Why are Brazil’s sparkling wines spectacular? Tufi Meyer reveals the answers in Wines of Brazil

Natalie MacLean 00:00:00 Why are sparkling wines the most successful wines in Brazil? Is it the terroir? Is it something else that’s making them excel? How does double pruning and winter harvesting help Brazilian vineyards produce higher quality wines? And how did family farming traditions shape the country’s wine regions? And what is the crossover between coffee and grape cultivation? In today’s episode, you’ll hear the stories and tips that answer those questions in our chat with Doctor Tuffy Meyer, author of the fabulous new book Wines of Brazil. By the end of our conversation, you’ll also discover the biggest misconception about Brazilian wine how Brazil’s annual wine production compares to other South American producers like Argentina and Chile. Why Brazil’s wine industry hasn’t developed as much as those two countries have. How Portuguese colonial policies impacted the development of Brazil’s wine industry. How the country’s massive size and climate diversity influence viticulture. What is unique about tropical viticulture in Brazil? Why some Sierra wines from Brazil resemble those from the northern Rhone in France more than they do Australian Shiraz, and the challenges Brazilian vineyards face due to the humid climate in certain regions.

Natalie MacLean 00:01:31 Do you have a thirst to learn about wine? Do you love stories about wonderfully obsessive people, hauntingly beautiful places, and amusingly awkward social situations? Well, that’s the blend here on the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast. I’m your host, Natalie MacLean, and each week I share with you unfiltered conversations with celebrities in the wine world, as well as confessions from my own tipsy journey as I write my third book on this subject. I’m so glad you’re here. Now pass me that bottle, please, and let’s get started.

Natalie MacLean 00:02:13 Welcome to episode 354 on CTV Morning Live. We chatted about pairing wine and tomatoes in.

Natalie MacLean 00:02:22 Ode.

Natalie MacLean 00:02:23 To the tomato. Chilean poet Pablo Neruda described them as quote, the stars of the earth that are upon the table, belted by summer, and grant us the festival of ardent color and all embracing freshness and quote. Now is the time to indulge in tomatoes while they’re in season, with their thin skins that slide off plump, flesh like silk lingerie that yield their juicy, chin dripping pleasure, the opposite of those tired February pellets that taste like mid-winter Winter despair.

Natalie MacLean 00:02:57 Trying to be a little Neruda myself here. Tomatoes hang heavy in our backyards. They fill farmers market bins. And, as Neruda envisioned, quote, the streets filled with tomatoes. Midday summer light is halved like a tomato. Its juice runs through the streets. End quote. Take me away with you, Neruda. All right, so let’s imagine we’re going to eat an all tomato meal.

We’ll start with raw, uncooked tomatoes. These are the toughest on wine because of their high acidity. So I’d suggest a crisp white wine like an Austrian Grüner Veltliner or a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, both of which I call salad in a glass. They have this vibrant acidity to match the sliced tomatoes on a Caprese salad with buffalo mozzarella, basil and olive oil. Ingredients like basil and olive oil help soften the perception of acidity in tomatoes. Salting them achieves the same effect. In the 1950s, the Ristorante da Vincenzo on the Isle of Capri created the first Insalata Caprese. Grüner Veltliner would also work with gazpacho and other cold tomato-based soups, as well as tomato chutney.

Natalie MacLean 00:04:12 The pairing challenge isn’t so much the tomato, but the vinegar, which can wreak havoc on wine unless you have one with vibrant acidity to match, like an Italian Barbera. You could also try cool-climate Pinot Noir from Burgundy, Canada, New Zealand and Oregon, all of which have that edgy acidity and tartness needed for these tomatoes.

So what about sun-dried tomatoes or tomatoes that are served warm but not cooked? Sun-dried tomatoes are like grapes and people: the longer they hang around on the vine or the planet, the more they become themselves — concentrated, wizened versions. The drying process increases their umami flavour — that savoury deliciousness that comes from their high glutamate, an amino acid which concentrates and continues to rise as they ripen.

