WGGW Tasting Lab- Bottle #3

Alta Vista

Vive Cabernet Sauvignon

When you only concentrate on two wineries, you are grateful for what you have. Do you fall in love every day with your portfolio? Well, are you in love with your partner the same way every day? I can fall in love easily with my bottles, and maybe that is my own misfortune. I don’t look at my wines the same as time is passing me by. I want them to continue this romance and unveil who they are from day to day. Like a marriage, I have forged a commitment, I arrive to hold their hands through the best and worst of it, and I’m honest when I say I just don’t want to do it sometimes.

That doesn’t mean my love is at a loss - just the opposite. I WISH someone would tell me “I’m tired of you today”. Think about the pain and suffering I could pass by, and how I could allow my mind to center in another pattern. It’s not you it’s me does pop up, but maybe it’s just because I don’t want wine in my life ALL the time. We are complicated creatures; there is more to you than what you work at, what you POST, and how you enter the room. Is the idea of digging in to the reason I showed up in the first place a thing of the past? Shouldn’t we break down why I’m not drinking a wine just as much as why I want to?

You know this idea started somewhere. The other day, my co-worker was confused why he had to put a eight-dollar wine within the presentations he was doing for the week. The end of days is coming (end of year, don’t get crazy), and focus does shift to “get this done” mode. Our jobs are not sketched out to sell the entry level wines, but are they? As an industry professional, and I should put that in quotes, I need to pontificate on viticulture, vilification, methods of farming, slope of land, and other things you stopped reading in this sentence - don’t I? Isn’t that my worth, and why I wake up in the morning? Don’t YOU tell everyone around you how great you are when you leave the house, Starbucks coffee in hand, $300 purse on your elbow, and Louis Vuitton heels clicking on the pavement?

Let me be cool and say “This was never me, I’m totally authentic”. Nope - I WANT THIS TO BE ME. If it was, would I drink the eight-dollar stuff? You know this girl would not, and I would miss subtleties, first meeting flutters, and plump yet beefy wine conversations that begin when you begin. When I was a dancer as a child, my mother forced me to take ballet class. It was explained to me that this was the technique behind everything else I may want to do beyond the ballet bar. So, I learned to be patient, listen, watch, and painfully practice my plies so I could move past, what I thought were mundane, entry-level movements. Those foundations gave me a higher level knowledge and skill - but really what they gave me was personal development. THAT lead to higher-level of learning, more patience, and a damn good performance.

The Vive tier of wines (Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon) are just that - novices yet eager, a building block to what is to come, and a step into further development of what is to be from this vineyard in Mendoza, Argentina. In a recent visit, I couldn’t believe that these wines were made side by side to the Single Vineyard properties. WHY would you spend so much time on the wines I’m drinking in an elementary way? But why not? What message would I send to a consumer if I said, “Drink these, this is the good stuff, but that stuff over there is passable - leave that for the people who don’t really know what they are drinking”. You are NOT to good for that, and Alta Vista doesn’t think you are either.

Cabernet Sauvignon is an American’s dream wine; you have deemed it the grape to drink when you want quality. However, I believe ALL wine drinkers want something approachable when they want it. Vive Cabernet Sauvignon is ripe when it says hello, but has that “I have other things to say” glimmer. It’s a medium-bodied wine - not the “heart attack Cab” that stays with you even when you don’t want it to. The tannins are integrated, the oak is apparent but not overwhelming, and the finish is that of misty red berries, a touch of harvesty spice; a statement in quality and affordability. Sorry Louis Vuitton - another day.