By Rick VanSickle
For Foreign Affair winery owners Len and Marisa Crispino, it has been one a heck of wild ride in a short period of time. But it certainly hasn’t always been an smooth journey.
The Vineland winery was the first to devote the majority of its wines made in a true Amarone (drying of grapes) style. While it was a dream for the likeable couple to make appassimento wines in Niagara at the highest end of the quality spectrum, it was a polarizing decision in Niagara at the time and was especially decried by some wine critics from Toronto.
WineAlign writer John Szabo wrote this at the time:
“While appassimento can and does produce top-notch wines, most of what I’ve tasted from Ontario has not been successful and is not worth a premium.”
His WineAlign colleague David Lawrason piled on two weeks after that post with similar comments. (You can read more on that debate here)
Those comments put a fire in the belly of Len Crispino and just drove his passion even further to continue his quest for appassimento wines.
“Oh, yes, we had doubters,” Crispino told me at the time. “But we pursued our dream.”
Their dream, their vision and relentless drive to make quality appassimento wines despite the obstacles and naysayers came full circle on Friday with the sale of the winery to Canadian drinks giant Corby Spirit and Wine Limited for an eye-popping $6.2 million.
The sale sent a tsunami of excitement throughout Niagara. It’s the second consecutive sale of a Niagara winery (or collection of Canadian wineries) to be sold to a Canadian company in a matter of months. The other was the sale of Constellation Brand’s Canadian assets (Jackson-Triggs, Inniskillin, etc.) to the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund (now renamed Arterra Wines Canada).
Both of those sales come following a disappointing succession of Niagara wineries being sold to foreign interests and portfolios seemingly being cannibalized and diminished to a shadow of their former selves with a high percentage of the new wines headed to distant shores.
“I am VERY encouraged as to the value of our industry,” said one Niagara insider after the sale to Corby was announced on Friday.
The sale, expected to close on Sept. 29, will result in Corby’s acquisition of Foreign Affair’s portfolio of premium Ontario red, white and rose wines, including Temptress, Enchanted, Amarosé and The Conspiracy brands, as well as a 40-acre vineyard, related production assets and inventory.
Founded in 2000 by the Crispinos, Foreign Affair owns and farms a 40-acre vineyard located in Vineland on the Niagara peninsula. The winery sells its products through a variety of channels including directly from its on-site retail store, to wine club members, and through the LCBO and SAQ.
Foreign Affair is recognized as the first Canadian winery to craft wines exclusively applying the Italian appassimento technique for winemaking, which produces denser and more concentrated juices. The winery also offers tastings on-site to members of the public and private dinners, as well as exclusive offers through private membership in its wine club. (more on the sale can be read here)
I spoke to both Len and Marisa Crispino on Sunday following news of the sale. Both expressed pride in what they have built and optimism for other wineries in the region.
“What I like about it so much is the recognition of the value of a relatively small winery, said Len Crispino. “That’s something we should all be proud of.”
Len calls the sale of Foreign Affair to Corby “fantastic for the industry, it shows how mature the industry is today. We are ecstatic.”
He says Corby, a credible 150-year-old Canadian company with a long list of top wine and spirits companies from around the world in their distribution portfolio, plans to honour the “heritage and legacy” of Foreign Affair and build on the wines already established.
Corby has the ability to take Foreign Affair to a new level, said Len Crispino, with distribution channels far beyond the borders of Ontario.
Foreign Affair will be the first winery of any kind from anywhere that Corby will own outright, and Len Crispino said they plan on retaining the entire team, including winemaker Barclay Robinson.
The Crispinos will stay on and help with the transition for the next two years.
Marisa, in a separate interview, called the sale “exciting. Corby is buying our heritage and legacy and are going to take it to a whole new level.”
She said that Corby came to them and were attracted by the quality of the wines and the “stories behind the labels.” A team from Corby came in and tasted everything in bottle, tank and barrel before closing the deal. “They really did their home work.”
She called the creation of Foreign Affair “quite a ride” but finds “satisfaction” in the response of consumers to the wines being made there.
Len Crispino has never had any interest in people simply walking through the door of Foreign Affair and buying a bottle of his wine. And chances are pretty good that wouldn’t be possible anyway.
He has always wanted consumers to understand what they were about to buy, to know how the wines were made and why they were crafted that way. It’s an experience, not just a bottle of wine, he’ll tell you.
It’s all part of Foreign Affair’s “slow” approach to making wine, from the growing and drying of the grapes through the entire process in the winery to consumers ultimately buying it in the retail store.
Foreign Affair was the first Niagara winery to devote the majority of its wines made in a true Amarone (drying of grapes) style. Many Niagara (and other Ontario) wineries now have at least one or two appassimento style wines on their shelves, but few have gone to the extent that the Crispinos have. Innovation has been the battle cry for Foreign Affair, how best to dry grapes, how long to dry them, what varietals work best.
The former head of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and his wife Marisa planted the first grapes for Foreign Affair in 2001 with the first vintage of wine in 2004 and the winery opening in 2008. It was transformed from its original use as a research lab at Vineland Research and Innovation Centre.
The seeds for Foreign Affair were sown back in the early 1990s while Len Crispino was working as a diplomat in Italy for the Ontario government. It is here that he acquired his taste for the Amarone wines made in the Veneto region of Italy. He was particularly impressed with the wines of the legendary late Giuseppe Quintarelli.
In Amarone, harvested grapes are dried on racks for varying lengths of time to further concentrate the juices and add complexity and structure to the wines.
It occurred to Len Crispino that this method of further ripening grapes would be of benefit in the unpredictable region of Niagara where a cold season can drastically affect the quality of late-ripening grapes.
It took a cancer scare in 1999 for Len and Marisa Crispino to realize that he should follow his heart and start a winery in Niagara.
Equipped with a love for Veneto and a deep attachment to Niagara, Crispino purchased 40 acres of vines in Vineland in the Vinemount Ridge sub appellation.
The style of wine Crispino wanted to make was predetermined by his love for the Amarone style of wines he grew to love during his time in Italy.
It is his wine hero, Quintarelli, who inspired him most to follow his path in Niagara. He and Marisa flew to Veneto unannounced to see if he could talk to Giuseppe about making Amarone wines in Canada.
Crispino was granted a meeting with the winemaker but arrived a half hour late because the winery is unmarked along a secluded road. Once he found the home and winery of Giuseppe he was made to wait a half hour (the amount of time he was late) before he got a few words.
“He told me to ‘follow my dreams and you’ll get what you want,’ “laughed Crispino when he related this story me several years ago. He left but not before asking for a photo, which Giuseppe insisted must be taken with his wife as well.
Crispino made a 100% dried grape Amarone style from three Bordeaux varieties as a tribute to Quintarelli from the 2010 vintage. He named it Gran Q in his honour, and sold the wine for whopping $150, slightly less than the $163 his “Unreasonable” label fetched — at the time the most expensive Niagara table wine ever made.
Crispino insists on traditional Italian drying techniques for his Amarone-styled wines. “You can’t take shortcuts. We dry in a very slow process,” he said. That means no kiln-dried grapes and no speeding up the process in any way.
The wines also undergo a long maturation process first in oak, a combination of old and new French, American and Hungarian barrels, followed by extended bottle aging.
The top wines are lovely examples of the Veneto style with stunning flavours and aging potential, and yes, generally high alcohol got with it. There were many who were skeptical of Foreign Affair’s plans in Niagara.
While Corby had an entire world to choose from for its first winery purchase, it recognized the potential of Foreign Affair winery both domestically and internationally and made a deal. A $6.2 million deal.
I wonder what the doubters are thinking now.
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