EP 16 | Hugo del Pozzo

Kristi Mayfield (00:00)

Yay yay for everyday sommelier. Christy's ardent enthusiasm and solid knowledge make wine so fun. I learned something new, valuable, and interesting from every episode. So worth the listen. TBR Jules Review. Thank you so much for listening, loving, and sharing your feedback with us. In the world of wine, it is hard to find the needle in the haystack.

and then wham, it just got even more confusing when your favorite wine brand launches what they call their second label or second wine. what does it even mean? Why are they doing it? Is this really a better deal is the wine even a higher quality, lower quality or a subpar wine made from grapes that that winery just did want to use in their flagship brand?

or is it something different altogether?

Wineries may use second labels for multiple reasons. And in this episode, we're going to solve the mystery with our guest, Hugo de Pozo, co-founder of Pinea Wines going to help you understand what second labels are, how they can be a fantastic find along your wine journey.

In the world of fine wine, there are iconic labels sought by collectors and Michelin star restaurants. The kind of brands many people, and I'm gonna include myself into this group, may never be exposed to, or if you could even find them, you might not even be able to afford them.

Second brands to the rescue. Exclusive top-tier wineries even mid-range brands often launch second brands or second labels and this can be confusing or frustrating ask? Because there are two lines of thought or intention around this approach. On one side

wineries can create second brands or second labels because they've had a poor harvest. They have a sheer overstock of grapes or the grapes are sub quality where instead of throwing them out or selling them, make a second label without really pursuing quality or selling a wine that is highly aligned with their brand. They may just want to clear that inventory,

This linkage to the primary brand, however, even if it's extremely limited, can consumer to believe you're getting a great quality wine at a fraction of the in this case, may be experiencing a subpar wine made completely without the intent of delivering the magical product you thought that you were And the other approach, however, it's nearly the opposite. These second wines are often produced from the exact same vines.

the exact same fruit as their premium cousin or the flagship brand. the winemaker wanted to try something new or they weren't quite at the quality level to make it into the top tier wine, but their superior grapes nonetheless. They could be younger vines, have different flavors. The phenolics might not have gotten quite as ripe at harvest in a cool season or other variation.

You and I may not even be able to perceive the difference. Only a tasting expert or that winemaker could truly sense the difference. There's also wines that are created sheerly out of the pleasure of experimentation, adventurous spirit of the winemaker to create something completely new and different, but ultimately somehow linked back to the original brand. Now we think of examples of second labels like Chateau du Ducru Beaucailleau

with their Lacroix de Beaucailleau or Chateau Mouton Rothschilde with La Petite Mouton. And then on the US side, have Screaming Eagle, the cult brand with their wine Leviathan. And then in the mid-tier range, wineries like Elk Cove with their Pike Road brand. these can be amazing wines that are a fraction of the price of the flagship, and it is a winning proposition.

when you know how to find them. So let's get started.

Hugo del Pozzo (04:17)

Well, today with me in this episode is Hugo de Pozo, co-founder of Pinea Wines, and these wines come from the Ribera del Duero region in Spain, and he is here to share with us kind of an in-depth side, actually two sides as we get through this, on second labels, and what wineries and wine enthusiasts can do to actually ensure they understand what the second labels are.

And they're getting the best of both worlds with the second brand as well as the flagship brand of the wines. So Hugo, welcome. wine seems to have been a part of your life pretty much your entire life with family ties to Mexico, to Italy, to Spain. And with Pinea you are going back to your Spanish roots in Ribeiro del Duero. So can you let our audience know a little bit about your wine journey?

what led to the founding of Pinea Thank you. Nice to you. Thank you for having me, Kristi by the way, cheers. Cheers.

Well, like you alluded to, my family is from, I was born in Mexico. My family's from Italy and Spain. So in family dinners in the weekend at the grandparents, I remember growing up always having a bottle either typically a Chianti on my father's family side or a Spanish wine on my mother's family side. so.

