Tag Archives: Ole & Obrigado

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Winecast 57: Patrick Mata of Ole & Obrigado and imported wine during the pandemic

patrick mata
Patrick Mata, right, and Alberto Orte of Ole & Obrigado. “American companies are paying the tariff. How does that punish Europe?”

Patrick Mata:  U.S. companies are paying the wine tariff – how does that punish the European Union for airplane subsidies?

Want to make sense of the European wine tariffs, which seem to make no sense at all? Then listen to Patrick Mata, whose Ole & Obrigado is one of the leading Spanish wine importers to the U.S.

“I thought we might go out of business,” says Mata, whose company specializes in importing quality, $15 or less wine from Spain and Portugal. “Our margin is 30 percent on a bottle of wine, and the tariff is 25 percent. How were we going to stay in business?”

The good news is that Ole & Obrigado did, despite the tariff and the pandemic (which clobbered its restaurant business). Sales fell only 20 percent in 2020, which Mata considered a victory of immense proportions.

Mata, a long-time friend of the blog, was open and honest about how the tariff and the pandemic have hurt the wine business. Among the topics we talked about:

• Why raising prices to cover the tariff doesn’t work, and why it especially doesn’t work for the $15 wines that Ole specializes in.

• How to give back during a crisis, and why there should be more to the wine business than just making money.

• What Americans are drinking during the pandemic, and why it’s a victory for Big Wine at the expense of small producers — another unintended consequence of the tariff.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 15 minutes long and takes up 9 megabytes. Quality is mostly excellent – Zoom didn’t act up this time.

Wine of the week: Zestos Blanco 2018

zestos blancoZestos Blanco, a Spanish white, is the kind of great cheap wine everyone wishes they could make

Being cheap isn’t enough to make a great cheap wine. Otherwise, the $10 Hall of Fame would be little different from a list of the country’s best-selling $8 supermarket labels. That difference can be seen in the Zestos Blanco, which is both cheap and marvelous.

How marvelous? A friend of mine, who enjoys the wines I recommend but pays little attention otherwise, tasted it the other day and said: “I’ve had this before, haven’t I? I remember it, because it’s so well made compared to the rest of the stuff I buy at the grocery store. Which all mostly tastes the same.”

The Zestos Blanco ($10, purchased, 12%) is a Spanish white made with malvar, a grape found mostly in and around Madrid. It produces a crisp, almost lime-infused, tropical sort of wine that is bone dry and has surprising body (but isn’t tart). That combination makes it an especially wonderful food wine, be it Chinese takeout or something as complicated as roast salmon.

Highly recommended, and certain to return to the 2020 $10 Hall of Fame; also, a candidate for the 2020 Cheap Wine of the Year.

Finally, a note about the importer, Ole & Obrigado. Patrick Mata, who runs Ole, is one of the smartest people I’ve met in the wine business. He is also one of the most stand-up: He returns phone calls and emails, answers questions honestly, and is unfailingly polite.

I mention this because his company, and everyone he employs, could suffer dramatically from the 25 percent European wine tariff. I’ve tried not to beat up on the tariff more than necessary on the blog, but it’s worth noting again the financial harm it could cause Ole and dozens of other small- and medium-sized importers. Trade policy is just not imperial pronouncements. It’s also the people we overlook when we’re making those imperial pronouncements.