You are listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. My name is Alicia. I do wine education for Binny's, and we have a couple of special guests in the room today to talk about a winery and a wine region that you may have not heard about before. And so we are privileged today to welcome Alec Griffiths, the export manager of Bodega Garzón from Uruguay. So Alec, thank you so much for coming all the way to Chicago to record a podcast. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. It's a pleasure. Also joining us is Bill Newton. Bill, thanks for coming on. What do you do here? I'm one of the buyers for Binny's and luckily one of my categories is Uruguay. Excellent. So the right person to have. All right. So today we're going to be going through four wines. But first, Alec, I want to get into your background a little bit because you first got into wine in Chile actually. So how did you get into the industry and what attracted you to go back to Uruguay and specifically to Bodega Garzón? Correct. Thank you, Alicia. Yeah, I'm Uruguayan, born. I moved to Chile when I was 12 with my family. That's where I basically did high school and university and where I got into the wine world. I worked for Concha y Toro for four years. Then a day out of nowhere, I got this opportunity to go back to my country, to work for Garzón and develop the export side of the business. Garzón was a very young project at the time. We started the Planting the Vinyards in 2008, and I moved to take this position in 2016. That's when we started the export side and trying to position it in the global wine scene. We'll get into that because I'm sure that's quite the task. I'm sure many Americans might not really know where Uruguay is even located on the map. Tell us, when did wine production start in Uruguay, and why do you think it's risen to the global stage in the last decade or so? It's a great question. The wine industry in Uruguay is not new. It's 200 years old, it's pretty much the same as Chile and Argentina, where French and Spanish immigrants brought vines initially for mass, for the monks. That's what they said, for mass. But in Uruguay, it's basically small wineries. There's over 200 wineries, but it's family-owned small projects, so they don't get exported as much. And also in Uruguay, the culture in wine is very big. The consumption is very high. It's higher than Chile and Argentina per capita. So most of the wine is just consumed locally. And well, basically, Garzón is quite a different story that we'll get into it. But talking about our conditions in Uruguay, we're south of Brazil and east of Argentina, just on the other side of the river plate from Buenos Aires. So from Buenos Aires, you can take an hour and a half ferry to Uruguay. And we're in the same latitude as Maipo Valley in Chile or Uco Valley in Mendoza, or even Stellenbosch in South Africa and Barossa. So we have that same sun exposure. We're in the top belt of the southern hemisphere in wine regions. But our conditions are quite different. If you think about Argentina and Chile, mostly it's high-altitude vineyards with very dry weather, continental climate, right? No rain, no humidity. We are next to the Atlantic Ocean. So we have a lot of humidity, a lot of rain, and it's very... Uruguay is completely flat. Highest altitude is 1,200 feet. So basically, one cloud goes through all the country. So the conditions that we have are quite different. Also, within Uruguay, you have different wine regions, even though Uruguay is small. Towards the west of the country, it's clay soils. And these are the traditional wine regions in Uruguay because they're next to the ports of Montevideo and Colonia, which are the two first settlements in Uruguay. Garzón is in the east of the country, in a place called Maldonado, which is kind of the developing wine region right now, because the conditions here are quite different. And the soils are granite, it's a boulder rock of granite, and the upper layer is just decomposed granite. So it helps a lot with drainage of all the rain that we get. You get fresher, more fruit style wines, and also healthier vineyards. So that's why we also came to this region in Garzón. Yeah. And you know, many wine critics and wine professionals that have tasted Garzón know it for its freshness and balance. I want to bring Bill in here as our buyer. I think this is the only Uruguayan wine that we carry. Is that right? Right now it is. It's probably going to expand. But these wines didn't become popular at Binny's because they're from Uruguay. What happened really was that on the floor, they tasted these wines and they recognized the quality. And with something like this, it's something that usually grows organically and they liked them. They recommended them to the customers and they sort of taken off. It's pretty impressive. Yeah, and I think that the timing of it's really key because we are living in an era where wine consumers are more adventurous and interested in trying wines from different parts of the world that they may not have heard of before. And so just kind of quite fortuitous, I think, for you all to be entering the stage at this time. When I first heard about Bodega Garzón and learned about the culture and the people of Uruguay, I was hoping you could elaborate a little bit. Many of us have not been there. So what is the local culture? Not even just in kind of wine consumption, but from what I read, you know, very high literacy rate. Can you transport us a little bit to the country