Umami is the fifth taste, along with sweet, sour, bitter and salty, that we detect in our mouths, and it signals high-protein foods so we salivate and produce digestive juices in response. Umami is great for our health, as are the other components in tomatoes, including antioxidants such as lycopene, which is believed to decrease the risk of certain cancers, heart disease, as well as overall inflammation.

Natalie MacLean 00:05:34 All tomatoes contain lycopene. Cooking them increases the bioavailability of lycopene, meaning your body can absorb and use it more efficiently. The heat breaks down the tomatoes’ tough cellular walls, releasing more lycopene, so tomato sauce, paste and soup often deliver more lycopene than raw slices. A little fat helps too — olive oil, cheese or avocado alongside tomatoes enhances lycopene absorption since it’s fat-soluble. Thanks for that explanation, ChatGPT. So when tomatoes are served warm but not cooked, try a zesty rosé or even a rosé cider or plain cider — your choice.

So do the wine recommendations change for other types of tomatoes? Yes, indeed, and I’m glad you asked. Not all tomatoes are created equal. Yellow, golden, and purple varieties are often sweeter than red, so they require a wine with a bit softer acidity and more ripe fruit aromas, like Chilean or Australian Pinot Noir. These have the juicy, ripe berry flavours that go well with these sweeter varieties.

And — I did not know this either — there are more than 175 varieties of heirloom tomatoes in various sizes, shapes, colours and tastes.

Natalie MacLean 00:06:53 I love walking through farmer’s markets and seeing all these things. I just want to take them home and not eat them. Just look at them. Of course, that would be wasteful. One of the most famous types of tomato is San Marzano, a plum tomato that’s longer and thinner than other tomatoes and is renowned for its flavor that balances sweetness and acidity. There are also cherry tomatoes and Coeur de buz, or ox hearts, also named for their shapes. What about cooked tomatoes in a dish like tomato sauce? Tomatoes serve cooked in a multi ingredient dish or sauce such as ratatouille or marinara makes them far less harsh in terms of the acidity. The cooking or roasting process brings out a more caramelized sweetness in tomatoes that further softens the acidity.

Many Italian reds are even described as having aromas and flavors of sun dried tomatoes. A juicy Italian red will complement with its ripe red fruit aromas, a touch of spice and some mouth awakening acidity.

And what about pizza? Neapolitan pizza, traditionally made with San Marzano tomatoes grown in the volcanic soils near Mount Vesuvius, are crushed into a simple sauce.

Natalie MacLean 00:08:09 Then we have the fresh mozzarella de buffalo, buffalo milk mozzarella or fior de latte. Cow’s milk mozzarella. How are you liking my accent so far? I can stop anytime. And then the toppings are fresh basil leaves and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. This is making me so hungry. So the two classic types of Neapolitan pizza. Number one pizza margherita. Tomato. Mozzarella. Basil representing the Italian flag. Colors red, white and green and pizza marinara. Tomato. Garlic. Oregano. Olive oil. No cheese.

So the cheese, though, in pizza Margherita really softens the acidity in the tomatoes. Try Canadian or German Riesling. So where can we find you in these wines online? Glad you asked. I’m on Instagram. I’m at Natalie MacLean wine and online. Of course. My website is Natalie MacLean. Com. I’ll post all of these pairings in the show notes at Natalie MacLean. 354. Back to today’s episode in case you like me, almost forgot about it. Two of you are going to win a copy of Two Fee Meyer’s terrific new book, The Wines of Brazil.