Fast forward, rooming together with some friends after college. One of these friends was Vicente Piego, who is my co-founder in Pinea wines. And we learned that we both had these on both of our mother's side, a heritage from Spain and interest in wines in general, and in particular of Spanish wines. And so that's kind of where, even though we grew up together and we're rooming together, that's where we first discovered our shared interest for some of these wines.

one thing led to the other. Vicente moved his wife and three daughters to Rivera del Duero in wine country in Spain and was running a winery, a boutique winery, making high quality wines, uh, with one of the best winemakers from Spain. and he shared that he really wanted more. He wanted, uh, not only making good wine, but making world-class wines. And that's something.

that resonated and really interested me. that's the genesis of Pinea. We decided to join forces to produce world-class wines in Rivera del Duero. Well, some of the awards that you have achieved since then

pretty much say that you've been successful in that story. I think there's a little note in particular of a specific wine and wine enthusiast top 10 ranking. Yes, very. We've been so blessed along the way. But yes, last December, the wine enthusiast scored one of our wines 99 points, which was already a tremendous feat, but they included it as wine number six in their top 100 seller selections for 2024.

Yeah, but tremendous. At the end of the day, as proud as we are of being included in that list, what's important to us is one person at a time that when somebody drinks our wines, they say, wow, this is one of the best wines I've ever had. That's super exciting congratulations.

Getting into the topic today, and the reason we are talking is, Pinaya has several different, we'll call them second brands or second labels, and very different intentions and experiences. In fact, one in our glass is your Korde Rosé. But many wineries launch these second labels to capture market share, offer something different, enter a new market, attract new customers.

And they do so frequently at a very low price point. And from your perspective with some of that experience, can that do as far as a wine label's brand? Can it enhance it or does it sometimes dilute Well, that's a great question. It's scary to generalize because, as you know, every winery is different

But maybe let me tell you a little bit about our, so when I told you the Genesis Okinawa, when we started, we wanted the best possible fruit that we could find in Rivera del Duero in these high elevations, where the temperature fluctuation, the age of the vines and the soil characteristics give the fruit tremendous character, great complexity, great aromas, et cetera. And so the Genesis was a single

label, which eventually became known as Pinet. That was in 2014. In 2015, we decided to try something a little different. Instead of kind of a single vineyard, old vine, Tempranillo, we decided to harvest the best grapes from different vineyards that the family we were sourcing fruit at the time had available. And so we benifited a little differently, not

barrel fermented like Pinneas but stainless steel fermentation and selection of grapes from different vineyards. the result was a wine with tremendous complexity, but not from the single vineyard, but more of the selection of soils where the other vineyards were, And frankly, just experimenting, we used instead of a hundred percent French oak for Pinneas, we used some

French and some American oak for our second label. anyway, and it was sit and wait for a couple of years. We wanted these 2015 vintage to be a little more drinkable from the start. So we didn't keep it in the barrel as long as our first vintage, the Pinea 2014. And ultimately this resulted in what now you're referring to as our second label. It's called 17 by Pinea.

and it celebrates the year 2017, which is a very important year for us. It's the year that we were finally able to acquire the property. Prior to then, we were only buying grapes from the family that owned the vineyards At the beginning of 2017, we purchased the estate and became true...

Vineyard owners so eventually we needed a name for our second label and 17 celebrates that important year in our life, in the life of our winery, also the year that we were releasing our wines commercially. but yeah, it's a different method of wine making, tremendous fruit quality and different aging.

method and the result was a wine that was slightly more drinkable at a younger age and fresher because of the American oak as you know provides some nuances of caramel and vanilla and things that make the wines very very drinkable.