itself? Definitely, definitely. So Uruguay is a small country in size and in population. It's only three million people. And basically all of them are European descendants. We're a mix of different European descendants. The aboriginal people in Uruguay were killed, you know, 300, 400 years ago when the Spanish had arrived and conquered Uruguay. But Uruguay has also been a colony of different countries. It was British at some point. So basically everyone has a Spanish, Italian, French or British background. So that makes it a very cultural, you know, nice place. It's a very nice mix. You have from beautiful Italian restaurants to, you know, great French boulangeries. And Uruguay has always been kind of the safe place. The creation of the country is a bit like Belgium. You know, it's there to separate two big ones. So it's there to separate Brazil and Argentina. Brazil and Argentina are the two biggest economies in South America by far. Brazil is 200 million people. So Uruguay is probably nothing. It's a neighborhood in Sao Paulo. But it has a strategic, very good position, a really nice port, really a natural port, which has always been throughout the years, very important for South America. And also it has been very stable. Uruguay economically, politically, it's very stable, very liberal, and very low corruption. So in a way that has helped us be that safe heaven for investment in South America. A lot of investment from Brazil and from Argentina goes into Uruguay because it's just stable. It's kind of like a Switzerland in Europe, but Uruguay in South America. It's also very well-known for its summer destinations. Punta del Este is a summer city. Basically, our summer December, March, where we were talking, it's 30,000 people year-round, but in summer, it goes to half a million or 600,000 people. That's mostly Brazilians and Argentinians that come. Then you have a really nice old fishermen town that today, it's called Jose Ignacio. Today is kind of this hippie chic destination, kind of like a Saint-Tropez. Everyone dressed in white and a lot of celebrities that go there out of the beaten path. Nobody knows them there. Even celebrities from here, from the US. It's a safe place to visit and the culture is very nice. People know English. The literacy rate, as you mentioned, is super high. There's public universities, so you can do all the highs through junior school, high school and university for free. Government pays for that. So yeah, that's a bit what we've tried to do with a small country. Now what we're seeing is a place where a lot of software companies and big international companies are basically placing their headquarters to source South America because of these conditions that I mentioned earlier. Does the wine industry in Uruguay, are they part of the tourism? Are there tasting rooms and things like that that people visit or is it more underground? Great question. Yeah, it is. Close to Montevideo, it's Canelones, which is a really big wine region for us. It's the bigger one, the major one. There's, I would say, 10 wineries that have really good tourist facilities that attract people and come over. But definitely what's developing now is the area in Maldonado, where Garzón is, because we're next to these summer destinations that I mentioned, Punta del Este and Josinacio, just half an hour away from the winery. So Garzón, of course, we've developed a lot of tourism, but also our more different wineries that are settling there have their own proposal, really good restaurants, kind of day trip to spend in the wine regions. It's growing a lot. So I do want to get into the wines, if that's all right. We're going to start with your white here, your Albariño Reserva. We're tasting the 2021 Vintage. As we pass this around to taste, one other thing that sticks out about, well, Uruguay as a whole, but also Bodega Garzón is the number of varietals that you grow. So perhaps you can give us a glimpse into what you're growing and what the approach is. Is it experimentation right now? What's doing really well? Are you going to keep everything? Well, Garzón, as I mentioned before, we started in 2008. It's a very young project. And when we started, there was no vineyards around in this area of Maldonado. So it was, we had to kind of experiment. It was not clear of what was going to work well. And the easiest way to always is to plant many different grapes and just have the eggs in different baskets. So that's what we did. Being an experimental vineyard, we planted 16 different grapes and 16 different varieties. And since then, we've kept 16. But of course, some of them we've taken out and planted new ones. But 16 is kind of the number we're playing with. Of course, we do have some focused varieties, which we plant much more, like Tanat and Albariño, which we're going to taste now. But we're always experimenting and seeing what works. Albariño, what we're going to taste is actually one that, there was no Albariño in Uruguay practically. In South America, you find very little. So when we first decided to go for it, to try it, the reason behind it was our conditions. Atlantic ocean influence, granite soils, a lot of rain, quite a lot of sun exposure. So that's the same you get in Rias Vaisas in Galicia. So we had to bring the vines from Galicia. We started off with 10 acres and we worked really well. And today we are over 90 acres. So I think we're trying to prove this, but we're definitely the biggest producers of albarino in South America and probably North America as well. So we took it kind of a signature grape. And what I think is really positive is that other winers in Uruguay are also starting to plant. So kind of we're trying to give albarino a second home in Uruguay. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, if you think about the success of albarino in Ria Spicius, noting that influence of the Atlantic, you know, you just need to come to the other side. And here you have Bodega Garzón. Bill, when you first tasted this wine, I've had this in for a couple of years now. What attracted you to it and what do you think plays well with the consumer? Well, I actually drink this wine fairly often, to tell you the truth. I really like it. It's not as big and oaky as a Chardonnay, but it's not as like vicious and in-your-face as a Sauvignon Blanc. I think that's a really good sweet spot. I think for people that might be a little bit tired of those wines, this is something they should definitely look at. It's got good acidity. It's really refreshing. I just think it's a delicious wine for $16, whatever it is. It's really good. Yeah. It's on the shelf for $15.99. There's a ton of orange peel, nectarine, lemon zest, white peach, alongside that mark of salinity that the Atlantic-influenced albariño kind of has in Reef's Bystress and in this example as well. A really fresh wine that is kind of easy to pair or just have on its own. What are your thoughts on it? I'd love to know too kind of what your favorite wine from Garzón is, but perhaps any thoughts on winemaking with this albariño, what you guys have decided to do. Yeah, albariño is definitely one of my favorites, and I think for everyone at the winery, it was a great discovery to see how it's showing and it's developing. Basically, the vineyard being today 12 or less years, it's still, the rootstock is still going deeper and deeper. So what we're seeing is basically it's breaking into the granite pool of rock that we have been one or two feet underground. So we're having, every year we're getting more clean wines with more minerality, which is great to see. And it's a wine that you can pair very easily. The usual would be octopus, the Galician traditional, right? Any white fish would work as well. But because of the acidity, it cleans very well the palate. You can even experiment with spicy food. It's very interesting to see. And the winemaking, it's quite straightforward with stainless steel vinification. We try to get it really fresh into the market and young. So this is already 2021 that we're tasting. We pick the albariño usually 10th of February. Of course, it changes year to year depending on the conditions. But mid-February, we are picking the albariño. We try to ship it into the market in June. That's a bit what we aim for, to get something really fresh for consumers. Yeah. Well, well done on this. I don't know how much you're involved in the winemaking, but you can pass on our support of the wine. Probably one of the top selling of the Garzón line up, do you think, on the shelf? Yeah, that and the Tanat. Yeah, which we'll get to. You mentioned the European influence in Uruguay, and I want to also talk about the history of Bodega Garzón, which just started. You said first vineyards were planted back in 08. You have a dream and then you have a consultant that's come in to support that. So if you want to just share the origins of Garzón and the partnership with Alberto Antonini. Correct. So the owner of Bodega Garzón is Mr. Alejandro Bulgueroni. He's an Argentinian from Italian family, right, descendants. And being an Argentinian, he comes from the energy business. In Uruguay, he started investing more than 20 years ago in windmills farms, right, in renewable energy. Uruguay, actually, this is an important fun fact, but it's 100% run on renewable energy. The entire country. The entire country, yeah. Wow. So your lead certification was slightly easier than others? Probably. Yeah, that's how the Alejandro Bulgueroni arrived to Uruguay. Also, Punta Reste was his summer destination. He has his beach house there. He bought a big property, a farm, where he started producing olive oil. He planted olive trees and more business, wood and cattle and all kinds of agriculture business there. Then he bought a second property, which is today where we have the winery, which is on the top of some hills, where those hills are the first hills from the ocean, so you get a lot of wind. The idea was to put windmills there, but his wife was not having them. He basically had this land with very poor soils, granite, 60 percent is sand basically. The agronomist in the olive plantation said, the only thing that can grow there, maybe it's vine. So at that point, he knew nothing about wine, and he brought Alberto Antonini, famous Italian wine consultant, to study the conditions. So Alberto did a whole study with Pero Parra as well on the soils. At the beginning, Alberto found conditions were suitable, but what he thought is Alejandro will plant, you know, 10 acres and have a small vineyard for his friends or whatever. When he gave Alejandro the green light, you know, I think, yeah, wines could grow. We could try this. Alejandro said, All right, Alberto, I'm 65. I have no time. So we're going all in. And they started with 110 acres in the first year. So it was too late for Alberto to back down. And that's why he said, all right, let's plant 16 different grapes. You know, that's too really, you know, experimental project out of this. And that's how it started. 