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William Cole Winery
This guy is from Wyoming, made his money in software, then he ended up in Chile somehow. The vineyard was established somewhere around 1999, and they are supposedly finally breaking even. I’m not particularly sure I want to spend $20 million to establish my piece of heart and soul here. I’ll also be sure to learn the language of the country I want to expat to. They utilize a 2K trellis system here which allows them to produce 15 tons/ha as compared to the average 7-8 tons/ha. That’s all. CHOU OUT! I’m over this blogging business. I entered winemaking so I wouldn’t have be stuck in front of a computer all day.
Catrala y Matetic
Today we visited two very interesting wineries in the Casablanca and San Antonio regions.
First up was Viña Catrala in Casablanca (www.catrala.cl). This vineyard is located deep in the forest, reachable by a 10 minute dirt road that doesn’t seem fit for a tour bus. It was started in 1994, situated next to a national park, and encompasses 70 ha of vineyards. Its proximity to the national park gives it priority attention during fire season in the area. Catrala is strictly a boutique winery, exporting 99% of their production. They market primarily to consumers who know more about wine and are genuinely interested in it. The vineyard itself is supposedly a very delicate ecosystem as it works in synergy with the surrounding forest. There are natural insect predators from the forest who keep pests in check. Rabbits keep the vegetation in check while foxes keep the rabbits in check. Because of the forest flora, there is no need for them to domesticate cows and horses. They then gather their fertilizer from natural compost in the surrounding forest. Catrala is not certified organic or biodynamic as they believe it restricts them too much. If there is a severe infection in the vineyard, he wants the option to spray if the situation absolutely requires it. Felipe Rodriguez, the owner, believes that wine should be an experience. After a trek through the forest (in sandals), we were treated to an outdoor tasting in the vineyard. There he explained his musings and philosophies of wine, which I was too distracted by the wine and cheese to write down. However, I did catch this tidbit: Releasing wine is like giving birth. You need to give it 9 months in bottle before releasing it.
Verdict: I really enjoyed the wine here; I bought two bottles of their Sauv blanc and Pinot noir.
We next checked out Matetic Winery. This is your basic, ridiculously expensive, no detail missed
$10 million dollar gravity flow winemaking facility. They are in the process of becoming certified in biodynamic practices. I find that wineries like this are more impersonal and didn’t really care too much for the story. TL:dr: Rich family built a really expensive winery. This didn’t stop me from grabbing a couple bottles though; the Sauv blanc is partiularly good. It felt like there was a tropical beach party in my mouth.
Verdict: Too much of a showroom. Something irks me about tanks and barrels that are just way too clean
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Casablanca
In the morning we visited Kross, an independent brewery (www.kross.cl). Our host was Asborn Gerlach, the operations manager. This man has been in the brewing business for 22 years. He started off in Germany, but eventually moved to Chile because of a woman. Gerlach gave us some quick insight into the Chilean beer market and Kross’ strategy. Gerlach decided to brew beer in Chile because the micro/artisan beer market in the country was nonexistent at the time. Currently, there are around 80 small breweries in Chile, with around 60 being formed in the last two years. Kross doesn’t brew very bitter beers because they have found that Chileans don’t appreciate bitters beers as much, compared to other countries. This is not surprising once you realize that Chile has the highest per capita consumption of Coca-cola and cake. Kross’ style is also very natural, where they do not speed up the brewing process or force carbonate the beer. They also do not pasteurize, and use double evacuation while bottling to ensure that minimal oxygen is left in the bottle allowing a 9 month shelf life. Kross is also the only microbrewery in Chile to possess its own lab. Gerlach says that you can never get sick from beer because of the properties imbued by alcohol and hops.
Kross is conveniently located between Viña del Mar and Santiago, 60 km away from each. Those two cities account for 50% of Chile’s beer consumption.
I have noticed a trend in Chile, or in at least with the wineries we’ve visited, where a lot of the producers try to go with the all natural, untouched philosophy. Although, I’m still not completely sold on the biodynamic principles that the wineries we’ve been visiting swear by, I am beginning to see its appeal. In the afternoon, we had the opportunity to visit one of Emiliana’s vineyards, which are certified organic and biodynamic. They use chickens, geese, and pheasants to keep insect pests at bay. They also use alpacas and sheep in the winter to mow down the cover crops. Their soft paws ensure that the soil isn’t compacted as compared to running a tractor through the rows. I am now sure that when I establish my vineyard I am going to make it biodynamic just for the sake of having animals roaming around my property. ALPACAS ARE SO CUTE..in a weird way.
