It’s not a good idea to form sentimental attachments to the things you sell, but this wine has always been kind of special to me. To start with, I was in the meeting when we decided to start carrying it. The long table on label looks similar to the table in our center kitchen, and serves as a kind of metaphor for me, about how food and wine bring people together. That was the deciding factor for me, the reason I wanted this bottle out of a short list of other Malbec wines we were looking at; whether our values aligned with the producer or I was just imposing them on a drawing of a table they put on the front of their bottle, I felt like this was more than just a wine to sell, but a representation of who we were.
The grapes come from the Valle de Uco in Mendoza, Argentina, grown by a family-run winery called R.J. Viñedos. According to what little information I can find, the grapes are sustainably raised and the wine is bottled by the producer. Soil in that region is classified as alluvial, and the average annual temperature is 14ºC (57ºF). The tech sheet provided by the importer says the wine spends five months in a combination of French and American oak. I was also able to verify this wine is produced vegan through e-mail correspondence with the importer.
With Reunión I feel R.J. Viñedos has struck a nice balance with a wine that is both easy drinking and complex. The black fruit flavors give way to earthy highlights with a mellow tannic finish. The final product is a wine that is bold enough to pair with red meat, but light enough work with fish or poultry. It’s rare for a wine to have both character and versatility, but this is why it has become such a successful addition to our list.
Over the holidays we hosted a lot of company parties and poured a lot of wine. During one particular party I was confronted by the thing I hate dealing with the most, a wine snob. There’s an old adage that says, “The customer is always right,” though it would be more accurate to say, “A good employee should always pretend the customer is right, even if he’s being a jackass.”
As with all of our private events, the wines were selected in advance and specified in contract. When one of the company bigwigs showed up, none of the wines they selected were refined enough for his delicate palate, Reunión included. I was tasked with finding a suitable replacement, which usually means opening up bottles with higher price tags. At one point during this process the guy even pulled me aside to tell me how bad he thought Reunión was, looking for me to validate his expensive taste. I smiled and nodded, because that’s the job and, at the end of the day they were spending more money for me to play along.
Why should I care if he doesn’t like the wine I sell? It was like he had called one of my kids ugly.
Like I said, it’s probably better that I don’t form some kind of sentimental attachment to a wine that I’m selling, but in this case I just can’t seem to help it. Over the past two years I’ve accumulated a lot of fond memories around Reunión, whether it’s chatting with guests as I taste this wine out during happy hour or chef Guillermo mocking my terrible Spanish pronunciation every time I fail to trill an “r,” whenever I see the label I’m overcome with nauseatingly sappy emotions.
On the other hand, maybe having a bias is good sometimes, because when I recommend this wine to guests, I’m doing it honestly.