2008, first vineyards. And how involved is Alberto now? So Alberto, basically since day one, he was there for the first plantation, and he's still working with us very closely. Of course, since COVID, he hasn't been able to visit Uruguay. But before COVID, he was coming four or five times a year, you know, through the four different key timings, right? The harvest, when the wines were ready, for blending sessions. And today, I would say the team in Uruguay, in the vineyard and in the winemaking, they have a lot of freedom, you know, they already know how Alberto works. Actually, the winemaker in Uruguay, Germán Brussone, and the vineyard manager, Eduardo Félix, have been the guys that planted the vineyard. They've been there since day zero. So they know how Alberto works. They know his philosophy of minimum intervention. So there's a lot of, you know, confidence in the team in Uruguay. But of course, Alberto is on top of what we're doing. It's a bit different now because we have to send him the wines to Italy to taste and taste through Zoom. But he's still on top of it. Are all of your wines made with vineyards that you own? Or do you buy any grapes? Great question. No, we don't buy any grapes or sell any grapes. So we vinificate all our own grapes at the winery. And basically at the beginning, it was a bit challenging. In 2013, when the vineyards were already fully productive, the first plantation, you had 110 acres of grapes coming in and no sales at all. So at the beginning, it was a challenge. And we had to find a way to sell it and the rest. Today, luckily, we're in a position where every year we plant more and more because we basically are selling pretty much most of it. Firstly, that's quite rare to be making wine purely from a state fruit. You're not buying in anything because, I mean, what are your production levels? So we are getting 2 million kilos. Sorry, I always talk in kilos, but in liters, we're getting 1,600,000 liters of wine, you know, every harvest approximated. Bill, you do the math and you let us know how many cases that is. In cases, it's 140,000 cases, approximately. That's what we're doing. That's a lot. And for all the state fruits, so that's really impressive. And everything is hand picked? Yeah. In Garzón, everything is hand picked. Basically, the way the vineyard is planted doesn't allow us to have any machinery because today it's a 500 acre vineyard, but it's planted in very small blocks, parcels of an acre or so. And those basically are in rolling hills. So you have different slopes and they're very small. So machinery doesn't work. You know, you have to have people in there. All right, so we're going to get into your reds now, and we have poured the cabernet Franc Reserva. This is on the shelf also for $15.99. And I think this is the one that I think is a little bit less discovered, would you say, Bill, in terms of just for the consumer? And it's one that when I first had, I think it's so pretty. I love the aromatics on the wine, but one that I would encourage you all to go out and try. It really is. There seems to be more interest in cabernet Franc lately, and this is a good one to look at. It's not as green as some of them, but it definitely has a little bit of that characteristic, so it's not extreme at all, but it's still fairly lush. It's still something that you could eat with, you know, I would say beef or any number of other, you know, meals. It is sort of a food wine, I think, whereas the Alberino is like perfect for like sitting out on your deck on a summer afternoon. This is more something that you would probably want food with, but it's a really good example of cabernet Franc, and I would encourage people to try it. Yeah, cabernet Franc is a grape that for us is super exciting. So it also kind of started as a trial. We planted it with the idea of blending it. With the years, we're seeing, you know, a beautiful, beautiful balance and integration in the wine. And it's actually the grape that we are planting the most nowadays in the last couple of years. So basically, last year, what we did is took some Petit Manseng out of the vineyard and re-grafted cabernet Franc there. We're seeing it as a, you know, potentially could be our iconic red grape in the future. Today it's Tanat, of course, but the potential we see in it is great. And the benefit we're seeing is that in Uruguay, where we are, in Garzón. Garzón is the name of the county within the region of Maldonado. And in Garzón, what we're seeing is that the picking window for the cabernet Franc is a bit longer than usual. You know, cabernet Franc, the big secret is when you pick it. If you pick it too early, the green nodes are everywhere, very difficult to work with. And if you pick it too late, it kind of dies off. You know, it gets a bit jammy very easily. So that picking window, it's a bit longer than in the rest of Uruguay, where we are. And basically the vignette manager and the wine maker, you know, they decide together. They work really well as a team, went to peak. And year after year, we're seeing how they're basically understanding better the grape as well. And they're doing a great job improving it. Yeah. So I mean, for listeners, this is kind of a medium bodied wine with these kind of deep red fruits, this earthy undertone, and then that little bit of kind of herbal quality that you expect to see with cabernet Franc. But I think the acidity and the tannic structure, the kind of the stars of the show with the wine, I think the tannins so bring the wine perfectly, and they're quite fine but firm. They're really nice. An explanation to that