Anyways, during the tasting, I really enjoyed the Emiliana Sauv blanc and Pinot noir. In the states it’s under their Natura label. (http://www.emilianausa.com/vinos_in/natura/na_wines.html)
My weekend antics
I finally decided to go out with the undergrads on Friday night, and I didn’t end up coming back til 430 in the morning. It started out innocently enough where we all decided we needed to get some dinner after such a long day. The “Irish Pub” was packed, so we decided to go towards a spot some other people had found a previous night. After walking for what seemed like hours, some guy comes up to us asking if we’re from California. He proceeds to invite us over to his bar, which is called the California Cantina (californiacantina.net) It’s also known as the “gringo bar,” but that’s fine because I found that it serves some of the best food in Santiago. If you ever come to Santiago, you HAVE to try this place. Anyways, this guy treats us to drinks and what not.. I obviously have one too many and need to go relieve myself. I tell Chris I’m going outside, but there’s a cop. So, I go back inside and head upstairs. After I’m done, everyone comes up to me asking if I’m OK b/c they heard I puked in front of a cop? Our group has a tendency to convolute stories, so I decide to just go with it. Now I’m the Puke and Rally guy.
Long story short since I have two more blogs to write tonight: We stayed out til 4 am at this club called Subterranea. Make sure you pregame, drinks are expensive.
The next day, Erik and I went to go check out the Cousino mansion and the Precolumbian museum. I was so tired from the night before, I fell asleep on the one of the benches for a few minutes. Everyone heard about that too.
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Today was a long day
You know those days that you think will never end? Today was one of those days. I don’t know who the bigger sadist in this story is: The Austral Group for scheduling so many meetings in one day or the SSU Wine MBA program for requiring the MBA students to blog about every single item in our calendar. Nonetheless, it was obviously an incredibly informative day.
We started the day’s meetings with the export manager from Emiliana Winery. I honestly wish I had paid more attention during this meeting, but I think my body was still waking up or trying to conserve energy for later meetings. Anyways, Emiliana was started by Concha y Toro, which is one of Chile’s largest wine producers. Emilana’s goal is to become the most recognized in terms of sustainability; they don’t necessarily have to be the largest. Their reasons for pursuing organic and biodynamic practices are not as their main selling point. Those practices are still relatively new concepts in the market and could turn off or intimidate new customers prematurely. Their target market is the Millennial segment as Millennials will buy supposedly anything. Even though Millennials only make up 16% of the US market, they purchase 41% of imports. Also, Millennials buy 43% of wines over $20. Currently, Emiliana holds 1400 hectares of which 800 are certified as organic and biodynamic. They expect to be fully biodynamic by 2011. They are also certified as carbon neutral in regard to both production and shipping. They utilize Ecoglass which is made from 70% recycled glass and is lighter in weight, which benefits fuel consumption as well as worker fatigue. They are looking to use more screw caps, less foils on labels, and less plastic in general. One of the reasons they are so successful in implementing this campaign is because they make it a point to educate their workers to get behind what their mission is, or else why would they want to work with so much biodynamic manure?
Next we met up with one of the founding members of MOVI - Movimiento de Vinateros Independientes (http://www.movi.cl/), which was started in June 2009. Chile’s average winery size is probably the largest in the world, and thus it can be difficult for small wineries to get attention from the press and from consumers. MOVI was created in order to give these small wineries a better presence. For example, they participate together in fairs, which allow them to split promotional costs while still being able to showcase their wines. Combined, their total production is 30k cases with the largest member producing 10k cases. In order to join MOVI, the owner of the winery must be 100% involved in all aspects of the business, meaning there should be no departments. This is their main way of limiting the size of their members. Next, the owner must submit his wines for a committee tasting to ensure that he meets a certain level of quality. Currently MOVI has 17 members, and their next objective will probably deal with group organized logistics.
We next had another presentation by Wines of Chile which pretty much reiterated everything else everyone has told us, so I won’t bore you with that.
