As a longtime sommelier in Edmonton, Margaux Burgess has been able to track wine trends, and she sees how a new generation of drinkers is different than any that came before. The younger set doesn’t drink as much as those who came before them. And, when they do, they like cocktails or the canned soda-liquor beverages. Wine is losing out.
These drinkers don’t want to spend import prices, $40 or more per bottle, for something they’re not sure they’re going to like.
“People are less likely to take risks,” Burgess says. “The hardest part is getting younger consumers to drink wine.”
So, Burgess has branched out and created her own label, Flaurell, with affordable bottles that feature some very interesting vintages from around the world. The idea is not to sell a factory wine with a fancy label, but to bring quality without the snobbery.
Flaurell’s first release is Vinho Verde Loureiro, a white from a family vineyard located about an hour’s drive north of Porto, Portugal. For Burgess, it was important to get an official quality designation, so drinkers know they’re not getting a blended wine with added sugars. The Portuguese vineyard dates back to the 1500s — and generation after generation of the same family have tended the land. And, Burgess worked with them to ensure the 220 cases would not be like any other. This is important because, with many private-label wines, it’s like store-label groceries — you are getting the same stuff, it’s just put out under different labels.
“A lot of the $20 dollar wines are mass produced, and they have no sense of place,” she says.
And, the label clearly describes what the wine is about. It cuts through the snobbery.
“There’s a communication problem between the wine industry and the consumers who want to drink wine,” she says.
Flaurell is available at about 20 liquor stores throughout Alberta. It is coming to Saskatchewan in the coming weeks, and Burgess has just made an application to get the wines listed in Manitoba. Then, the next step is to put out a red wine sourced from another part of the world, possibly the United States. The goal is to have three flagship wines — a white, red and rosé.
And while she believes the wine is sophisticated enough for the aficionados to enjoy, she believes it’s got a solid mix of fruit and saline characteristics to be shared at parties or enjoyed with a meal. (Just don’t use the word “approachable” around her — it’s a term she’s grown to hate.)
“It’s meant to be enjoyed, not pontificated about.”
