Brazil - Faces 2013

I am not really a fond of football (despite being Italian!) but the FIFA World Cup remains an event that affects, for at least one month, billions of people. My interest in this competition rose immediately when I discovered that there was an official wine! It took a while to find it in Europe but finally I got a bottle … just in time to see the Italian team playing!

The Vineyard

In 1875 first families of Italian immigrants from Veneto arrived in Brazil and settled in the region of Rio Grande do Sul. Among them there were the Carraro. They started cultivating and producing fruit. Only one century after the family moved to the production of wine, under the footprint of Lidio Carraro who was at that time a pioneer of the cultivation of Merlot in the area.

The region benefits of an average temperature of 17.2° C with marked excursions between night and day, creating the ideal conditions for the cultivation of the vine.

From the very beginning of his adventure, he embraced and sustained a philosophy of purity in the production of wine, meaning less intervention both in the field and in the cellar, letting the terroir and the grapes express all their best. And no wood, not to alter the original taste of the wine. The result is a wide range of wines, all selected to be the best representatives of Brazil and its possibilities. The winery as we know it now was established in 2001 and from 2005 started to receive national and international awards. The Carraro won the selection to produce the official wine of the FIFA World Cup 2014 and they named it Faces.

The wine

Faces 2013 is an assemblage of 11 different grapes, as many as the players of a football team. Each grape is vinified separately and then it has been a hard job for the oenologist to find the right balance among all these grapes; as reported on their website they did some tests before reaching their goal; the outcome is a “grapeball” team:

Goalkeeper: Malbec (in charge of the aftertaste, it gives aromas of fruits and sweet spices)

Defenders: Tannat, Nebbiolo, Ancellota and Alicante (in charge of the structure of the wine)

Midfielders: Pinot Noir, Tempranillo, Touriga Nacional and Teroldego (dedicated to the aroma and the body, they provide the aroma of plums, chocolate, violets and raspberries)

Forwarders: Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon (the most present in the assemblage and the first wines detected during the taste)

Vinification is then conducted in temperature-controlled stainless steel vats for a period variable from 12 to 18 months.

Tasting Note

Date	20 June 2014
Wine name	FACES	Vintage	2013
Nation	Brazil	Region	Rio Grande do Sul
AOC-DOC	//	Grape Varieties	Malbec, Tannat, Tempranillo, Nebbiolo, Ancellota, Touriga Nacional, Alicante, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Teroldego.
Serving temp.	16-18° C	Alcohol	13
Price (in euro)	10

Visual Examination		Taste analysis
Limpidity	Limpid	Body	Weak
Color	Ruby Red	Balance	Quite Balanced
Consistency	Scarcely consistent	Soft sensations	Quite Warm
Effervescence	//	Hard sensations	Quite Tannic
		Flavors intensity	Scarcely intense
Olfactory analysis		Flavors	Sweet spices, fruits
Aroma intensity	Quite intense
Complexity	Quite complex	Finish/Persistence	Scarcely persistent
Quality	Quite Fine	Overall evaluations
Aromas	Raspberries, plums, violets	Development	Ready
	chocolate	Harmony	Quite Harmonious

Food pairing

The best suggested pairing is with pizza. Other good matches with grilled meats, churrasco and mature cheese.

I bought this wine for two main reasons: first of all I wanted to taste a wine from Brazil; in addition I have been sincerely and positively shocked by the marketing campaign that has supported this product. The Carraro family has been able to present a bottle of wine enough fresh and light to be paired with the heat of the world cup matches. It means a wine quite young, to be drunk now, without any pretension to rewrite the history of wine. The result is: I bought the bottle; but I didn’t really enjoy what was inside.

Official website : www.lidiocarraro.com/worldcupwine