Baptiste Cuvelier of Cuvelier los Andes

At Vino LeFebvre we are especially proud to have the wines of Cuvelier los Andes, Mendoza, Argentina, in our portfolio. I just spent the entire week traveling with Baptiste Cuvelier here in Indianapolis and Southern Indiana (Bloomington).
The Cuvelier Family owns several wineries: Chateau Leoville-Poyferre (2nd Growth Bordeaux), Chateau Le Croq and of course Bodega Cuvelier los Andes.

It was very interesting to listen to Baptiste explaining the involvement of his family in the wine business. Michel Rolland has been a family friend and wine consultant for the Cuvelier Family for over 25 years and when he set out to start the Clos des Siete Project he invited the Cuvelier family to join the project. In 1998, Bertrand Cuvlier (Baptist' uncle) made the happy choice of personally accompanying Michele Rolland in his great Argentine project, which was to become the "Clos de Los Siete" group. Three years later, Jean Guy Cuvelier (Baptiste's father) decided to join his cousin Bertrand in the joint aim of building a Bodega and producing fine wines worthy of the family tradition.
Since then, the Bodega has been built and each year the vines of Cuvelier Los Andes have contributed 50% of their production to "Clos de Los Siete", the wine signed by Michel Rolland. The success of this wine worldwide is due to the exceptional value for the money it offers.

The 2003 yield has also allowed the production of the first edition of "Cuvelier los Andes-Colleccion". Then the 2004 harvest saw the arrival of the first edition of "Cuvelier los Andes-Grand Vin" (which Baptiste describes the as the cousin of Leoville-Poyferre).
Everyone kept asking for a pure Malbec and so in 2005 they finally produced a 100% Malbec, the" Cuvelier los Andes-Grand Malbec" - the only wine in the Cuvelier family that is NOT blended.

Beside being in charge of the export the the Americas, Baptiste is also a wine maker and recently started his own wine production in Languedoc - a blend of Syrah, Grenache and Carignan (partly made with carbonic fermentation). Baptiste is also involved with 4 of his friends in a project in Chile where they make wines from organically grown grapes and also is a "Fair Trade" project. All these wines should be at Vino LeFebvre within a year.

Coleccion 2006 received from the Wine Advocat 90 points, the Grand Vin 2006 received 92 points and the Grand Malbec 2006 received a whopping 95 points. Needles to say, we only received a small allocation of the Grand Malbec. My advice: Buy it when you see it!

All of these wines are of astonishing quality and concentration. Colleccion saw a 11 month elvage and half of it in barrels, Grand Vin 14 month and all in Barrel and Grand Malbec 22 month in New French Oak.

The wines are available at Payless Liquors behind Bob Evans on 96th St, west of I-69 - ask Tom Fields - he still has some 2005 vintage left (also some signed Bottles by Baptiste) and also at Crown Liquors at Meridian/Carmel Drive, Fisher store and up in 146th and IN 39.
Mr. Doug Pendleton of the Grapevine Cottage in Zionsville also has plenty of Cuvelier wines available in his store - he only carries rated wines.Also look for these wine at Cork and Cracker stores (both) and also at Vine and Table in Carmel.

I had the opportunity the see the winery in Argentina earlier this year during a visit to the Clos de Los Siete Compound. They have one company that manages the vineyards and the irrigation. However, when harvest time arrives, each individual winery then become master of their own arts.To me it is amazing what kind of wines the are producing from vines that are only up to 7 years old. I truly believe that the are amazing wines coming with future vintages.

Ciao.....chin, chin.....

Emeritus Pinot Noir

In June Patty and I had traveled to Oregon und then south to Sonoma County, California.
In Sebastopol - Russian River Valley - we were invited to visit Emeritus Vineyards, founded by Mr. Brice Cutrer Jones (formerly of Sonoma Cutrer). At Emeritus they only grow Pinot Noir - 100% and a very Burgundian Pinot! It is very different from what you see in the market where most Pinots today contain a healthy percentage on Syrah. Mr. Blackburn the founding winemaker of Emeritus was trained in Burgundy and brought this style of wine to Emeritus. Unfortunately Mr. Blackburn was suddenly taken away by cancer earlier this year and his former assistant Nicolas is now the winemaker at Emeritus, continuing the style of wines that Mr. Blackburn started. Interestingly - Blackburn an American trained and worked in Burgundy, France and Nicolas, a French man trained and worked in California.
The new 2007 vintage has been released - according to Brice is is one of the best in California (see an interview with Brice Cutrer Jones here).
The new Vintage should arrive in Indianapolis the first week of November 2009. It is available in Restaurants only at this point. It is a full bodied wine on the very dry side through the finish. Lots of tannins, this wine should age well too - lots of mineral laced berry and currant. Go ask for Emeritus Pinot Noir from Russian River valley next time you eat out.

Italy

I just returned from a week long trip to Italy. We visited Alba in Piedmont during the white truffle festival and met there with Giacomo Vico of Giacomo Vico Vineyards in Canale, Italy. Giacomo's wines are the latest arrivals in our portfolio: Barbera d'Alba, Langhe Rosso, Nebbiolo and Roero Arneis (DOCG), Birbet (Bracchetto) will be added with the next shipment from Italy. We had fantastic dinner at Borgo Antico Ristorante in Barolo.
I also met with Fabio of Comm. Burlotto vineyards; in the very near future will we add Burlotto Cannubi Barolo's to our portfolio. In Tuscany we had the opportunity to visit "Il Galampio" of Marchesato degli Aleramici where Filippo and his wife Emma were the perfect hosts serving us a delicious lunch and providing delicious Brunello's. Filippo told me that the 2o08 vintage will be better than 88, 90 or 97.

The last winery we visited was Castello di Poppiano in Chianti. This is an old Castle that was built about 1100 years ago. The cellars are just stunning - the Count is a stickler for tradition. Their newest project is the "kosher" wines that are produced at their new winery down in Maremma. They are using the tower of the castle to dry their grapes for their Vinsanto and storing the wine in wonderful old barrels inside the tower of the Castle - the entire tower smells of Vinsanto and the view from the top is just beautiful.


So.................., soon our Italian portfolio will consist of wines from Giacomo Vico, Castello di Poppiano and Marchesato degli Aleramici with Prosecco of Canegliano DOCG and Amraone's soon to follow.

Ciao....chin..chin

Welcome

The intend of this Blog is to inform our customers and friends about what Vino LeFebvre is doing in the State of Indiana.
We have changed our wine portfolio from rare French vintages to a more diversified portfolio. This is an ongoing process and we are currently working on getting more wines approved which we will import from Germany, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Argentina and Chile.
We are still committed to bring only top quality wines into the Indiana market.