Natalie MacLean 00:09:19 If you’d like to win a copy, please email me and let me know you’d like to win. It doesn’t matter where you live, I’ll choose two winners randomly from those who contact me at Natalie at Natalie MacLean dot com and other bookish news. If you’re reading the paperback or e-book, or listening to the audiobook of my memoir, Wine Witch on Fire Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, defamation, and Drinking Too Much, a national bestseller in one of Amazon’s Best Books of the year. I’d love to hear from you at Natalie at Natalie MacLean. Com. Happy to send you signed bookplates. All right. On with the show. Tuffy Niedermeyer is a graduate of Brazil’s most prestigious medical school, UF IMG, with a PhD in surgery. He was then a professor at the University of Valle del Rio Verde for 40 years, and has been a wine educator since the 1990s. He holds a W SAT level five Honors diploma, as well as a Certified Educator Certificate on Sherry and Port, as well as he is a French Wine Scholar instructor.

Natalie MacLean 00:10:29 He lives and works in Brazil’s southeast region, teaching at the Wine School, Brazil, and has recently published The Wines of Brazil, part of the classic wine library of the Academy. And he joins us now from his home in Brazil. Welcome, Tuffy. We’re so glad you could join us.

Tufi Meyer 00:10:47 Hi, Natalie. Hi, everybody. It’s a very great satisfaction to be here.

Natalie MacLean 00:10:53 Excellent. Well, we are so pleased. You’ve got a fascinating history. So we’re going to dive right into it now. You have, like, an extensive, impressive background. I mean, you have a medical degree, and then you got a PhD in surgery. You have a long career as a university professor in a different field from wine. What led you to want to become a wine educator in the 1990s and then eventually a wine writer?

Tufi Meyer 00:11:20 Well, that’s a good question. I think that it is mainly because I love wine so much. Even my childhood, I may say I could join teaching at university with learning and teaching about wine.

Tufi Meyer 00:11:35 It was just of natural.

Natalie MacLean 00:11:38 And was wine part of the table on the family table when you were growing up, where you were allowed to have a little sip or whatever when you were a child?

Tufi Meyer 00:11:45 Yeah, but in this way my, father bought some sweet wine, a mix of just a little portion of wine with a large glass of water. Put more sugar in this refreshment. We could drink in only Sunday lunch.

Natalie MacLean 00:12:00 Okay, so in moderation for sure. Sounds like a nice introduction. Now, you mentioned that you began studying wines even before college, and that your fondness for wine started with a pink, sweet ish wine. Sweet, I should say. Made in San Paulo from labrusca grapes. It was curiously labeled astronaut. Like an astronaut, I guess. Where were you having this wine? Maybe you can tell us a little bit about whatever you remember from it.

Tufi Meyer 00:12:28 Yes. This was a wine that my father bought and allowed us to sip with water during Sunday lunches. And later we changed it from wine to other, from labrusca to until we started to know vinifera wines.

Tufi Meyer 00:12:44 And then things changed.

Natalie MacLean 00:12:46 That’s great. Astronaut. You mentioned that it’s impossible to thank everyone deserving of gratitude for their participation in your book. Is there one person who stands out who really helped you develop your understanding of Brazilian wine?

Tufi Meyer 00:13:02 Well, I think it would be unfair to mention just one person, but I should start with the Georgia tornado from Uganda. Sue, who devised the multi-criteria climate classification for a bit of culture and it was so very important in geographical indications also here in Brazil. Teacher two like me, he’s a very important person for wine in Brazil. I could mention many others.

Natalie MacLean 00:13:29 Okay, sure. Is he very much part of forming Brazil’s Appalachian system? Is that what you’re referring to?

Tufi Meyer 00:13:36 Yeah. He and his teams, they work at the inn and Vinho and Brava is a very important And government agency in Brazil developing agriculture. They have a wine division and he works there with a large team developing geographical indications.

Natalie MacLean 00:13:55 Great. And so, from your extensive travels throughout Brazil for this book, did you encounter any particular local traditions or dishes or pairings that are unique to Brazilian wine? Like, is there a pairing that stands out for you like a particular dish?

Tufi Meyer 00:14:13 Well, many in fact.

Tufi Meyer 00:14:15 But I would like to mention our facial adda, which is a heavy pork and black beans dish. Quite a lot of fat. It goes so well with our red sparkling wines made in the South, for example by Val Marino. This is a very good pairing in my opinion.