I think the intent of the wine was simply a different expression of the grape that has tremendous character in this part of the Rivera del Lleró. And so making a wine more affordable, both in terms of

complexity in terms of drinkability and in terms of price. lot of, know, we were just getting started. So it seemed daunting for people that had never heard about these new winery in Rivera del Duero or had never drank or tasted wines from Rivera del Duero or Spanish wines for that matter to to explore with our flagship at a triple digit price point. So we figured, well, with this other wine that is not as not ageless long.

with grapefruit character, maybe we can introduce them not only to Spanish wines, River de la Dura wines, but our winery in particular at a lower price point. That was kind of the genesis as we're getting ready to launch both wines to the market. And coincidentally, Sergio Garcia, the golfer from Spain, had just won that very famous golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia, and he wanted to serve.

our wine at his wedding. And so we collaborated with them and made the label Green and White to celebrate the victory that he had just had with his first major that year. And in a way, kind of the wedding theme. But yeah, the intent was introduce people to our winery with an easier to drink wine at a lower price point.

And the way we connected the two, again, 17 celebrating the year 2017 is the name is not just 17, it's 17 by Pina. So that's kind of where we bond some fibers between our flagship and our second label. Got it. Got it. Now that's quite a story and the links are really exciting. as I was introducing this particular topic and episode, I mentioned that there are cases where winemakers produce these second labels.

simply because they may have an overabundance of grapes from harvest or the quality of the grapes that harvest isn't necessarily at the quality to really make that flagship label. And instead of tossing them out or selling them, they go ahead and produce something under a second label. But from that perspective,

as a consumer, can that create a little bit of distrust when you are seeing the link to the original flagship brand, but then you buy it and the quality is very different? No, I think you're exactly right. That's the general perception maybe that second labels have. think in our case, as I explained, that wasn't

It's not that one wine is second to the other. They're just different expressions. In our case, we were very fortunate. think that we had abundant access to grapes of the finest quality in Rivera del Duero. Certainly after we acquired the property, we had more acreage than we could process in our small boutique winery building at the time.

In our particular case we had the blessing where we were still picking the best grapes from the different vineyards and just producing two very different expressions of the Tempranillo

In general, think you're right that the majority of producers that maybe don't have the variety of soils and the different expressions of varietals that we are fortunate to have in our property, I think it's common that they select the top grapes for their flagship wine and then they select their subpar grapes for a different wine. It's just hard to generalize.

the other way is for winemakers to leverage this as an opportunity to experiment, whether it is with new varietals or blending, say in the case of Tipirnea with other varietals to kind of.

create that second label, but really leveraging a win-win type of opportunity. But in doing that, is there a fear of or a risk that you can go too far away from the flagship brand and create something that, your loyal customers may go, that's so far off of Piniello or whatever the brand is that I'm confused now.

I think definitely the risk exists.

In our case, we are fortunate that we did run that risk and we just wanted a different expression. you could argue that some of our wines are so far away from our flagship Pinilla, but there are not only second or third labels, they're completely different wines. Case in point, the wine that we're tasting, it's a Tempranillo from one particular vineyard, very limestone rich soil. So the wine has great minerality, great acidity.

but it's very lightly, not even pressed, very light skin contact, the Bernalho. Almost the free run must as the grapes are coming from the selection table. It's beautiful.

In our case, this was a very purposely produced Rosé, right? But so again, hard to generalize. There definitely is a case where some producers either use their lesser quality grapes or use second labels to experiment. In our case, we're more of the latter. We have

tremendous grape quality. so what we have released under the umbrella of our Pinneas flagship wine are world-class wines, just different expression, different experimentations, to use your word, of what our property, what our terroir is able to deliver. And also what our winemaking team is able to produce. We're very blessed to have some of the best winemakers, sorry, I should say best young winemakers in the world.

one from Spain and the other from Argentina, who is our consultant winemaker and very accomplished with a worldwide view of winemaking. so with that, we kind of have the benefit of having abundant acreage, different expressions of the same varietal in the case of Tempranillo and different colors in a palette of colors as artists that they are making wine that they can...

source from to produce different labels, different wines, different expressions, and at times different blends. For instance, wine that we're tasting, we've experimented with something between this and the rich red dark wines like our 17 or Pinilla. And it's called Corde, like this, so same name, but it's a Tinto that is fresher, less extracted, brighter.