could be that we use concrete tanks for the fermentation. We usually start fermentation after the maceration. So that basically, to make it easy, we keep the juice in contact with the skin for five to seven days, and then we separate the juice and then we start fermenting. That helps a lot integrating the structure, the tannins with the fruit. Also, the aging, we do untoasted French oak, but big casks of 5,000 liters. I'll do the transformation of that later. But basically, we use only untoasted oak to not change the character of the wine. We want to preserve more the fruit expression, and not give it any leathery notes or vanilla notes that toasty oak could have. Sure. Is that your approach across all of your wines? All of the wines. Untoasted? Yeah. Okay. Large format. Large formats, yeah. Through all. The other thing about Bodega Garzón, you haven't been, right Bill? No, not yet. What you read too is the emphasis on gastronomy and the emphasis on tourism, and just architecturally, it's quite a beautiful building too. Was that all part of Alejandro's dream as well? Because you brought in a pretty famous chef and have really emphasized that portion of the project. Yes. Who came up with that? Well, it's super important for us, the tourism at the winery. As I mentioned before, Uruguay is 3 million people. It's very small, but we get 3 million tourists in summer. And from all over the world, of course, Brazil and Argentina are the number one and two, but from the US, from Europe, so we saw this as an opportunity to also position our wine and get it to everywhere. We use those tourists that go to Uruguay to visit the winery and spread the word. So Mr. Alejandro Burguenoni, the owner, his idea behind this was to prove that you can do any kind of business and entrepreneur as sustainable as you can be. So he went for the lead certification of the winery since day zero. Basically, when they started the drawings, they were already considering it had to be lead certified, which is super important because it's not something you can get. If you have the winery already built and then you want to do it lead certified, it's practically impossible. So what does it mean? It's lead certified. We produce all our energy with windmills. We process all the water. It's a gravity-fed winery. One of the most challenging was that 60% of the raw materials you use in the construction have to be local, and local meaning a 50-mile radius from where you are. We're in the middle of nowhere, so we basically had to do everything there. It took six years to build the winery. The amount of concrete that we used, it's enough for an 80-floor building. It's a massive, massive project. All the production facilities underground for temperature control and humidity control. It's all sunlight everywhere. It's really an amazing place to visit. We are receiving 25, before COVID, of course, 25,000 people a year to visit, visiting the winery. And of course, one of the most important attraction is our restaurant, Bodega Garzón restaurant. It's run, our culinary chef director is Francis Malman, who is kind of the guru of fire cooking and grilling. And in Uruguay, that's the most important kitchen that we have. He's on Chef's Table, right? On Netflix? He is. Season one, episode three or something. He's a really fun, interesting character to watch. And it's amazing experience to get. He cooks everything with local ingredients. So to taste the wines with local food in our traditional cooking way with fire is a really nice experience. So Greg, our resident vegetarian would probably, you know, maybe not, maybe not find his way down there. Well, we do have an option for them. All right. All right. Greg, you can have the pasta. So in our glass right now is the Tenant Reserva 2019 Vintage. Before we go to Alec, Bill, thoughts on Tenant? Well, it's an interesting varietal. I'll be honest, before we brought in the Garzón, we had experimented, we'd brought in some Tenant and nothing really ever stuck. It can be a very, very tannic wine. I mean, really fiercely tannic. But Garzón has sort of reigned that in a little bit. The wine is tannic, but it's also very fruit-forward. I don't know exactly how to explain it, but it's sort of like a real four-square cabernet Sauvignon, but it has good length. This one's actually tasting pretty well. Yeah. This one on the shelf for $16.99. This has really become the flagship variety for Uruguay. Can you tell us why you think it's caught on so well? Obviously, the conditions are right, but assuming cuttings were brought over from the southwest of France, and tell us about the journey of this. Correct. Basically, the Tanat arrived to Uruguay, as I mentioned, 200 years ago with the first immigrants. It was actually French Vazque immigrants that brought it, and it came together with the cabernets, with the Merlots, and with all the rest. It just adapted better than any other. It's a survivor grape. It tolerates very well humidity and rain. Basically, the explanation behind that is that the bunches are very tight, the berries are very small, so when it rains, it dries much faster. The story behind it is that basically farmers were planting more and more tannat throughout 200 years because it's what was giving them the best crops. You know, they lived on what they could harvest, so they saw tannat as their safety grape to have, and that's how it got planted everywhere in Uruguay. And it's today the most planted grape that we have. The style we're trying to give it in Garzón, it's a bit different of what