Natalie MacLean 00:14:35 And why does it work?

Tufi Meyer 00:14:37 Because despite the fat, in fact, this wine has a very high acidity that cuts the fat, as we say, works splendidly.

Natalie MacLean 00:14:48 Sparkling red wines. I didn’t realize that was a big thing in Brazil. I don’t know, I have to confess, I didn’t know a lot about Brazil wines until I started getting into your book. So this is all new to me. But how important are sparkling wines in Brazil?

Tufi Meyer 00:15:03 They are all important for us. They are the most successful type of lines in Brazil. The Reds are exceptions. Most are white and pink of course, but they are highly successful.

Natalie MacLean 00:15:15 Why are the sparkling wines the most successful wines? What is it about the wines of Brazil or the terroir that really makes them excel? I would have just assumed red still wines would have been your flagship wines.

Natalie MacLean 00:15:28 But why are sparkling wines more important?

Tufi Meyer 00:15:33 Well, we have all sorts of sparkling wines from traditional method make like champagne to sweet made from Muscat in the Asti fashion, passing through tank method sparklers. But all of them have a very important character. It’s fruit ripeness. Fruit is forward in Brazilian wines, maybe elegant sometimes or very well declared at other times, but it’s easy to perceive and it’s easy to like it together with the fresh character of our sparklers.

Natalie MacLean 00:16:12 I’d love to taste one. We just don’t get them here in Canada. But this is going to open people’s minds to traveling, to taste them there and to reading your book. So hopefully, maybe someday we’ll get them in the market here. What is the biggest myth or misconception about Brazilian wine that you’d like to say? Just not true.

Tufi Meyer 00:16:30 I think that by far the greatest misconception, including here in Brazil, is that our wines are not good or are not well made, or Either cannot equal other wines from other traditional cultures. They can most emphatically.

Tufi Meyer 00:16:46 We have a very, very large amount of good quality, wise, high quality to drink Brazilian wine. More?

Natalie MacLean 00:16:55 Yes, absolutely. Maybe paint us a picture. How much wine? On average? I know it’ll vary year to year, but how much wine does Brazil make each year? Say? And then maybe compare to, say, Argentina. Chile?

Tufi Meyer 00:17:09 Well, we make much less. Chile makes about ten, 11 million hectoliters of wine every year. China is the fourth, fifth largest producer of wine in the world. Not us. We make about 33. 5 million hectoliters per year, which is my way less than Chile and Argentina.

Natalie MacLean 00:17:33 Right. Okay. And maybe paint us a mental map for those who aren’t as familiar with South America. Where would we find Brazil on a map versus Chile and Argentina?

Tufi Meyer 00:17:46 Well, Brazil is the largest country in South America and the fifth largest country in the whole world. They have more than eight point 5,000,000km² area to compare. Chile has less than a million than Argentina 2.7.

Tufi Meyer 00:18:05 And so we are very much larger than all that countries in South America. Then we have borders with all except Chile and Ecuador. If you take the map of South America, it’s more much more like a, say, an inverted triangle. Most of it in the right of the map is Brazil.

Natalie MacLean 00:18:27 Okay. And now you. Very eloquent. You say we wine lovers know well how closely this blessed dram drink is linked to emotion. Is there a particularly emotional or memorable experience you had while researching or writing your book?

Tufi Meyer 00:18:45 Well, I have a lot of them, but something I don’t forget is when I went to a small winery in the center of Rio Grande do Sul, not the traditional winemaking region. This winery is called Valois Mansion. You see, I arrived there at the Sunday night late in that Sunday night, and they received me so well, so gentlemanly that I talked about their wines till late in the night. I cannot forget this. How well they did receive me.

Natalie MacLean 00:19:20 Oh, wow.

Natalie MacLean 00:19:20 Must have been a memorable evening. Were you on a deck or in their living room, or where were you talking in? Well, into the night.

