[wine] Gruet Sparkling from New Mexico

FYI/FYB June 15, 2010 In Albuquerque, French-Style Wines That Sparkle By SARAH KERSHAW ALBUQUERQUE IT would be really easy to whiz past the demure sign and stately entrance of the Gruet Winery on the Pan American Freeway here, not far from Target and almost subsumed by an R.V. dealership on one side and Tuff Shed on the other. Inside, though, a sister and brother who moved here from the Champagne region of France 27 years ago and took the risk of planting grapes in this high desert climate are producing what have become phenomenally successful domestic sparkling wines. While the recession has pummeled wine producers in Champagne, Napa and elsewhere, Gruet has held its own, and even made headway in some markets, with only some minor wholesale losses. Credit for this goes to budget-minded pricing: most of Gruet.s sparkling wines sell for well under $20. Customers wanting Champagne or sparkling wine have been moved to taste less-expensive products, wine buyers and restaurateurs say, giving these French expatriates in New Mexico a timely edge. Their sparkling wines are especially popular in New York and California, and have, in the last 10 years, appeared on the wine lists of high-end restaurants, including Craft, Del Frisco.s and Bar Americain in Manhattan. The siblings, Nathalie and Laurent Gruet, were pioneers when the family planted an experimental vineyard in 1983, in Lordsburg, N.M., and then settled a year later on land near Truth or Consequences, a small town about 150 miles south of here known among local tourists and retirees for its natural hot springs and mild climate. As it turned out, the climate was an advantage for winemaking, with cool evening temperatures that slow the ripening to produce a pleasantly sharp acidity. Some critics say that despite its high quality-to-price ratio, Gruet pales beside unquestionably superior sparkling wines made in France and even in California. But many wine buyers and reviewers see Gruet as a source of affordable domestic gems that hold up to . or can even outdo . more expensive domestic products. .You can get decent things from the Finger Lakes, and Virginia is doing some nice sparking wines, but there are very few that are classics, and I think Gruet is a classic now,. said Tracy Wilson, general manager of the cafes at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, where the Gruet blanc de noirs is served at Terrace 5 for $12 a glass, or $44 a bottle. .Its profile is beautiful, it drinks like a French wine, but it.s got this twist on it, so it.s not as minerally. It.s crisp. It.s just a pleasant drink.. It makes sense that Gruet drinks like a French wine, because the family behind it has deep roots in France. Gruet et Fils was established in Champagne in 1952 by the family patriarch, Gilbert Gruet, in B�thon. Mr. Gruet, who died in 1999, was an architect who agreed to help build a winery in Champagne in exchange for lessons in making the region.s sparkling wine. He founded the first wine cooperative in B�thon in 1967, persuading the villagers to rip out the sugar beets in the fields and plant grapes instead, family members said. In the early 1980s, like other winemakers in the region, Mr. Gruet decided that with a change in the French government and impending tax increases, it was time to start a winery in another country. With two of his four children, Nathalie and Laurent, he toured California, Texas, New York and finally, on the suggestion of some European winemakers he knew there, New Mexico. .We were pretty charmed by the rugged beauty of New Mexico, and to see these lush vineyards in the middle of the desert was very intriguing to my father,. said Ms. Gruet, 47. The land was also less expensive than other options they considered, she said. New Mexico had a centuries-long history as a leading producer of American wine. But in the early 20th century, flooding and groundwater in the state.s wine country, near the banks of the Rio Grande, became a crippling obstacle, turning fertile land into swamps. By 1920, there were no wineries left. It was not until the early .80s that a government-sponsored study meant to attract European vignerons, some of whom were beginning to set their sights on California and other states, reported improved growing conditions. But the early years were not easy for the Gruets. At the first vineyard in Lordsburg, the brother and sister, together with Ms. Gruet.s husband and their 5-month-old baby boy, lived in a trailer on a small plot of land. They soon discovered the area was too hot for chardonnay and pinot noir grapes, sold the land and planted a new vineyard 100 miles east, in an area called Engle, about 10 miles outside Truth or Consequences. .We didn.t speak a word of English and we were in the middle of nowhere,. Ms. Gruet said. .That was pretty strange. But when you.re in your 20s, you take a challenge better. You have a bit more adventure in your soul.. They wanted to try the Champagne method of making sparkling wines in New Mexico, so they had samples of the sandy and earthy soil sent to France for testing, to make sure the vines could grow the deep roots they needed to thrive. Encouraged by the results, they imported their first press and other machinery from France and rented a small production space in Albuquerque, as their father financed an operation that grew in small increments over 20 years. .We started very small, we didn.t know if it was going to work,. Ms. Gruet said. .I think my father was living his dream through his children. He had a pioneer spirit, a spirit to start something totally oddball in the middle of nowhere.. They went from producing 2,000 cases of wine in 1989, to 100,000 cases a year now, doing everything but the growing in a 45,000-square-foot plant in Albuquerque. The French and New Mexican wineries now produce about the same amount of wine, the Gruets said. (Their other two siblings, twin sisters, stayed in Champagne and now run the operation there.) The New Mexican branch of the family said that they have found the climate here even better for grapes than in Champagne; the days can be very hot, but the nights, as much as 30 degrees cooler, slow the maturation process in what would otherwise be a short growing season. The arid air that wards off rot also helps with the wine.s consistency, Laurent Gruet said, adding that they use no pesticides on the vines. Before they hired a distributor, Mr. Gruet and his brother-in-law carted cases of wine across the state to restaurants, liquor stores and tasting events, aggressively marketing it any chance they got. .We started with one state, then two states, then we were adding states and it took over 20 years of labor,. said Mr. Gruet, 45. .We would tell the distributors, .We.re from New Mexico, open the bottle and taste it.. Sometimes it would be a long time between when they received it and getting them to taste it.. Within a few years, mentions in newspapers and wine magazines helped the Gruets capture the attention of wine buyers and distributors far beyond New Mexico. Their wines are now sold in 49 states . 60 percent of it at about 5,000 restaurants and the other 40 percent at retail stores, Mr. Gruet said. The winery produces seven sparkling wines, four that retail for an average of $15 a bottle, as well as three more-expensive vintage sparklers, which range in price from $17 to $46. They also produce a small amount of still chardonnay and pinot noir. Robert Lemberger, the wine buyer for the Artichoke Cafe in Albuquerque, one of the first restaurants to serve Gruet, was working at a bistro in Florida 10 years ago when he first heard of Gruet, which was on the wine list there. Gruet is produced .in such high-quality fashion that the flavors just layer in their wines,. he said. .Their grand reserve is beautiful, with the taste of caramel and apples, citrus and a little bit of vanilla, as good as a reserve should be, and the blanc de noirs is wonderfully complex.. The region around Truth or Consequences also produces chilies and other crops, but all of them are grown closer to the Rio Grande than the Gruet grapes are. Water for irrigation has to be pumped about 15 miles to the vineyard, which proved to be too cumbersome and expensive for the other wineries in the area. Gruet is the only one left, according to Olivia DeCamp, executive director of the New Mexico Wine Growers Association. Ms. Gruet said that the winery was doing well enough to sustain the extra cost and that the family decided it was not worth uprooting a vineyard that was consistently producing quality grapes. As to whether the Gruets would consider striking out again, adding another Champagne house or American winery, Ms. Gruet laughed and sounded a bit weary. .That.s for the next generation,. she said. -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *