Little By Little

06 September 2005 By db staff writer

“standfirst”>Foreign investment and know-how set Chile’s boutique wineries on their way, but nowadays the expertise is just as likely to be homegrown, says Peter Richards. And these smaller wineries are earning prestige for the whole Chilean wine category

Less Own-label, more premium wines, overdeliver, conquer the on-trade, give us more variety, better image, brand – in short, we want more. This, in essence, has been the UK wine trade’s consistent message to Chile for a few years now. It’s undoubtedly a big ask and begs the question: how can Chile set about achieving this very tall order?

A large part of the answer may lie with Chile’s smaller wineries.  These are the wineries that aren’t on every supermarket shelf with large marketing budgets – volumes are small, prices tend to be high and the commercial approach is personal by default. Many of them are little more than newcomers whose reputations are only just being forged. But these are the wineries that are producing premium wines, that are targeting the on-trade, that do give variety, quality and a much-needed lift to the Chilean category. Success, however, does not come easily. Welcome to the world of the Chilean boutique winery.

These smaller wineries come in many guises, though they all have one thing in common – they are a new breed. Where Chile’s historic producers are the large companies that source fruit from many sites and trace their existence back over 150 years, the country had to wait until the 1990s for the bona fide small-scale, stand-alone wineries (that is, not just exclusive labels from bigger wineries) whose prime focus is on producing a few terroir-driven wines from a single site. Their reasons for this are complex and do not particularly concern us here – what is interesting to note, however, is that investment and winemaking input from abroad has played a central role in the emergence of this phenomenon in Chile.

Take Aquitania, one of the very first Chilean boutique wineries, founded in 1990, and which was originally funded by two French investors, Bruno Prats and Paul Pontallier (Ghislain de Montgolfier of Bollinger has since joined). Almaviva, the iconic joint venture between Concha y Toro and Baron Philippe de Rothschild (BPR), followed not long after, its first vintage being the 1996.

More recently, consultant winemaker Patrick Valette has taken the reins at such boutique projects as El Principal (he has since left) and now Neyen. Château Dassault teamed up with San Pedro for the stunning new Altaïr winery. Further investment has come in from Italy, notably with Francesco Marone Cinzano’s exciting Maule-based Caliboro winery, and from the US with Jim Pryor’s Agua Tierra in the Limarí Valley.

Foreign influence

Considering that many of these projects were launched in just the last few years, it is clear that the foreign influence remains a key element in Chile’s boutique winery scene, and not just in terms of money but also expertise, credibility and even when it comes to distributing and selling the wine.

Jaime Roselló, general manager at Neyen, pays tribute to his French winemaker when he says, “Having Patrick [Valette] really helps us a lot. When people learn that he’s behind the wine, their attitude changes and they become much more open. A winemaker with such prestige raises the profile and perception of the product and it becomes easier to sell. Effectively, it gives us easier access to markets.”

Marone Cinzano took this one step further when he launched Erasmo to the international trade. Cinzano also owns Col d’Orcia in Montalcino so he “simply targeted the importers and distributors of my Italian wine. I piggybacked, if you like.”

Almaviva, meanwhile, has always sold its stock through the Bordeaux place, from where 26 négociants distribute and sell it around the world. It’s something of an odd arrangement, despite the coownership with BPR, because it means the winery has little clear idea of where its products are ultimately sold and consumed, such is the self-imposed secrecy surrounding the commercial world of the négociants.

“It’s certainly a different system from the norm,” concedes Almaviva’s commercial director, Benjamín Silva. “But we’re happy because we get prestige from the négociants. Our wine goes in a shipment with the big-name Bordeaux Chateaux and that’s where we want to be.  They have excellent sales networks and what’s more, it’s an honour for us.”

 But it’s not all about the foreign influence. Homegrown money and expertise have also played their parts – in the 1990s with the likes of Tabontinaja/ Gillmore and Quebrada de Macul, but in far more bullish fashion in the new millennium with the emergence of the likes of Antiyal and the San Antonio pioneers such as Garcés Silva, Casa Marín and Matetic. There’s no doubt the foreign influence has helped put Chile on the right path but now the country’s new breed of homegrown wine pioneers are making their mark.

