There’s a new vodka on the block, and it traces its roots to Argentina, where a Hungarian American team is producing the world’s first single-grape vodka, Primo Vodka. According to a Financial Times article, “Smoother and more fragrant than many Polish or Russian potato or grain-based counterparts, Primo Vodka made an auspicious debut, winning a silver medal at the International Wine and Spirits Competition in England in 2007 only half a year after its launch. It then scooped top honours – double gold – at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in March.”
How does Primo, distilled from wine from Argentina’s Malbec region, measure up? A report by Joel Chusid, who worked hard to hunt a bottle down in Buenos Aires, says, “This is not a flavored vodka, although somehow there’s the very slight suggestion of a grape aroma. It made a great vodka and tonic, even without the lime. I was sold.” Patterson’s The Tasting Panel Magazine reports, “[V]arnishy nose; thick and creamy with dry, rich fruit flavors with some earthiness.”
Primo has released 10,800 bottles in the United States and is hoping to expand its distribution by this summer. It might take a little looking to find a bottle, but I’m willing to give it a try. Malbec martini, anyone?
“distilled from wine from Argentina’s Malbec region”
Malbec is a grape, not a region. Mendoza, home to some of Argentina’s best Malbec vineyards, is a region.
Technically, distilled wine is brandy. Calling it vodka is just a clever way to get more money for what would otherwise be a difficult sell. “Hey! Want to try a glass of the newest, unaged brandy from Argentina?” Not very appealing that way.
This is exactly what Ciroc vodka from France is. Millions of gallons of unwanted, cheap wine were bought up, distilled, put into a “designer” bottle and sold at a premium price to Americans who are too insecure to buy anything that doesn’t have a celebrity endorsement (Sean Combs shills Ciroc) and too stupid to taste and judge for themselves.
OK, sheep… let me hear you say “Baaaa!”
Sommelier
I’m the guy making Primo vodka…….. and would like to tell you about the difference beetwen brandy and vodka made from wine. When you distil brandy you run the wine through the still one time cuting the head, and the tail and keeping your heart section which will be about 69 to 75% alcohol depending on the wine you started from. Lots of impurities but that is what you need for aroma and taste.
When I make the vodka I distil three times and in the end the alcohol coming off the still is about 95.5% — what you have to have to call it vodka.
Very clean distilate without almost no inpurities, the reason I say almost is because there is alway some left. People who are making vodka from potato or grain clean it with aggressive filtering (charcol filter). But with wine i have the opposite philosophy. I want to keep the little aroma left after three distillations because I started with something ( Malbec wine) that has lots of desirable aroma.
When you are making it from grains and potatos the only game you have is to make it as clean as possible or ad artificial or real flavoring.
I’m making it from 100% Malbec grapes.
So technically it is NOT an unaged brandy!
The other thing I would like to mention Mendoza is called the Malbec region because I think in the last count there are about 1600 winerys cultivating Malbec grapes in a 200 km radius.
So can you say……… Baaa!
My dear Mastino32562,
My Oxford English Dictionary is at home, and I’m in my office, so I’ll refer you to the citation from wikipedia.com:
Brandy (derived from brandywine, from Dutch brandewijn—’burnt wine’[1]) is a general term for distilled wine, usually 40–60% ethyl alcohol by volume. In addition to wine, this spirit can also be made from grape, pomace, or fermented fruit juice. Unless specified otherwise, brandy is made from grape wine.[2] It is normally consumed as an after-dinner drink. Brandy made from wine is generally coloured with caramel coloring to imitate the effect of long aging in wooden casks; pomace and fruit brandies are generally drunk unaged, and are not usually coloured.
Throughout history, brandies have been distilled from less than outstanding wines. If the wines are good to begin with, why strip away almost every bit of the aroma and flavor that make it so good? Can anyone name a single brandy made from outstanding wine?
You write: “When you distil (sic) brandy you run the wine through the still one time”. Have you ever heard of brandy from an area (not a grape) called Cognac? The brandies there, called Cognacs, are distilled twice.
If you distill wine, it is brandy, no matter what you call it in order to sell it.
There are literally dozens of “premium” vodkas on the market that buy their alcohol from either Archer-Daniels-Midland or Grain Processing Corp., the same companies who supply the same alcohol to the bottlers of cheap vodka. Their spirit is 95% ethyl alcohol, devoid of color, aroma and taste. Water, sugar and glycerine is added, and either a cheap looking or a “designer” bottle is used, an ad campaign is put together, and the vodka is put on the market.
What, then, is the difference between $8 crap vodka and $60 luxury vodka? In a word: Marketing.