tannat is known for. Tannat is that very big tannic grape. Potentially, it's the most tannic of all. So actually, the levels of antioxidants is three times more than cabernet Suignon. It's the highest in the world. So also, the medical world is now starting to talk about it kind of as a healthy grape. But the explanation why it's so tannic, it's these small berries have a really thick skin, and each berry has between four to six seeds. And seeds, you know, high concentration of tannins. So it's all about how you macerate, how you treat it, when you pick it as well. Super important because you have to pick it once those seeds are crunchy. If you pick it too early, the green tannins are very difficult to work with. But then it's how long the skin contact you keep. You know, in Madeirane, where it's from in France, they're known to overextract it and then age it 10 years or 15 years in a bottle. We tried to make it financially more viable. And give it a bit more style, a fresh style with a lot of fruit. So the maceration here, the skin contact is three to five days. Basically, the wine maker, couple of times a day goes to each tank, checks the color and the structure. Once the color is okay because the tannin has to have that dark purple color, and he finds the structure is enough, he separates and then we start fermenting. So avoiding the skin contact while fermenting helps a lot on our initial stage to balance and to integrate the tannins. And then the concrete does a huge job as well. There's micro-oxygenation through concrete because concrete breathes and that also helps round in the tannins. And the aging for this, the Reserva Tanat, it's pretty much the same as the cabernet Franc, it's big casks of untoasted oak, French, six to nine months. That's a bit what we, the vinification process behind it. And Tanat, usually every wine has to go well with the local food, right? For us, Tanat is super important because in Uruguay it's 12 million cows. There's four cows per person. There's four cows per person. Uruguay is the number one consumption of meat per capita in the world. So the tannins of the Tanat really cut through the fat beautifully, and it allows you to keep going. I have been to Argentina, so I am familiar with the cow situation. So for people that haven't had a Tanat, probably the best way to think about it is style-wise is think about drinking a young Bordeaux as opposed to a California cabernet that's going to be this sort of flousy tons of fruit. That's not really the style of Tanat. Tanat is more like a young Bordeaux that's got some tannins, but it's just perfect for food and good fruit. Yeah, the purity of fruit is really well noted here. Yeah, just taming those tannins is quite the task with Tanat, which you've accomplished for all the reasons you mentioned. Do you blend any of your Tanat? Because in Madeira, they do typically blend it with cabernet Franc, cabernet Sauvignon. Are you 100 percent Tanat in all of your wines? The Reserva Tanat is 100 percent Tanat, but in a way, it's a blend because to explain this, the vineyard I mentioned, it's 1,500 small blocks. One-third of the vineyard is Tanat, so there's 500 blocks of Tanat, approximately. Those 500 blocks are all facing, most of them facing north and east and west, not facing south because we have the whites facing south mostly. But some of them are on the top of the hill, some are below the slope, so they're all different. For the vineyard manager, it's a nightmare. Logistically, to work with that, it's a nightmare. Because you're having tannat ripening at the same time in maybe 100 different blocks. So harvest is super stressful. But for the winemaker, it's heaven. He has 500 different components of tannat to work with. So it's like cooking with all different spices in the world. He can really do whatever he wants. So the reserva tannat is a blend of approximately 300 blocks. So you have all different kinds of tannats inside it. So, switching gears a little bit, still within To Not, we're now going on to your single vineyard expression. So, not a blend of 300 different plots, but of, is it all of just one vineyard going into this wine? So, yeah, the name single vineyard is a bit difficult to explain because it's all one single vineyard, it's one single property. But what we do here for the single vineyard, we select the best eight blocks or nine blocks every year. They can change year to year depending on the conditions of that harvest. But it's basically the selection of our best anot. It's where we see the most potential and we separate it in the vineyard, in the fruit, you know, when we pick. The vinification is completely independent. We use concrete tulip shaped tanks for this. They're like the eggs but flat on the top, so you can do open up fermentations. The round shape in the bottom of the tulip tank allows a natural movement of the wine during the maceration, so we don't have to do as much pump overs. It's a much more elegant extraction of tannins and color. And that, to start off, really helps out, you know, by giving us a more elegant style of tannat. And then the aging, we did a big longer on the untoasted oak. It's 12 to 15 months. And why I say 12 to 15, it's because basically do three tanks of this or 5,000 liters. Sometimes one tank goes 12 months and the other one goes 13 or 15. But the total production is 15,000 liters. That's basically 18, 19,000 bottles. That's what we do. It's 1,500 cases. Yeah, it's quite limited, but it's something that, you know, we want to show what can tannat