Changes Afoot in NM: Gruet/NoisyWater

Some big changes afoot in the NM wine scene. No…my posts are not agonna come short/interesting or long/interesting. They’ll always be boring. Goes w/ the poster.

NoisyWater Wnry, based in Ruidoso, NM (up in the Eastern Mtns of NM) has recently purchased the Gruet vnyds over in the high-desert of Engle, NM. Since farming a vnyd is a high-cost operation, I’m not surprised that Gruet has abandoned that part of their operation. When PreceptBrands bought out the Gruets about 4 yrs ago, they intended to triple the production of Gruet. No way would there be enough grapes in NM to do that feat. So they started bringing in juice/wine from Precept’s home base of WashState. So now Gruet is only putting the bubbles in the wine down in Albq, NM. It is no longer a NM wine, all pretenses tossed aside. The front label says “Proudly Produced in NM” but on the back label, in tiny print, it says “American Sparkling Wine”, reflective of its WashState origins. A bit deceptive, I would suggest. And the quality of their sparkling wine has decreased somewhat to my taste. But it is still a decent cheap sparkler…just not a NM wine.

NoisyWater is a wnry over in Ruidoso (which translates as “noisy waters”). The owner/winemaker is one Jasper Riddle, whose credentials include running a T-Shirt shop in Rudioso. The wnry focuses on sweet & flavored wines and wines with cutsey names (“Tighty Whities” white, “Jo Mamma’s Mango Tango”, “Big Legs Red”, “Unbearably Good”…loaded w/ berry/beary flavors). Those are mostly priced in the $20’s. The “serious” wines (Chard/Aglianico/Montepulciano/PinotNoir/Malbec…) are all priced up in the $40-$50 price range, probably the most expensive wines made in NM. I tasted thru the complete range in their SantaFe tasting room about a yr ago. Most of the cheaper wines were waaaay too sweet to my taste. The “serious” wines were not very good, rather earthy & rustic & coarse, and overpriced by about a factor of two. Most of the wines are made from purchased grapes, mostly from Paola d’Andrea’s vnyds down in Deming, an area too hot for growing premium wines. I gather the SF tasting room is doing fairly well…preying on the SF tourist trade I suppose.
So it will be interesting to what their Estate Pinot & Chard will be like. Probably the first NM wine to breech the $50/btl price range I suspect.

But there are some NM wines that are quite good. Vivac, up in Dixon, and Black Mesa, located in Velarde, both making wines from mostly Northern NM grapes, are easily the best. BlackMesa has recently hired a young lady, Kelsie Traynam, who has winemaking experience from around the World. I expect their quality to ratchet up more.
Tom

I’d say the move with the Gruet wines is a lot deceptive, and frankly, I wish the authorities who approve labeling wouldn’t allow that sort of thing.

Too bad what happened to Gruet. Sad to hear that vineyards that can produce decent grapes might now be in the wrongs hands to reach their full potential.

I followed Gruet from the beginning (sorry, couldn’t resist). I met the family when they were pouring at Zachy’s in 2001. The story they told me was that they were vacationing in NM. The kids really liked the US and wanted to stay. The father was looking around and saw a high plateau and said, “That looks like a great place to grow grapes for champagne.” I really liked it and bought two cases, one white and one rose. Too bad the purchaser took a producer’s selection of good geography based upon a family that had been growing grapes for generations and turned it into a brand with grapes grown a thousand miles away.

Not surprised one bit. Gruet sold out and the name is just a name. Was a great option for inexpensive sparkling for a good many years.

Yes Gruet has been sliding downhill for years now. I remember visiting the tasting room in 2014 or ‘15 before learning of the sale and thinking “WTF?”. The sparkling and still wines were all low quality. Oh well.

I also thought they aged well. I sat on a few cases and was very pleased.

Great to see Black Mesa called out. Jerry and I spent a lot of time together at the same little Willamette Valley winery when I was in college. He officiated our marriage before moving down to New Mexico. We paid him in wine :slight_smile:. Lots of good memories evoked with this boring post.

Cheers,
fred

Yeah, Fred. When Jerry & Linda took over BlackMesa a fair number of yrs back, the wines took a (small) ratchet upward in quality, but were
still somewhat unthrilling compared to Vivac. But some 5 yrs ago, he hired KarlJohnsen and CraigDunn as winemakers and the
wines took a big jump in quality. Under Kelsie, I expect them to get even better.
What I like that Jerry is doing is encouraging folks in Northern NM to plant grapes for him. He still sources a lot of his grapes
from Paola down in Deming, but does a particularly good job w/ them and the wines don’t show the characteristic sagebrush/chamisa
herbality that wines from Paola’s grapes often have. I like Jerry&Linda quite a lot…good people.
Tom

Jay,

The Gruet story is actually more marketing than truth. A different Champagne family (Godme) was actually in New Mexico first and scouted/found the locations that eventually became Gruet’s vineyards, but they ran out of time in terms of being commercially viable and had to return home. The Gruet family followed their lead, learned from their good choices and mistakes, and, most importantly, had more financial capability to get through the challenges of startup.

It is a shame to see what Gruet has become today. The wines often tended to give me a headache, but the NV Blanc de Noirs, Grand Rose (with bottle age), and Gilbert Gruet were really nice wines back in the day.