younger expression of the tempering. So if you can, you've tasted our reds, you're tasting our rose, this is somewhere in between the two. And again, it's not that we're not experimenting from a, let's see what we come up with. It's like, we know we have these great characteristics in this grape. Let's produce something different by experimenting with the way we treat those grapes during vinification and, you know, different vessels that we use for fermentation or whether they're

concrete egg tanks or barrels, et cetera. And let's see what we can come up with.

my mouth is kind of watering just talking about them, from a winemaker's perspective, as you are experimenting with the different style or different approach to a second label,

and building that off of your flagship. Have you ever experienced a time when that approach wasn't necessarily working for you and you needed of pull back in order to stay more true to that flagship brand? We did.

this was during 2020, so we know what was happening in 2020 with COVID. Locally for us, because the vineyard doesn't wait, we had the...

flexibility to go take care of the vineyard and at the time we had a lot of acreage and we had a lot of fruit and we are very proud of our fruit. had invested for three years in organic, biodynamic, sustainable viticulture practices so we have this tremendous fruit and we're like well we don't we don't want to sell this. We didn't have the big winery at the time. We didn't have the the resources because COVID you couldn't just

pick up the phone and get barrels. There were limitations on all your materials. And so we had basically options of selling the grape for less than it was worth, converting it to wine or throwing it away. so in that sense, we did experiment. We produced a young wine,

focused on the Texas market called 12, the number 12. We're not very creative with things. There's a theme here. And then in other states, and in the UK in particular, where there appear to be a demand for a younger, brighter expression of a Tempranillo, Rivera del Duero, we use the word Petrichor, the label Petrichor, the meaning of the word Petrichor is the aroma when it...

first starts raining that like moist dust as it becomes in contact with the water. When you're in the field, you smell that wet soil or dust. That's petrichor. And so anyway, we produced these second labels with a tremendous fruit from our estate with again the fruit that today we use for our

second label called 17 or for the Corde Rosé that we're drinking. But at the time, for a number of reasons, we decided to make a simple wine, stainless steel fermented, no barrel aging, fortunately with tremendous fruit character, tremendous fruit period. And so it became an instant success here in Texas and the UK for that matter. Spanish labeling terms,

Would that be more of a Hoven style, kind of immediate to market? Yes. Correct. No oak regimen. All of our wines, if you noticed in the back of that bottle, all of our wines just stayed the harvest year, even though the Pinilla could be considered a Grand Reserva, our 17 could be considered a Reserva.

Some of our wines could be Robles or Crianzas. We choose not to go by the traditional. these two wines that we launched during COVID were Joven wines, very drinkable.

But in our case, something that we're very proud of, you mentioned any fallbacks from those experiments. The fallback came later when we realized that it was hard to talk about a wine that is in the...

low double digit price range in the same sentence as a wine that is in the arguably high triple digit price range. It's a different buyer, a different point of sale, a different distributor at times that focuses on those type wines. because of that challenge, we ultimately decided to focus on what got us started in the first place and this ambitious purpose to produce world-class wines. That served its purpose. There was

a lot of demand during COVID year for young, drinkable, ready to drink wines. And it served its purpose. But now we have a bigger winery and we've been able to process that fruit ourselves for our normal wine, for our 17, for Cordae, for other things that are in the winery. Where now we don't have to limit ourselves on what grape we keep or what grape we don't. And if we happen to find grapes, to your point on quality of grapes,

In our particular case, we're so focused on quality and great wines that if we find grapes that don't meet our standard either because, example, our vineyards are not irrigated and there are times that there's a lot of stress in the grapes. Maybe the berries are very small. just, the vines like to struggle, but sometimes there's more struggle that they can handle. And so if the grapes are too small, we don't.

harvest them or there are other producers in the region that may want them and we have sold in the past a few of the grapes that we don't want to keep for our own winemaking but we don't use them for a second or third or fourth label. We'd rather hand them off to somebody else. So in other words, the second label, you will, 12 was...

met its purpose, had a very specific intention at that point in time, but seeing that it didn't really fit with the core of the brand, it wasn't something you decided to continue or maybe ever bring back at any point, Yes, never say never,

but it just became apparent that from a marketing standpoint, was daunting task to be talking about wines from the same region, same producer, same grape, but such different price points and characteristics.

