Vampire Wine

Vampire Wine. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

This coming Saturday is Valentine’s Day and you might want to start thinking about what you are going to do for your loved one. Mike Machat has a suggestion. Wine and chocolate.

MACHAT: We found this great chocolate and I had the idea of doing a vampire chocolate anyway so we branded it Vampire Chocolate and we’ve basically matched it with our Chateau du Vampire wine, a Bordeaux blend that is 60% cabernet franc, 30% cabernet sauvignon and 10% Malbec. And so it goes good with the chocolate.

Vampire wine? Machat is owner of Vampire wines a southern California winery that used to bring in wines actually from Transylvania. The Vampire label does seem to catch ones eye.

MACHAT: We appeal to a lot of new wine drinkers and they don’t know what to buy, everything is confusing. They may think they want Merlot but which Merlot but then if they see a name like Vampire – it’s kind of a friendly name. It brings up pleasurable memories and so they choose that and the other thing too is that once they try it and they like it they don’t forget the name.

Machat says the idea for a Vampire wine first bit him in the 80’s.

MACHAT: In ’94 I put everything together and started bringing Romanian wine into the U.S. under the Vampire name and from ’95 through 2006 the wine came from Transylvania.

Now the wine comes from California and France although Machat is looking at some Pinot from Oregon and Washington.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.