Tufi Meyer 00:19:29 Well, inside their wineries, they have a very good tasting room, with a very large table made from one single prank of a regular season, three decorated tiles and submarines. They are so agreeable persons. The father Rubens and Linda Ferguson’s analogies. We could stay there for hours and hours alone. This adventure, monsieur?

Natalie MacLean 00:19:54 Yes. And so Brazil. Back to some of the key numbers. How much wine does it export? I’m assuming that’s minimal as well, compared to Argentina and Chile.

Tufi Meyer 00:20:06 You see, Chile is one of the largest wine exporters in the whole world. They make about $1 billion per year in wine exports. Argentina less, but not so much less. Brazil was dwarfed in the year’s end. Our exports reach a few million dollars a year, and though it’s so small amount that we cannot compare with those two giants, of course.

Tufi Meyer 00:20:31 But it’s growing slowly.

Natalie MacLean 00:20:33 It’s growing. Okay. And why is it a much smaller industry in Brazil? Is it because of the climate or is it the history? Or why hasn’t it developed as large as Argentina and Chile have?

Tufi Meyer 00:20:47 Well, we have history, we have geography, we have climate and traditions and a lot of other things. You see, we were ruled by Portuguese during centuries, and they wanted to send their wine to here and bring some time. We were forbidden to make wine.

Natalie MacLean 00:21:07 The Portuguese didn’t want the Brazilians to make their own wine.

Tufi Meyer 00:21:10 Yeah. So was that when in Portugal, in their early 1800s, marries the crazy Maria Loca, who forbade any manufacturer in Brazil, including wine.

Natalie MacLean 00:21:23 So they could export Portuguese wine over and sell it to Brazilians.

Tufi Meyer 00:21:26 Yeah, exactly. Precisely. It was. We had a very long time to recover and start winding again.

Natalie MacLean 00:21:36 I see. Okay. Now, Brazil is often perceived as a tropical country. But you argue that this view of the country is too superficial, given its vast complexity and heterogeneity.

Natalie MacLean 00:21:50 What is the region like? I mean, I’m sure it’s very diverse, but are there certain things you would highlight, like. Is there a mountain ranges or rolling hills or tropical forests or all of it? How would you describe the land?

Tufi Meyer 00:22:04 So this is a very complex contours, so large. You start in the north with a tropical rainforest, of course, but then near near in the northeast, it’s a desert. It’s semi-arid. You go down and you find a large amount of the country which is comprised by highlands. We call it here Planalto or Brazilian Highlands. And to the south you have mountains. You have flat terrain In, and the climate varies from very hot in the north to quite cold in the south. You have everything.

Natalie MacLean 00:22:41 And is there a region or area of the country where wine production is concentrated? Like is it the southeast or where would that be?

Tufi Meyer 00:22:50 During a long time, wine was mainly made into salt. In traditional viticulture, the salt has a climate which resembles that of Europe often or other places like this.

Tufi Meyer 00:23:04 But since some say 20 to 30 years, we have started to make wines in the tropics at 90 degrees latitude and also in the Central highlands, with double pruning and winter harvest. Then there is today not a single region making wine as before. Many are.

Natalie MacLean 00:23:23 Many are. And we should note that, of course, because you’re in the Southern hemisphere, your harvest is the opposite of North American and European harvest. You would harvest in maybe March or February, but also the farther south you go, the colder it gets, because you’re moving away from the equator, right?

Tufi Meyer 00:23:41 Yes, precisely.

Natalie MacLean 00:23:43 That’s why you’re equating the southeast with climates that are similar to Europe, because they would be cooler the more south you go.

Tufi Meyer 00:23:51 Yes.

Natalie MacLean 00:23:52 You recount the fascinating historical detail. I’m going to probably mispronounce a lot here, but brass Cuba’s its founding father of Brazilian viticulture, making the first wine in 1551. Is there much historical evidence that still exists today that relates back to what he was doing?