For our audience's perspective, I what are some signs that they can look for to detect those second labels that were launched, the other side of that where they might be falling into a trap of a lower quality wine. mean, is there a way for them to really recognize that and make that purchasing decision

I may be in the minority with this way of thinking, but to me, one of the beauties of wine is experimenting, right? Like, it's very easy to buy a wine because everybody else likes it or everybody else recommended it or because it got a great score. It got 100 points or 99 points or whatever. And that doesn't necessarily mean that that's a wine you're going to like. That's not to say it's a bad wine.

It can be a very proper wine. It's just not something that fits your personal taste. because wine is so personal at the end of the day, I think one of the best parts about these search, as you were alluding to in second labels, tasting different wines. Try them. And if you find a second label that you like, who cares that it's a second label and not the flagship, you're probably better off paying less money for a second label wine. There are these...

second labels as you know there there's some very iconic second labels in particular in bordeaux that are i'm not going to say better than the others but there are very very good wines for a fraction of the price but there are there are second labels that are

delicious and more affordable and and frankly also more enjoyable at a younger age than than many other of their first label siblings. I so appreciate that answer because I always tell people when they ask me what's your favorite wine? Well, there's never a bottle that I'm not going to try and I'm the queen of looking for that value-priced wine because I do believe

that there are some great things and maybe it doesn't mirror or represent, the style of the flagship brand, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't have a purpose, doesn't have some excitement, or doesn't sing in the glass. Absolutely. And wines are also for different occasions, right? Some of these iconic wines in the world and you could

possibly think of Pinilla in that same category. Sometimes people ask me, hey, which one do you like better? Do you like your first label Pinilla or do you like your second label 17? And I say, well, it depends on the occasion. I love them both. If it's a weeknight and we're rushing to get home and take your dinner and sit down with the kids for a family dinner, I'm not going to have time to properly decant our flagship Pinilla and wait for...

two, two and a half hours or longer to appreciate all the different layers of complexity. But I can pull the cork on a bottle of 17 and boom, 10, 15 minutes later, it's ready to go. And it's going to deliver 90 % of what it has to offer in the first 30 minutes. Where if I do the same with Apnea or some of these other iconic labels, you don't quite get all that expression in a short period of time. the same goes with many other second labels where...

There's a one for every occasion. The average consumer typically drinks their bottles within a couple of days, maybe a couple of weeks from purchase. So I think that fits exactly what you were talking about. You may want a Tuesday night wine, a Thursday night wine, or a Sunday afternoon wine. But then you also can look at those flagship brands, maybe as you're more celebration type or

the wine is kind of the star of the show. Now it's you that's making my mouth water. sorry. Well, one of our at Everyday Somalia, one of our goals is to really re-inspire the passion for wine across all audiences, whether that's Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, heck, I can't even remember all of the generations that we currently have, Boomers, et cetera. So for our winery,

wanting to try to reach a newer, potentially a younger audience, how do you make sure that you can accomplish that goal, give them something maybe at more of an entry price point, but continue to represent your brand's legacy so that you continue to appeal to the taste of your core customer group? Good question. I think it's certainly

possible. I'm not sure that what we have done necessarily had a particular generational intent. It was more artistic intent. But I think it's I think your comment is fair and

there are winemakers that have certainly tweaked their wines to offer them to maybe a younger audience that is not yet, that Experienced, it's just an experienced perspective. They just haven't experienced as many wines. might find an iconic wine that is world renowned just-

too strong, or...

too dry or the reality is that it might be very complex and with aromas that are not necessarily the primary aromas that we expect as a younger, I've been a younger wine enthusiast too, right? And you're more attracted to the sweetness, to the fruit, not necessarily the tertiary aromas in a wine or the texture or the tannins or the body of the wine. You're more in kind of the immediate gratification. And so to that end, I do

think

that to some producers, that different angle of attack from a marketing standpoint to a different crowd is being used. But again, there's nothing wrong with it. The best thing you can do, or I would recommend to younger wine enthusiasts, is try, try, try and drink what you like. And if that's what you like, you're probably going to save a fair amount of money drinking second or third labels that are easier to drink.