See the Wall Street Journal article:
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB118859310163314946-lMyQjAxMDE3ODM4MTUzOTEzWj.html
Seven years ago, teaching for the Sommelier Society of America, I began having our students blind taste Smirnoff against Grey Goose. Why Grey Goose? They became an easy target when they claimed that they were the “best tasting vodka in the world”. In every class, Smirnoff was preferred by a majority of the students. The tasting was an exercise to demonstrate that that one should thrust not an advertising campaign or a celebrity’s endorsement but your own palate. Do otherwise and… Baaaaaa.
PS
Would you please give me a citation for calling Mendoza “the Malbec Region”. None of my my books support that.
“What, then, is the difference between $8 crap vodka and $60 luxury vodka? In a word: Marketing.”
My mistake! What I meant to write was: “What, then, is the difference between MANY $8 crap vodkas and $60 luxury vodkas? In a word: Marketing.”
The Smirnoff blind taste (which was notably done on a larger scale by Eric Asimov for the New York Times) shows that there truly is a difference in vodkas… but it often is not in proportion to the price charged.
My dear Sommelier
Im reading your reply and I think you either did not understand my comments or I was not clear enough.
I was not talking about brandy but the difference between wine based brandy and wine based vodka which PRIMO is.
So…. the difference beetwen wine brandy and vodka made from wine is the level of cleaness from inpurities.
Brandy has a lot of impurities. This is the reason it tastes, and smells a lot richer. And, vodka from wine which has almost no inpurities, hence not as much taste and smell.
The reason I told you about the alcohol percent when it leaves the still is because that is an easy measure to see the cleaness of the distillate, the higher the alcohol level, the cleaner: less inpurities, less taste , less smell.
So again vodka can be made from wine and other materials as long as the last distillation acheives about 95% alcohol level (and is clearly written on the bottle what kind of base material is used in making of the spirit, EU ruling).
The kind of wine you use for distillation, bad or good, is not relevent for vodka or brandy, it’s more the percentage of the alcohol in the wine to begin with and the level of sulfates or rather the lack of sulfates,…. because you will only get the “spirit” of the wine in either case….brandy more……. vodka less.
So again if you distill wine enough you get vodka.
I personally rather drink a spirit distilled from wine (which has flavour to begin with) than from potatos or grain, of which you can’t make flavour. That is why there are so many added flavoured vodkas on the market( melon, lemon, berrys etc) all added to it after distillation not like Primo or other wine based vodkas that start with it.
Coming back to your Cognac remark, if you have ever been in France in a distillery you would see the type of alambic thay use for 100s of years. It is not a modern “plate system” still but an old ( but very good) still form which is not as efficient as the “plate system. So to get the same result thay have to distill 2 time and not one.
Now I arrived to a pont where I agree with you a 100%….
the designer vodkas which simply buy grain alcohol put some flavouring in to it and market it to the public.
You are right because they are made from the same material, mass distilled and put in different packaging.
Yes you are right Marketing is a big part of the pricing difference, if you sell the same thing you have to put it in different packaging to sell it.
You are again right that everybody should try and make up their own mind about what they drink ………but I guess some people are stronger than others and some have less style and taste, and it’s those who are looking for some guidance and that is where the celebrities come in.
But I dont think this is only about Americans. Look at the English — the ultimate celebrity endorsment of various products from cutlery to rain gear coming from the Queen of England for 100s of years.
I think when Mendoza become the 8th Wine Capital of the World
I heard it first called “The Malbec Region” and when I drive around the wineries I always see old signes with the wording of
“Tierra de Malbec,” the land of Malbec. Probably that is why the journalist called it the Malbec region because that is how Mendoza is referred to by many people in the wine business.
PS: I read it somewhere that an American made wine based vodka called Roth is giving a percentage of their sales to the Sommelier Society of America to get their endorsment?
Is this true?……..Another celebrity endorsment?
Should I do the sheep thing?…….ohh ok Baaaaaaaaa
My Dear Mastino, The Sommelier Society of America does not give, sell or trade endorsements of wines or spirits. We were founded in 1954 to set standards for the profession and to educate restaurant professionals, and have been teaching continuously since then. In the past few years, several other groups have sprung up which have the word “Sommelier” in their title. (At least one that I know of has tried to present themselves as the “official” group… whatever that may mean, and I can think of at least one other that would endorse anything for a quick dollar.) Perhaps it is one of these groups that is endorsing Roth vodka.
In 1995 the Robert Mondavi winery very generously raised money and donated money from the sale of their wines to help finance our trip to compete in the international “Sommelier Olympics” in Tokyo. They did not ask for, or receive any kind of endorsement… only our sincere thanks. There was a brief period when a few people took over the S.S.A. and did somehow bestow endorsements of some kind. I had resigned in disagreement and disgust with them just before that happened, and stayed away for a few years, until they split off and founded their own group and I was invited back as Education Director by the new Board. I’m glad (and proud) to say that those days are long past.
Also… please do not think that I was in any way being derisive about your vodka. I trust my palate, and I am looking forward to sampling Primo in the near future.
All the best to you.