As always, I can never just get straight to the point. Instead, you get way more background on things than you probably want. So here I go again (with Paul McCartney actually playing in the background while I write)!
When we did the Duero cruise with our Wine Club et al a couple of years ago, we started to see a new product out there...Port Rosé. Made, it seems, predominantly for making cocktails, most of the Port Houses were making them. It was also made due to the inventories they already had with their red and white Ports. Basically a new product.
So when Maggie and I spent the seven weeks in Europe's wine regions this last spring, we were doing a fair amount of work...tasting, listening, thinking and talking. While we were in the Rhone region of France (actually Tain l'Hermitage), we tasted a couple of times at the world-famous Chapoutier winery. Our tours were amazing, and they always finished up with a tasting. On one of the tastings, they poured a wine called "Rouge Clair", which was a chillable red. They told us all about the blend and how they made it. And we really enjoyed it.
Fast-forward home, we thought that making a "chillable" red would be something new and interesting for our tasting list. (Yes, I can already hear all of you saying we need a new wine like we need a hole in the head.) Hugh Chappelle, our old winemaker and consultant was coming up and heard of our project. He offered to pick up a couple of wines from a bottle shop down in Sonoma to show what the market was doing with Glou.
It turns out that Glou is already a French term for the wine, which translates to "Glug" in English. Thus we had a tasting with wine friends (and just friends!) here one Friday evening of the Glou's Hugh had brought. Except it wasn't just 2 examples, but instead it was 11 different wines.
The big takeaway from the tasting was that just saying your red wine is chillable does not make it a chillable red. In fact, we felt most of the wines would have been better at room temperature as the tannins became excessive and the fruit shut done in the cold temperatures. And following the idea of "Glou", no one thought any of these wines were "chuggable". There was one wine, though, from J. Lohr (their Valdiguie) that we thought was quite nice, with everyone in our tasting recommending it.
So are we making a "Glou" here at Madroña this year? Yep. Or at least we're trialing it out. It's a Grenache/Syrah blend based on Chapoutier's experience with their Rouge Clair. I also have some low tannin possibilities to tweak it just a bit for color and fruit. So far, tasting out of the barrel, it's quite different, but a lot fun...so we'll see.
Ultimately, there is a niche for this style of wine if done correctly. And just like the Port rosé now being made in Portugal, having a broader market from which to choose may bring even more people into the fold of enjoying and embracing wine! (And P.S. The nice thing about the Glou wines we tasted is that the price point was around $20 as they are quick to bottle and quick to market. That makes for a great summer wine to savor on a warm day!) We'll keep you posted on the progress!