And if eventually you get tired of those and you want to move on to either higher price point or more complex wine or first labels, you can. Or if you decide at some point you want to start collecting wine, then you need to know which wines will actually age for three, five, 10 years, because probably the ones that you want to drink tomorrow night or tonight aren't necessarily going to fit in that category. You might be quite disappointed. Yes. before...

shift gears and talk a little bit more to our audience about some things that they can do along their wine journey. One of the interesting points around second labels is that they can be intended for a specific retailer or a private label. I I always think about Kirkland brand at Costco, things like that. How, as a wine consumer, how do you know, how do you uncover when that's the case? Because I think

that is an opportunity to do just what you said is find some really cool wines you may love at more of that entry level price point. Yeah, the short answer is experimenting, trying them as a consumer. From our standpoint, I would say we, I don't know how much intelligence there was behind the decision. It was more,

just trying to produce good wines. Where there was a thoughtful process was we were tasting the wine. We were tasting it as it developed in the barrel. We were tasting it as we were bottling it. And we knew we had very high quality wines in general. And again, it's because of our team, our winemakers, my partner's passion for viticulture, the quality of the fruit. So when you put it all together, we knew we had a great wine. But we had to decide what's it going to look like as a finished product and how much

are we going to sell it for? And in particular, the decision of how much are we going to sell it for, I would say was very analytical in the sense that we wanted to make our wines from a new producer in a well-known region like Rivera del Loro, but with really different level of quality than most people are used to tasting. We wanted to make it affordable, purposefully to introduce people to

at a minimum wines from Spain that maybe they had hopefully had never they had never experienced something that tasted like this for this type price more in particular other wines from Rivera del Duero where there are a lot of

young wines that there's nothing against them. They're just not complex, but they're very enjoyable with a slice of pizza on a Tuesday night. And then in particular to us to introduce.

people of any ages to wines from Pina. And for that reason, we decided to price it frankly below what we thought the wine was worth. I would argue today that's probably still the case in all of our wines. But it's okay. It's okay to leave a little money on the table to introduce people and then just look at their faces. And it's so rewarding when people that have never experienced our wines, young, middle-aged,

or grown up adults and very season wine enthusiast, when I'm at tastings and I see their faces, or they literally will say, I'm talking about people that you know that drink and taste a lot of different wines, and they're like, this is the best wine I've had all year. They're like, wow, I I know a lot about the wines that you've drank. I know what's in your locker. That's quite a compliment. So yeah, it's just...

Again, in our case, was very purposefully designed to introduce people to our winery. And locally, as the demand for the wines grew, when people discovered it, then we had the opposite problem. It's like we couldn't keep it in the shelves. They really took us a while for our ramped up production to hit the market just because of our aging cycles. And so it helped.

price the wine more where I think it arguably probably should have been initially, but we were artificially selling it below its fair market price to introduce people to the winery. And how is that then when you get to that point of inflection where you kind of have to make that shift to put the market value, how does that happen and are there any strategies around that?

Again, harder to generalize. I can speak for ourselves, for our experience. In our case, have had a, it has been, it hasn't been a linear situation. It has been more of steps. And what I mean by that is our production, because of the limitations we had in the size of our winery, we knew we had the fruit. didn't have the literally the room to produce great wines. And we also wanted to go slowly to make sure that we stayed true to quality. And so we, it was never about, Hey, let's just pick it all the grapes.

and

let's throw it in a stainless steel bath and let's make a lot of wine. We want to make sure that we nip it in the bud and that we produce great wines, really with the hope or with the strategy that people would recognize that quality and grow demand for our wines. And so at times when we as our production has grown in this stair-step way, the demand for our wines have gotten a little bit ahead.