Tufi Meyer 00:24:17 Yes. Not much, but enough.

Tufi Meyer 00:24:19 We have documents, very old documents from such times, preserved at a convent in Santos, which is our main harbour city. They attest to this, the truth troops of wine being produced in San Paolo at such times. It’s a fascinating subject. It would be very good to have someone making a MSC or PhD study of such documents.

Natalie MacLean 00:24:46 Yeah, someone needs to sort them all out. Maybe you mix books.

Tufi Meyer 00:24:51 Not anymore.

Natalie MacLean 00:24:52 Okay. We won’t push you too hard. You’ve just come up with this book.

Tufi Meyer 00:24:56 Thank you.

Natalie MacLean 00:24:57 So you mentioned the role of colonels in Brazilian history, referring to wealthy landowners. How has the legacy of land ownership and agricultural practices, especially the coffee industry, shaped modern viticulture? So I want to tie in the two things, because you say Brazil is the world’s largest producer of coffee. Is there cross-over at all between coffee cultivation practices and viticultural techniques? Any influences or the way the land was farmed at all? Does one influenced the other.

Tufi Meyer 00:25:32 We must come back a bit into the 19th century.

Tufi Meyer 00:25:36 It was when the Italian immigrants arrived to ourselves, and they were given pieces of land at what is today our main wine producing region. And there were no canals at all, was there? Everybody was the owner of its own small piece of land. Then they developed family agriculture. Wine included. And there? There is no coffee there. Up till today, the climate does not allow. The relations between coffee and wine have started very much more recently, when double pruning and winter harvest developed here in a coffee region. And today is a. The vines are planted in the same places where coffee does well in slopes with little risk of frosts. Better drainage the rain many times together. Side by side. Grapes and coffee groves.

Natalie MacLean 00:26:35 Oh. That’s fascinating. I mean, we hear about grapes in Australia. There’s eucalyptus, minty eucalyptus trees growing close by. Sometimes the wine will have a minty flavour. Do the grapes or wines in Brazil get a coffee taste?

Tufi Meyer 00:26:51 I have tasted them. Not only me.

Tufi Meyer 00:26:53 We have. Many people have tasted our Sauvignon Blanc made by double pruning and winter harvest. Many of them have a taste or smell of green coffee beans. Oh that’s good. Would be related perhaps to the neighbourhood of the sculptures, but I cannot affirm it. It should be researched, certain, investigated.

Natalie MacLean 00:27:19 It’s another book that needs to be another PhD thesis.

Tufi Meyer 00:27:22 Yeah.

Natalie MacLean 00:27:23 We’re stocking them up here. Do the grapes and coffee beans kind of react the same way that the higher up you plant, the higher altitude, the colder it is, but the more acidity is retained in both the grapes and the coffee beans, and therefore the wine and the finished coffee.

Tufi Meyer 00:27:41 Yes, you can say so, because in higher terrain the temperature is lower. And this is good for coffee and grapes, although you cannot raise too much or it will be too cold for both.

Natalie MacLean 00:27:55 Sure, sure. Absolutely. We should get to that technique that you keep referring to because it’s fascinating. So you tell in your book that Brazil is unique in the world for having three distinct types of viticulture.

Natalie MacLean 00:28:09 So the traditional way of growing and harvesting grapes, tropical as well as something called DPW. And you’ve said it double pruning, winter harvesting. And so for our listeners, can you briefly explain the differences? Is. Let’s dive into double pruning. Winter harvesting? What does that mean?

Tufi Meyer 00:28:30 Say, if you plan to grow vines here in places where it is too humid and too warm in at harvest time, you won’t get good quality grapes. But if this place has a winter which is not too cold, which has sunny days and fresh nights, cool nights, you’ve succeeded in having the harvest during such a time. You have good grapes. That’s precisely what double pruning makes you prune. In January, you start a new growth cycle and the vines will be right in during your winter, which is exactly as I said. So the winter harvesting, dry time, sunny days, cold nights. This is very successful here.

