Noticias 4trimestre 1998 English

Unfortunately we had to jump over the Newsletter of the third quarter of this year, and we are hereby presenting to you our 4th quarter issue. This missing newsletter was due to the fact that the editors of this newsletter -all the Market Access Europa's collaborators- were extremely busy with the arrival of the new vintage and the preparation of the new Christmas' season, which is so important for everybody.
Apart from that you will find in this issue a very extense comment on this year crop, not only for the Denominations of Origin in which MARKET ACCESS EUROPA is making business but also for those out of Catalonia, in order to give to our readers a better view of 1998 vintage. We invite you to make special attention to the new items chapter, where the novelty of the PRIORAT JOVE L'AGNET deserves a separate comment. in a few words, we hope that you will read us, to know us better.
Sincerely yours

What can we expect in the Spanish wine market after 1988 vintage?
The answer is not easy becatise of the results of this year crop and because of the prices at which the grapes have been paíd. The prices of the wines from the 97 season have not increased so much to make us suppose that the prices of the grapes of the 98 vintage would be so high. Our sincere opinion is that such prices, paid in most of the most prestigious Denominations of Origin of Spain, do not correspond to the reality of the market, where there are a great lot of different wines of different qualities. We cannot imagine how the consumer will react when these increases in the price of the grapes will be transferred to the favourite wines of every wine lover. Once again, the wine makers and wine distributors will have to keenly calculase their prices which logically will reduce the benefits in their loss and profit accounts.

The politics of T ACCESS EUROPA have always been to participase in the most prestigious contests. In this moment there is a contest in which we shall participase. lt is BACCHUS 98 whicli has to take place in Madrid at the beginning of December and that has been called by the Spanish Union of Wine Tasters. We have decided to present our red wine PRIORAT JOVE L'AGNET with Denomination of Origin "PRIORAT", and a young red wine from the Denomination of Origin "TERRA ALTA" which is ftilly commented in the paragraph of "novelties" of this newsletter. lt is a new young red wine made by Castell Bel Art and that will be distributed, of course, by Market Access Europa. We are convinced that these wine will win two awards, because of their outstanding good quality.

The magazine who will reccive our wine for perusal will be WINE ENTHUSIAST where weshall present the VIÑA MATER 91, MARQU´´ES DE CAMPO REAL, 93 and ALTAMAR 96. The classification of the said wine magazine is very important when one makes the offers to the customers. They trust en the marks given by their experts to the wines, because those experts are honest and independent. in the next Newsletter, we shall publish the results of both initiatives.

To our popular CREMA DE NARANJA CALISAY (Orange Cream Liquor), we add now its natural friend: CREMA DE LIMON CALISAY (Lemon Cream Calisay).
lt is presentes in a lemon form bottle and painted by hand and in cartons of 6 bottles.
A REAL PLEASURE AFTER ANY MEAL.

New presentations and new products of Market Access Europa. We have to present new items and this is what MARKET ACCESS EUROPA does by presenting and extraordinary product and very reduced sale: our brandy AGE INCONNU. it is a brandy more than 40 years old, made out of some magnificent and old wine spirits kept for ages in Limousin oak wood. We have bottled ¡t in a luxurious bottle in which the real golden letters show its name: BRANDY CHATEAU DE BEL ART.
The second item to be introduces tocl,ay nd from which we are very proud is the PRIORAT JOVE L'AGNET (Young Priorat red wine L'AGNET), that from the very first moment
of its launching in the market has deserved the favor of our customers either in the domestic market or in the foreign markets.It is an excellent wine, made out of grapes Red Garnatxa and Cariñena,from old wines planted on step hills

in the Priorat region. Because of its structure, they are rich and full in the mouth and they satisfy almost any wine drinker. Its keenly calculated price makes this item to be an unvoidable product in the good restaurants and specialized shops.

The harvest is finished! The 98 vinatge has been made in almost the whole Spain. And which has bcen the results? lf we had to qualify them with only one word ¡t would he easy: the 98 vintage has been good. The vintage has been good in quality in Catalonia but somewhat short in quantity. The drought has been severe in our country and the vineyards which were not irrigated, they have suffered thirst. The Summer has been quite warm, therefore the grapes have been small but highly concentrated. in sugars; therefore the wine will have to have high alcoholic strengths.
In the Penedès, the crop has been short and quite uneven results, as there have been many places where the hail made severe damages. Production can be calculated in a 15 to 20 % less than a normal crop. In Tarragona, the results have been similar although somewhat more abondant. In the Subzone Falset of the D.O. Tarragona, the quality of its red wines has been outstanding. We shall have to remember the 98 vintage. This is also valid for the TERRA ALTA where either white wines than red wines have been of an excellent quality as the grapes reached the right ripeness and obtained good sugar contents and high acidities.
The red wines will have a beautiful structure to age in wood and in bottles, for which this year is one of those in which it can be recommended to separate wines to make "crianzas" and "reservas". Something singular can be said for the Priorat area, although being this D.O. such a small region, quantities are obviously small. MARKET ACCESS EUROPA has bought, for the first time, a certain amount of grapes of the Denomination of Origin PRIORAT to make the first "crianza" wines after the great success of the young red Priorat wine L'AGNET that we launched last season.
The results in the rest of Spain are generally good in terms of quality but correspond to a medium size crop. Something to be said about this harvest is that we consider the prices paid for grapes in places like the D.O. RIOJA and the D.O. RIBERA del DUERO much too high and this makes the situation to be quite delicate for the new season wines.
The D.O.'s RUEDA and NAVARRA has been somewhat affected by this increase in the grapes prices too.