In the afternoon, we took a quick drive over to Cousiño Macul winery. This is Chile’s oldest family-owned winery that is still in business. The family started out in silver and mining, and they also helped establish railroads and telephone systems in Chile. I only paid attention to the Powerpoint lecture portion of the tour, as the walking tour was your usual stuff; however our tour guide was excellent, and we also randomly met him at a club in the city that night (next post will explain our crazy night). Our host explained the challenges the family met over the course of the winery’s life. The first two generations had a foundational challenge, as they did not know much in terms of the winegrowing or winemaking in the area. The next generation faced the Great Depression and anti-alcohol regulations. They could not export and had to sell domestically. In the 60s, Chile went through land reform under misunderstood political policies. The people enforcing the policy were to repurpose nonproductive land into land that was productive. The family almost lost their land a few times had it not been for the workers defending the land. During the 70s and 80s, many businesses found themselves with a “refounding challenge” as investment began to rise in Chile. In the 90s, there was a commercial challenge as the world became flooded with wine and domestic consumption declined. Now during the new millennium, there is a quality challenge. They recognize that quality starts in the vineyard. I didn’t buy any wine here, since you can find it in the states. I did however buy a couple cool vintage posters.
Our final meeting finally started around 6:15 PM, and I had absolutely no energy left. We had the opportunity to listen to Patricio Tapia talk to us about Chile’s wine. Once that man walked into the room, my ears involuntarily perked up. This man possesses such energy that draws¬¬ you in, it’s no wonder he writes a column for a newspaper, writes books, is starting his own magazine, and appears on TV. Tapia believes that Chile is the most successful wine country of the New World interms of quality and price. Their main goal is to convince people that they have the potential to create great wines because people believe Chile should only have value wines. However, Chile is conservative which could make change slow. AND that’s all I got before I zoned out again out of exhaustion.
You can read his blog at http://www.vinorama.cl (good luck non-Spanish readers) He is also working on an iPhone/BB app that will be able to scan bottle images and link to his wine guide. Mad props to AustralGroup for letting us meet all these cool people, but COME ON.. five in one day?!?!
3rd day – Pisco, WinesofChile, VinNova
In our morning meeting, we met with the export manager from Capel, Chile’s top Pisco producer, who gave us an introduction to Chile’s premier liquor spirit. Pisco is a distilled spirit made from mostly Muscat grapes. Varietals include Pink muscat, Muscat of Alexandria, Muscat of Austria, Torrontes, and Pedro Jimenez. Vineyards are located in Northern Chile where there are extreme temperatures. The vines are trained on arbor systems, and regulations stipulate that Pisco must be made in the region that it is grown. Distillation for the current vintage must also be completed by January 31st so that there is no overlap between vintages. The production process is similar to that of white wine, except prior to aging, the wine is distilled, then watered down to the desired alcohol level. The final product is a clear liquid that possesses incredible aromas. Pisco that is aged in wooden casks (usu. 2 years) will develop a golden tint. Currently, Capel is beginning to ramp up efforts to market in the U.S. They already have a deal in the works with Costco to sell their premixed Mango Pisco Cocktail.
We next took a quick walk over to the W Hotel to attend the 7th Annual Wines of Chile Awards Seminar. A panel of Canadian wine celebrities was giving speeches pertaining to the state of Chile’s position in the Canadian marketplace and suggestions for improvement. The general consensus is that Chile is not well known enough yet, and they need to develop a better selling point other than good quality, good value wines. Also, since most of the panel consisted of journalists, they highly encouraged producers to spoil wine writers as they passed through. Nick Hamilton suggested that Chile design wines catered to Old World palates in order to get their foot in the door, then introduce their own styles. Sid Cross is adamant that Chile needs to grow more Pinot. Most of it was basic Marketing 101, where they told Chilean producers they need to find their unique selling point. In my opinion, the highlight of that event was the fire alarm going off forcing everyone to evacuate.
The most informative meeting in my opinion was at Vinnova. I went in expecting to be barraged by research projects and statistics, but instead we had a very ad hoc Q&A session. Vinnova was created to merge wineries with universities. Vinnova’s responsibilities include: identifying the needs for innovation within the industry, conduct and manage research by research teams in conjunction with winery execs, publicize results and help industry adopt, and commercialize the results. Since 2006, they have already begun 24 R&D projects in areas such as consumer preferences, viticulture management, maturation and enology, and management and technological transfer. Wineries are encouraged to participate in trials as they are the first ones to receive the results, they keep the materials, and the results apply directly to them. The organization is 60-75% government sponsored and 40-25% funded by user based fees. Research in Chile is relatively cheap; a 5 year project is estimated to cost $400k. It is expected that funding will double next year, however they do not have enough researchers to allocate the money to. (Too bad, I’m in an MBA program) Some interesting results they have found might dispel myths regarding dropping fruit and canopy management.