Natalie MacLean 00:29:19 So are they getting two harvests? I’m probably messing this up, but are they getting two crops a year in these tropical regions.

Tufi Meyer 00:29:28 With double pruning and winter harvest as a normal harvests counselor. The growers just do not harvest the throwaways of grapes since there is only one harvest. But in tropical viticulture in the northeast, you have in fact more than two harvests a year. This seems strange, but it’s possible. In such regions, the fine grows without stopping. If you don’t stop it and you stop it by cutting their water supply. You can start a new cycle anytime just by irrigating, and the cycle is shorter than six months. So if you take an average of, say, ten years, 15 years and see how many harvests you had, you may have 2.3 2.5g per year average, of course.

Natalie MacLean 00:30:22 Wow. Wow. And so the grapes are growing in this lush environment, growing more quickly than they would anywhere else in the world. And so you can harvest twice, maybe even three times a year.

Tufi Meyer 00:30:33 Yeah, but it’s important to say that the environment is not lush at all. It’s semi-arid, its irrigation and the dry climates that allow this, I see.

Natalie MacLean 00:30:44 Okay.

Tufi Meyer 00:30:44 Yeah.

Natalie MacLean 00:30:45 It’s interesting you’re harvesting grapes after six months. Have they developed, you know, the phenolics, the the flavors and the complexity and the grapes, like they’re developing. They’re growing very quickly. So are they still producing complex wines?

Tufi Meyer 00:31:02 Yeah. So the rose cycle of the vine allows it perfectly. Of course, the vines in the northeastern of tropical viticulture, they have lower acidity than in cooler regions to compensate that, the fruit is very ripe. The wines are lush. The wines are lush for sure, and they are very agreeable.

Natalie MacLean 00:31:23 Well, I suppose if you’ve got a country where it never gets cold enough for the vines to have to go to sleep or to winter, they just keep producing and you would get those double harvests. Yeah.

Tufi Meyer 00:31:35 We have. True dormancy only means of salt and the deep salt there. The vine enters dormancy. Otherwise known.

Natalie MacLean 00:31:43 That is fascinating. So there’s that type. The double pruning. Winter harvesting. DP what is tropical viticulture? How does it differ from, say, traditional viticulture or what we just talked about? What’s special about tropical viticulture?

Tufi Meyer 00:32:00 Well, first of all, of course, it’s a viticulture that happens in tropical places, say at nine degrees south.

Tufi Meyer 00:32:09 It’s very near the equator. In such regions, it’s very warm and you have to adapt the grapes to such an environment. It’s precisely Exercises there is that you can control the number of harvests you have, the number of cycles you have just by that water supply. If you could, no growth. If you give, you have it right.

Natalie MacLean 00:32:35 You also note that these double pruning winter harvest Syrah wines tasted more like those from the northern Rhone in France than from, say, Australia and their Shiraz. Why would that be?

Tufi Meyer 00:32:49 It’s mainly because in winter harvest we are getting grapes in a cooler environments and the Australian do. Think about, for instance, McLaren Vale or Barossa. It’s quite warm there when harvest happens here in our winter. Syrah does very well with the best adapted varieties so far, and the wines resemble those of northern Horn by having savoury ness by having pepper. black pepper and bacon smoke. And they are quite complex here. And a fresh acidity. Yeah, they are quite good.

Natalie MacLean 00:33:30 Okay.

Natalie MacLean 00:33:31 Do you discuss the challenge of one year? There was such excessive rainfall during the flowering of the vines. It lowered yields to less than 41% in 2023. That’s got to be a huge challenge. Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed our chat with toffee. Here are my takeaways. Number one, why are the sparkling wines the most successful of all Brazilian wines? As two for explains, Brazil has all sorts of sparkling wines from traditional method like they do in champagne to sweet made from Muscat in a very zesty fashion. Also tank method sparklers. But all of them have one very important character. It’s fruit ripeness, because fruit is so forward in Brazilian wines they can still be elegant or, as he says, very well declared at other times. But it’s easy to perceive them and easy to like them. There’s also very fresh character to their sparklers. Number two how does double pruning and winter harvesting help Brazilian vineyards achieve higher quality wines? As to if, he explains, if you plant vines here in places where it’s too humid or warm at harvest time, you will not get good quality grapes.