can be, you know. That's the idea behind it. I could tell there was a little more oak, but it's in a good way, you know, and there is a ton of complexity in this wine. It's really at another level than the other wines we've tasted today. It's a really, really good wine. Alicia, you're good at the tasting notes. Why don't you? I completely agree. As soon as you smell and taste this wine, you're kind of playing in a different field than the previous tannat. Tannin's super well integrated, more fruit concentration. Everything's kind of amped up a little bit, the acidity as well, but really tightly knit. And yeah, tons of kind of dark muddled, you know, mulberry, blackberry, blueberry alongside. I'm trying to kind of pick out the oak element in here because it is untoasted, so it's not coming across at all of a vanilla or any kind of pronounced spices in that way. Maybe a little bit of a charred character just a little bit. Yeah, I mean, maybe just this slight kind of spice turned soil, wet leaf kind of quality to the wine. This also, this is one that I think you could definitely lay down for a little bit. I was going to ask you how long you think something like this wine would age. So we're still trying to discover that because our oldest Tanate that we have in the cellar, it's 2012. But definitely single vineyard is, we're doing already much more complex style of Tanate here. But we say anywhere between 10, 15 years, definitely. We'll see if it's more than that. But yeah, 10 years, you're safe. And also, obviously, it's something you're still learning about because the vines were so young. I mean, when you started out, they're just starting to get mature now. Correct? Correct. And so it's going to really be fascinating to see what happens with these vines as the vines get older and as you said, go more into the soil. Totally. We always say that the best of Garzón is still yet to come. It's such a young project that we don't know what we're going to get at the end of the day. But getting this quality in a 10, 9, 8 year old vineyard, it's super, super promising for us. And that's a bit also, you also, Alicia mentioned if we do any blends. We do one blend, which is our icon wine. It's called Balasto. And the whole idea behind it is that we just wanted to show the potential that such a young vineyard has in this area of Uruguay. So it's a blend mostly of Tanat with cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdeau and Marcellin. It changes year to year, but that's the five varieties we play with most of the time. And yeah, super proud of how it's showing already. Our first vintage was 2015, so we only have three vintages of it, but it's a beautiful wine and we just released it the 9th of September in the Place de Bordeaux. So it's Negocians who trade with it, but that's our only blend. Okay. And Balasto, a tribute to the soil type there, correct? Balasto is what we call in Uruguay to this decomposed granite. I didn't mention this before, but the granite pulled a rock, goes from Punta del Este, this area in Maldonado, all the way to Rio de Janeiro. So if you see the pictures of the Christ, he's standing on top of a rock. It's the same granite rock that we have in Uruguay, and it's also the same granite rock that you can find in West Africa, when it was Pangea and it split. So it's a 5,000 million year old rock, which we call the mother rock in Uruguay, and to the decomposed granite, the upper layer, we call it balasto, and it's what we use to do roads and stuff like that. So I can see what has attracted all of the talent at Bodega Garzón and the quality of the wines and in the place. You've made us all wish we were on a plane there right now, but I want to get to your job specifically as export manager because the theme too of today seems to be Alborino, but not Alborino from Ríos Baixos, and then to not, not from the southwest of France, but from Uruguay and from a place again that is relatively new to wine consumers. So as the export manager of Garzón, and you export quite a lot of your wine, actually far more than Uruguay as a whole. What has been your biggest challenge, and how have you introduced people clearly successfully to a lot of these unknowns? It's a funny one. I have a couple of ideas of how this worked so far. But to be totally honest, when I first took the job and the challenge, I thought it was going to be much more difficult, because I knew your wine wines, and I knew the challenge they had positioning themselves in the world. But of course, when you sell wine, you also sell the origin, and being your wine, that attracted me a lot. The way I see it, Mr. Alejandro Urioni brought the best talent in the world with having Alberto Antonini and Alberto build up an amazing team of technical team in the vineyard and the wine making. Alejandro Urioni brought the best technology available in the world to use and really go all in with the project. And the place is amazing. The Tarroar is fantastic. You know, and everyone in the wine world, when they come and visit and critics, you know, and, you know, high connoisseurs, they really get astonished by the place. But I think there's also a big component of luck. And Alicia, you mentioned it a while ago. I think the timing was just perfect. Probably this project, you know, 20 years ago wouldn't be as successful as it is today. Today, we're seeing a lot of people that are interested in tasting wines from different origins. Young soms, you know, that want to have something, you know, unique and obscure. And Uruguay is