Today was an OK day.
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ProChile + Concha y Toro
Today we had a presentation by ProChile in the morning and had of tour and tasting at Concha y Toro winery in the afternoon. ProChile is an organization that deals with the promotion of Chilean exports. Our speaker provided a great introduction to the country of Chile and what makes it so unique. One fascinating characteristic of Chile is that it is naturally protected on all four sides: in the North is the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world, in the East is the Andes Mountains, in the South are glaciers and the South Pole, and in the West is the Pacific Ocean. This makes Chile well suited for organic farming and able to plant vines on their own roots instead of grafting. Chile does not have a huge market for wine in their own country at the moment, so they export most of their wine. 50% of wine exports go to Europe, 24% to USA/Canada, and 12% to Asia. Their main grape varietals are Cabernet Sauvignon (35%), Merlot (11%), Sauvignon blanc (7.5%), Chardonnay (7.43%), and Caménère (6%). Caménère used to be very popular in France before it was wiped out by the phylloxera crisis. The varietal was thought to be lost until an ampelographer (sp?)(one who identifies plants by the plants’ leaves) discovered what was thought to be Merlot/CS vines to actually be Caménère. It is now thought to be one of Chile’s defining varietals.
Viña Concha y Toro is Chile’s largest wine producer and exporter. They employ a portfolio strategy where they produce wine at every price point. This aggressive marketing strategy was also evident in the tour I followed which seemed very well designed for tourists. The informational video was very sensationalized with gorgeous graphics, beautiful actors, and music that calls you to arms (your wallet). The legend of El Diablo’s Cellar was also very cheesy, but it suckered me into buying a Concha y Toro beanie with horns. Although the tour felt scripted, the service was excellent (I may just be am a sucker for beautiful tour guides with cute accents trying to speak English as they can do me no wrong). We finished the tour off with a very well put together tasting of four of their wines (Merlot, Caménère, Shiraz, and C.s.) The cheeseboard and wine glass were great souvenirs. I also suggest that everyone try Caménère someday.
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1st Impressions
After a total of 15+ hours in airports and airplanes, our group finally landed in Santiago, Chile (5 hours ahead of PST). The airport is deceiving in the fact that planes approach from the barren countryside when landing which leaves one with the impression that there is not much to expect in Santiago. However, that impression is quickly dissipated as you leave the airport and enter the city.
First impressions of Santiago are positive so far. It’s a city without that big-city feel. Since we’re staying in the new part of the city, there are towers and modern buildings, but they do not envelop you the way San Francisco does. The metro system here is easy enough for foreigners to use and is also quite inexpensive (about $2.20 USD one-way). The city also possesses plenty of history; it seems everywhere I go there is a statue or monument dedicated to someone.
I don’t understand why American comedians make fun of other Americans trying to speak to foreigners. I would gladly listen to someone who spoke louder and slower to me because I can barely pull apart their rapid fire Spanish-speaking barrage. I tried asking someone what the special was at this restaurant called Domino’s which specializes in hot dogs and hamburgers. After he pointed at the menu, I completely zoned out. For me, it’s like watching a telenovéla; I have a general idea of what’s going on, but I’m usually completely off on the details. I ended up ordering a hamburger, even though I wanted a hot dog. I also don’t know if it was because they knew I was American, but they gave me way too much mayo on my burger. Note to self, look for the giant picture menu in the middle of the restaurant.
Anyhoo for our city exploration game, my group decided to go visit San Cristobal Hill. Long story short: There’s a FUNICULAR (slanted railcar) which takes you to the top. The view at the top is awesome (Dave needs to put together panorama). Going up stairs while jetlagged only makes you tired and unable to speak afterwards. The gondolas open in June, buy a round trip FUNICULAR pass.
Future US travellers to Chile should note that there is a one-time reciprocity fee ($131 USD) you will have to pay in order to enter the country; however it is good for the lifetime of your passport. If you desire to pay the fee in cash, make sure you only bring new bills. The cashiers check every single bill for the minutest wrinkles and tears. Also, do not carry drugs into this airport. There are drug sniffing dogs everywhere, and they’re frickin’ adorable.
First post
This is my first post. Test. I am leaving for Chile on Monday.. must blog later.
