and its second edition took place on Boston's Waterfront at the John J Moakley Courthouse. The event is organized by The Second Glass. Here are some notes I took away from the event.
Are these grapes real?
For Saturday’s Riot sessions we brought in some grapes picked early in the morning from Running Brook Vineyards in Dartmouth. These are some of the grapes that go into the making of Travessia wines and they are about to be ripe for harvest. We displayed them at our table along with our wines as another way to educate people about growing grapes in Massachusetts and truly locally made wine. Reactions varied from disbelief… “these are not real!?” to “can I have some of that Pinot?”
Realize that not every single person will like your wine... ever.
The vast majority of people seemed to enjoy our wines, some even reacted with amazement when they realized that our wines are made with 100% locally grown grapes. But we’ll not forget the guy who tasted our three wines and gave us a 0 out of 3, meaning none of the three wines we brought were any good for him. Thankfully, he did give us some encouragement… “keep trying and maybe in 5 years you will have a decent wine”. Try we will but it’s no secret that in the wine world you can’t (and should not even try) to please everyone’s pallet.
To Crushpad or not to Crushpad
When I was considering my options for starting a winery, I took a serious look at Crushpad. I decided that I did not want to get into the wine business by “playing” in the $30+ price point (who knows maybe one day) and that was that. At the Wine Riot, I met the owners of Triumvir, a Crushpad virtual winery. Their 2007 Pinot Noir is one of the best American Pinots I have tasted lately. If you have $40+ to dish out, the Triumvir is a great Pinot Noir... I highly recommend it. We talked about Triumvir's challenges and difficulties in distributing their wine. Like never before, it is obvious to me that I made the right decision to not follow the Crushpad model as the way to establish my winery. I’m sure that Crushpad is looking into ways to improve and facilitate the distribution of their non-California based virtual wineries. But for now, if you own a Crushpad virtual wine brand and your intention is to sell your wine in Massachusetts, you better have some inside connections with the big boys (read distributors).
Women rule the wine drinking world
My observation... at least 70% of the attendees who came to Travessia’s table were women. I don’t think that it was because of our good looks. Those in the wine industry know that women account for over 60% of sales of wine in the US, so no surprise. I see nothing wrong with this. In fact, having worked for several years in a field that is mostly dominated by man... I love it.
With Edson and myself behind the table every girl in the place was waiting to try Travessia wines ;-)
Posted by: Derek F. | October 01, 2009 at 06:47 PM
Those grapes look great. Was September better on the vines than the rest of the summer?
Posted by: Mike | October 06, 2009 at 08:28 AM
Hi Mike,
Yes, September was probably one of the best months of the year. However, we had a rough start to October with 1.7 inches of rain on Saturday and with more expected tomorrow... hanging on. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Posted by: Marco Montez | October 06, 2009 at 08:55 AM
Your table at Wine Riot looks great! I would have loved to have attended, but we were already going to the Newport Grand Tasting the next day. I don't know that I could taste that much in 2 days :)
Have you brought in the grapes yet for this year? If you are having a harvesting event, we would love to help out if we are around!
Posted by: Meghan | October 17, 2009 at 10:54 PM
Interesting to hear that there was so many women there. I think for a winery at start up Crushpad can be a valuable resource if they don't have the land to build facilities on in the future. Given the state of the $20+ wine market these days I think you made a wise choice though!
Posted by: Mark | November 13, 2009 at 02:45 PM
Hi Meghan, sorry for the late response... your comment went unnoticed... I will add you to the list of harvest helpers for future harvests. Hope you are doing well.
Posted by: Marco Montez | November 16, 2009 at 10:22 AM
Hi Mark, thanks for visiting and commenting. Yes, I agree that based on your specific target market, Crushpad can be a great choice. Great wines coming out of there for sure. Thanks again!
Posted by: Marco Montez | November 16, 2009 at 10:25 AM