Whatever the background, all Chile’s smaller wineries agree that building prestige for their product and for the wider Chilean category is a crucial step on their path to success, as well as a substantial test.

“Our biggest challenge has been convincing people that we can make top quality wine and then spreading that message and creating an image for ourselves accordingly,” comments Felipe de Solminihac, winemaker and partner at Aquitania. “We’re getting there, but it’s been much slower progress than we imagined at the start.”

His comments are echoed by Daniella Gillmore, general manager at the Gillmore winery in the Maule Valley, an area not traditionally noted for producing premium wines but whose image is being steadily revived by dedicated smaller producers such as Gillmore and Caliboro. “Our biggest challenge is recognition,” says Gillmore. “The easiest way to achieve this is by buying publicity and being in the supermarkets. But when you are small, that’s unfeasible and so foreign interest is scarce, which makes business doubly difficult. We just have to continue producing the best quality wine we can and try not to lose focus.”

 Fresh concept

While such challenges are undoubtedly daunting, they can be turned into positives, at least according to the relentlessly upbeat Matías Garcés Silva, part-owner and director of Garcés Silva, which produces the Amayna brand. “We started from scratch so, yes, it was a challenge launching something with so little experience, but it also meant we had a clean slate to work with. This is an advantage in the Chilean wine industry, where everyone else relies on tradition. It means we’re immediately different – we are not contaminated by Chilean winemaking history. It’s a fresh concept.” Marone Cinzano is of a similar mind. “When I set out to create my winery, I disregarded all the traditional production areas for export and decided Maule was the best place for my wine. Now I promote it as something new and different – and export markets are always interested in new things and new areas,” he says.

Differentiation; it’s a word that crops up a lot when you talk to those involved with Chile’s smaller wineries because it plays a central role in their business strategies. Of course, it primarily refers to the wine – with such a small-scale terroir focus, these wineries tend to make recognisably different wines, thereby diversifying the wider Chilean offering – but it also reflects a newfound commercial confidence and drive to communicate this difference to the markets.

Making a difference

As Garcés Silva comments, “At first, we saw a space in the Chilean category for a project focused specifically in one truly cool-climate terroir. We had to differentiate ourselves and communicate that because at the time all new Chilean wineries were the same. And despite selling mainly white wines at a high price from an unknown area, we’ve been very successful, with many of our markets working on allocation.”

There’s no doubt that Garcés Silva’s highly personal approach to selling – “I pace the streets of London; it’s all about face-to-face marketing” – and a carefully honed package also help. And the strategy appears to be paying off, with Amayna not only being championed by Robert Parker but also being poured by the glass in such top London restaurants as Aurora and Gordon Ramsay’s Royal Hospital Road, the sort of hallowed ontrade ground that has been off-limits to much Chilean wine until now.

“It’s incredibly popular,” says Gordon Ramsay’s head sommelier, Ronan Sayburn, of the Amayna Sauvignon Blanc. “It’s our best-selling wine by far, both in glass and bottle, because not only is it easy to drink but it also has the acidity to back it all up and match the food.” And all this given the fact it is listed at £36 per bottle – twice the price of the cheapest bottle on the list.

The boutique wineries are acutely aware of the effect they are having on the wider Chilean category. “Many people have the idea that new world wine is standardised, and in markets like the UK the common perception is that wines over £10 must be French,” notes Altaïr’s international sales VP, François Walewski. “But this is not the case and we are trying to change that perception by proving that there are great wines in Chile and it’s not just about the Old World. Chile can overdeliver at all segments and prices.”

This does not mean, however, that the smaller wineries are prepared to join official promotional bodies such as Chilevid, Viñas de Chile and Wines of Chile. Of the 15 or so boutique wineries in Chile, only a third are currently members of these organisations.

For now, the wineries identify their best markets as Europe, especially Germany and the UK, along with Brazil and the US – though the latter gets mixed reviews. And because many of the wines are relatively new and highly priced, it’s no surprise that many wineries insist that hand-selling by specialised importers is crucial to their success.

There is no doubt that Chile’s boutique wineries are injecting interest and dynamism into the Chilean category. There is much still left to do, but for now, at least, it seems that the message has been received loud and clear.