definitely, you know, that wine that people don't know about, that you can have in your wine list, you know, or at home and, you know, invite someone over and say, you know, have you ever tasted Uruguay wine? And probably the answer will be no. And then, did you taste Tanat? And maybe they will say no. And, you know, and you're showing something totally unique. And we've seen there's a market for that. You know, we produce around 140,000 cases. We're exporting close to 100,000. So definitely we depend on exports since day one, because our production is three times bigger than the size of premium wine in Uruguay. So we had to export. That was the philosophy since day one, the strategy. And today we are number one exporting winery from the country. We've been for a couple of years now. And most of Uruguayan wine goes to Brazil, kind of cheap wine. But if you take Brazil out of the equation, 60% of the Uruguayan wine exports is Bodega Garzón. Anywhere in the world, you know, we're in more than 40 countries. And as I said, I think, you know, we were lucky. With the timing, and of course, yeah, we do have an amazing team that is giving us amazing products. And, you know, the wine speaks by itself. You know, when people taste them, they go back to it. And that has been the key of success, I guess. Well, I think it's great that you guys are really striving for quality. Too many of your neighbors in South America, they put out these value wines. And at some point, what I see happening with Chile and Argentina is that's what the customers associate those countries with now, like a $7.99 Malbec or a really inexpensive cabernet from Chile. Whereas you guys, right from the beginning, when you exported these wines to the States, you sent quality stuff at reasonable prices, but they're not quote unquote value wines. And so people aren't going to immediately think that when they think of Garzón or Uruguay. And I think that was another part of the reason that you've been really successful. You're not just falling into the same mode that a lot of these other wineries have, and you're really putting quality above everything else. And I think it's great. True, true. We saw that as an opportunity. Uruguay being unknown in the wine industry, and people didn't have a pre-concept of where we had to be. So it was like a white canvas that we could play with. The whole project, the most important is quality, as you mentioned. So we always wanted to, if we're going to show something new that people don't know, in a way we have to over deliver, so to make them come back. And yeah, wines, we aim for quality, and we consider being in the $15, $20 price bracket is for the quality that we are hopefully offering. It's a really good bargain. And then of course we are developing more single vineyards, our Icon Wine, to show the full potential that we have. And hopefully we can take the brand there in the future. In closing, Alec, we mentioned the youthfulness of the vines at Bodega Garzón, so we'll look and see what happens as those age. But what is on the horizon? Can you share any secrets with us? What's coming out next? Yeah, definitely. Actually, this month, we are shipping the first load of sparkling wines to the US. That's exciting. We produce two traditional methods. Champenoise, it's a rose out of Pinot Noir, and it's a Brut Natu or Rose, and an extra Brut out of Chardonnay, and a bit of Pinot. That will be interesting. We're also developing a tier called Petit Clos, which is one single block of each variety. The volumes are really small. It's 4,000 bottles or so of each, but it's something to really prove. It's really interesting that the label in the front has a picture of the block, and you have a QR code that takes you through Google Maps to see which block it is. And there's a, we developed a Tanat, a cabernet Franc, an Albariño, and we're developing now a Pinot Noir and a Marcellin of the Petit Clos tier. And, well, we just released the Grappa this year. But that's for Uruguay mostly, for the tourists in the winery. And we have a late harvest that we're probably shipping to the US. It's a small quantity made out of Petit Manseng, which is beautiful. Yeah, yeah, to do something with that Petit Manseng. Yeah, well, it's actually the owner's favorite wine. Oh, really? So we had around eight acres of Petit Manseng. And, you know, Petit Manseng is a really difficult variety to produce, basically because the numbers never work. So we took some out and we re-crafted cabernet Franc there. But we are always going to keep some Petit Manseng because it's the owner's favorite wine. Well, Alec, thank you so much for joining us on this wonderful exploration of Uruguay and specifically of Bodega Garzón. We tasted the Alberino, the cabernet Franc, and then two tinots, the Reserva and the Single Vineyard, all quite lovely. And yeah, thanks for introducing us to these and being a pioneer for Uruguayan on the export market. So I appreciate your time. Thank you, Alicia and Bill, for the opportunity. You know, for us, it's super important and an honor to be able to, you know, get to spread the word of what we're doing. It's super important to get these opportunities for us, you know, to get people to learn more. There's a lot of education being done with our wines, and this definitely helps. It's a fun wine to take to a dinner or a giveaway as a present. Something really unique and an experience worthwhile trying. Great. Thank you so much for coming. Until next time, I'm Alicia, I'm Bill, and I'm Alec. Keep tasting.