I start noticing either my email or retail, something like, hey, we don't have any wine. And invariably, the economics law of supply demand invariably grows. And in a way, that kind of happened with our newest release, which is the Pissot, the one that wine enthusiasts.

listed as the sixth best one of the year. And we didn't know how to price this wine. We liked it so much in the barrel. We noticed different nuances that we decided to bottle it separately. But we only had 500 liters of this wine. So we had to.

limited to 333 magnum bottles and again at the time you're like well how much are we going to sell this for and it's a I mean ultimately you say okay it's a magnum so it'll be a little bit more expensive than the flagship Pinot

So we initially sold it for $500 and we offered it to a couple of retail accounts, fine dining establishments. and really without people knowing about the wine or tasting the wine, I wasn't really sure if they were going to sell it, but I was delighted that they thought so much opinion that they wanted to bring it in. And because of the limited production, we only made a handful available to them. And within a few weeks, they wanted more. And I was like, what do mean you want more?

We

produce very little of this wine. It's like, no, I know, but I already sold it for like $1,500 a bottle. And I'm like, oh, wait a minute. I'm worried about selling it for a few hundred bucks and you're selling it for 1,500. And again, I think ultimately that's where the demand for the wine can justify that everything else we're in viticulture, in winemaking, in patient cellaring, in barrel selection, et cetera, et cetera, that it was worth it. That's super exciting.

sounds like it's a pretty high demand. you know, as we're wrapping up, you've done a great job of enhancing kind of the spirit of everyday sommelier and that, There's a wine for everyone and by exploring you can go find those wines that

whatever price point, flavor profile, style that you want. And so do you have any additional tips for our consumers?

other than really staying curious and being willing to explore when it comes to the subject of second labels or second brands and how they can leverage them to really enhance their wine journey. Well, think I don't know who I am to provide advice, but I think I already gave it inadvertently in being an explorer.

and exploring with these wines, the worst thing that can happen is that you don't like it. And the best thing when that happens is that you know you're not supposed to buy it again and move on to something else. And the greatest thing that can happen is that you find something that you really, really like at a likely and affordable price. And affordability is so relative, right? Not only each of our purchasing power, but also what might be an inexpensive wine for me might be incredibly expensive for a

Chilean producer or what might be an inexpensive wine for Spain might be an incredibly inexpensive wine for single vineyard high quality Napa or Bordeaux or Burgundy these terroir driven wines and so you have both the singularities from the supply side and the demand side so now just explore I would say don't disregard second labels as second class citizens they're just

I think if we just taste them for what they are.

enjoy them for what they are and then form our own opinion, you are, again, that's not to you're going to like it, but at least you don't get this biased opinion that because it's not the flagship label, it might not be your favorite one. You'd be surprised even my immediate family, some of my immediate family members at times, if you ask them which is your favorite wine, they will tell you our second

label, Seventeen. it's arguably because it's just more their style. It's a little more fresh, a little not as complex, not as big as our collection. More approachable. me. so good for them, good for me that has to buy the wine. No, it's just like I said, it's just drink what you like.

best tip and best advice I can give anyone. Well, Hugo, this has been really enlightening. think from a perspective of where I sit, I've learned a lot about.

how second labels can come about. Sometimes it's specifically time sensitive opportunities. Other times it's early to market expanding the brand. And then other times it can be that you just have an excess of fruit and that gives the winemakers an opportunity to really experiment. And in any of those cases, it really can be a super opportunity for wine lovers to expand into wines that otherwise they might

not have ever had the opportunity to get their hands on. Absolutely. well thank you so much for your time today and obviously the delicious wine and cheers.

Kristi Mayfield (38:26)

What great insights we got from Hugo today. And if you loved this episode, would mean so much if you would pop over to Instagram and follow me at Kristy Everyday Sommelier. That's K-R-I-S-T-I Everyday Sommelier. And most importantly, you're going to want to make sure you're following this show because on next week's episode, we are having another special guest, Reed Patterson from Mount Eden Wines.

and he is going to help us dive into the history behind varietal labeling in the US because sometimes what's on the label isn't necessarily reflective of what's in the bottle. And we know it's an episode you're not going to want to miss. So cheers and learn wine your way.