Natalie MacLean 00:34:49 But if the site of planting is sunny days and cool nights, if you’ve succeeded in having the harvest during such a time, you’ll have a good harvest. That’s precisely what double pruning means. You prune in January, you start a new growth cycle. The vines will be ripened during Brazilian winter. Then you have winter harvesting. Sunny days, cool nights. It’s very successful approach in Brazil. And number three, how did family farming traditions shape Brazil’s wine regions? And what’s the crossover between coffee and grape cultivation? As toughie says, we must go back a bit in time to the 19th century, when Italian immigrants arrived and were given plots of land. That’s what today is called Sara Gaucha, the main wine producing region in the country. The relationship between coffee and wine started only recently, when double pruning and winter harvesting developed in the coffee region. Today, the vines are planted in the same places where coffee does well on the slopes, with little risk of frost, better drainage and many times they’re together side by side.

Natalie MacLean 00:35:56 In the show notes, you’ll find a full transcript of my conversation with Tuffy links to his website. The video versions of these conversations on Facebook and YouTube live, and where you can order my book online now, no matter where you live. Even in a Brazilian rainforest, if you missed episode 266, go back and take a listen. I chat about a Wine lover’s guide to South America’s Hidden Vineyards from the Andes to the Amazon, with author Amanda Barnes. I’ll share a short clip with you now to whet your appetite.

Amanda Barnes 00:36:28 Tone of death is easy to drink. Those slightly more serious tests are much more kind of elegant and focused and fresh. I think those are beautiful wines for Asian cuisine or sushi or, you know, those aromatic grape varieties like Romina or Muscat that has lots of kind of flavors of its own, and they work quite nicely with slightly spicier foods, which can be hard to pair with other wines. You need to make sure that you know that your dish is equally as aromatic and flavorful, and then also it’s quite light bodied, so, you know you don’t want to go down the road of heavy meat or cream.

Amanda Barnes 00:37:03 So those are my recommendations. Asian cuisine and sushi. And still by the swimming pool.

Natalie MacLean 00:37:09 Yeah.

Natalie MacLean 00:37:10 Absolutely. You won’t want to miss next week when we continue our chat with toffee. If you liked this episode or learned even one itsy bitsy thing from it, please email or tell a friend about the podcast this week. Do not leave me here alone. Especially someone you know who be interested in learning more about the wines of Brazil. Most people don’t know a lot about the wines of Brazil. It’s easy to find the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast. Just tell them to search for that name or mine Natalie MacLean wine. On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, their favorite podcast app. Or they can listen to the show on my website at Natalie MacLean. Email me if you have a tip, question, or would like to win one of two copies of The Wines of Brazil. Beautiful, beautiful book. I’d also love to hear your thoughts on this episode, or if you’ve read my book or are listening to it.

Natalie MacLean 00:38:07 Email me at Natalie at Natalie MacLean. Com. In the show notes, you’ll also find a link to take a free online food and wine pairing glass with me called the five Wine and Food Pairing Mistakes That can Ruin Your Dinner. Oh, and how to fix them forever. Yay! At Natalie MacLean. And that’s all in the show notes at Natalie MacLean. Com forward slash 354. Thank you for taking the time to join me here. I hope something great is in your glass this week. Perhaps a Brazilian wine that’s new to you. You don’t want to miss.

Natalie MacLean 00:38:45 One juicy episode of this podcast, especially the secret full bodied bonus episodes that I don’t announce on social media. So subscribe for free now at Natalie MacLean. Com subscribe. Meet me here next week. Cheers.