SPONSORED GUIDE BRAZIL – VALE DOS VINHEDOS LITTLE ITALY Growers in Brazil’s leading fine region, Vale dos Vinhedos, are doing their immigrant forefathers proud, finds ANTHONY ROSE

Meet the Carraros, the Pizzatos, the One of the biggest producers of wine in Valdugas and the Miolos. You’ve washed Brazil today, Aurora’s 16 families pooled down your pasta and polenta with a glass their resources to set up the cooperative of vino at the Ristorante del Filippi; you’ve in the town of Bento Gonçalves, whose done your shopping at the Centro high buildings and church spires overlook Comercial Benvenutti. So, are we in the Vale dos Vinhedos from afar. Veneto? Trentino? Umbria? Er, no, actually Aurora today is an association of 1,100 we’re in Brazil’s southernmost province of growers and their families, producing , and within it, the Serra some 50 million kilogrammes of grapes Gaúcha region’s Vale dos Vinhedos. In this from 3,300ha (hectares) and exporting lush wine valley, located at 29° latitude, their to eight countries. More than echoes of an ancestral Italian past link two-thirds of Aurora’s production is still seamlessly with a modern landscape of from labrusca varieties (good for juice bustling country towns, winding roads and table grapes), but it is starting to JOIN THE PARTY: By Dirceu Vianna Jr MW and wooded hills. produce a raft of creditable Brazil often brings to mind samba, towards a European style of wine, The story begins with several boatloads reds and whites and a light, medium- beautiful beaches, carnaval, Pelé and with moderate alcohol levels. of Italian immigrants trading the poverty sweet Moscato d’Asti lookalike from caipirinhas. You could be forgiven for The industry is still in its infancy, of Trentino and Veneto to take up the Moscato Bianco and Giallo. failing to mention the words ‘Brazil’ but Brazilian sparkling wines have Brazilian government’s offer of land grants and ‘wine’ in the same sentence, but already earned a reputation overseas in the 1870s. Bringing their own vines with Limited yields Brazil is one of the top 20 largest for quality. Knowledgeable consumers them, they planted in the lush, verdant In the early days of Brazil’s young wine wine-producing countries in the world looking for good-quality sparkling hills of a region that wasn’t suited to wine industry, few families focused on growing and is the third most important wine wines as a less-expensive alternative production. The resulting wines were wine grapes. Instead, they favoured hybrid Above: Miolo, Brazil’s third-largest wine Alfrocheiro and Tinta Roriz for its succulent producer in South America. to may be pleasantly largely for their own use and it took table grapes. These proved better adapted to producer, has come a long way since Quinta do Seival Castas Portuguesas. Although overall wine quality surprised. Additionally, many another 50 years before the formation of a a sub-tropical climate with rainfall of Giuseppe Miolo bought the Lote 43 varies, a small group of quality- producers in Vale dos Vinhedos are number of cooperatives at a time of severe 1,800mm a year – hence the need for frequent 112 years ago Works in progress conscious producers are making wines banking on as their flagship economic crisis laid the foundations of a spraying against mildew and rot. This legacy ‘Ten years ago, was asleep,’ says worthy of international recognition. grape, with encouraging results. modern wine industry – of sorts. is so endemic, that even today, Brazil’s Giuseppe Miolo, arriving as an Patricia Carraro. ‘The mentality was based For that small band of consumers Brazilian wines offer good value Among them were the Garibaldi and 10,000ha of Vitis vinifera grapes make up just immigrant in 1897, went to Bento purely on quantity’. From five generations looking for something interesting and and the finer examples would sit well Aurora co-ops, both established in 1931. 11% of the country’s 88,000ha of . Gonçalves and exchanged his savings for of working the vineyards and making wine, new, Brazilian wines can offer the in any Michelin-starred restaurant. Following the arrival in the 1970s of a piece of land, Lote 43, in Vale dos the Lidio Carraro family is typical of the novelty factor, accompanied by an The party has just begun. multinationals such as Martini & Rossi, Vinhedos, where he started to plant way a new generation has adapted to image of a fun, happy culture. Moët, Seagram and National Distillers, grapes. By the 1970s, his grandsons, Darcy, quality. Until 1998, they sold grapes, making Moreover, the wines tend to be Brazil’s first Master of Wine, Dirceu small grape growers started to invest in Antonio and Paulo, were planting premium wine only for themselves. They then restrained, elegant and leaning Vianna Jr is a buyer for Coe Vintners making and marketing their own wines. varieties, and in 1989 they started to make planted a mix of Bordeaux varieties with By the mid-1990s, a group of growers got and bottle their own wine at their Tuscan- , , Nebbiolo, Teroldego, together in Vale dos Vinhedos with the inspired . Some $40 million was and over 37ha, remain a work in progress, but in place of lees-aged Champagne-method types have aim of making wines from Merlot, the invested in new vines planted using using a higher density of 4,500 vines per the alcohol and power of so many a good future. But as serious production is grape found to be best suited to the vertical wire trellising instead of the hectare for their flagship range. The South American counterparts, the reds, less than a decade old, it will take a while valley’s climate, along with Cabernet traditional horizontal pergola system. vineyards are sub-divided into plots, the based on Bordeaux and southwest French before quality Brazilian wine competes for Sauvignon, , Chardonnay, Yields were reduced, the cellar modernised grapes vinified separately by winemaker varieties, are more moderate, less oak- our attention with the usual suspects of Tannat and Pinot Noir. The result is a yield- and consultant Michel Rolland brought on Monica Rosseti, who eschews oak. dominated and fresher. Whites are more football, carnival and beaches. D limiting indication of origin system called board. At Estância Fortaleza do Seival near Beyond the Vale dos Vinhedos, regions hit and miss, with the odd excellent IPVV, with some 350ha of premium the border with Uruguay, Miolo has such as Pinto Bandeiras and Encruzilhada Chardonnay, but sparkling wines made Anthony Rose is the wine columnist for The varieties produced in the valley. successfully planted Touriga Nacional, do Sul are emerging. Many of the wines either à la Moscato d’Asti, or more complex, Independent. www.anthonyrosewine.com

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