The market for New World wines is becoming increasingly competitive, especially in Asia, with Californian, Australian, New Zealand, South American and South African wines all trying to get a strong foothold. Representing Chilean wines most prominently is the Casillero del Diablo label from Concha y Toro. In charge of the 11-variety strong range is distinguished winemaker Marcelo Papa, who was in Macau recently as part of an Asian tour, and spoke with CLOSER about the success of the brand.
Macau CLOSER: Casillero del Diablo is a major wine label in Chile. What were your goals when you joined the company?
Marcelo Papa: I started in the industry in 1993 working for Kendall Jackson, a Californian wine maker, and in my first five years, I finished 10 harvests. So when I joined Casillero in 1998, I was pretty young but with a lot of experience.
Casillero was very important domestically, but in the export market we were only selling around 300,000 cases. For me it was a great opportunity to apply my skills from the Californian wines with a more modern style of wine making. At that time Chile was very driven by the old fashioned Chilean way, but when you start to export you need to meet more international standards of the US and Europe.
I saw a big opportunity to work with a big brand and a good company and put Chile on the map. And that’s what we’ve been doing the last few years. Today Casillero is close to four million cases, a very recognized brand, not expensive, but very good quality. We are trying to introduce Chile to consumers globally, producing the best at that price point.
How would you describe the strengths of Chilean wines?
In Chile we have a lot of sun and clear skies, quite cool temperatures, so for red wines we have very strong fruit characters, a lot of colour and very soft, round tannins. And in terms of whites, now we are concentrating on the coastal areas which are much cooler and cloudier, so we can deliver very good freshness and very good acidity, but always good intensive fruit.
And what is your view on the Asian wine market currently?
I have had a very good experience in Asia, but it is a completely different culture – very simple things like people eating food with tea which is a hot drink, and for a long time they have been pairing food with tea, not wine like in Europe. But I think Asian food goes very well with wine, and Asian consumers really want to move into wine culture, and that is the beauty. At the moment things are still moving quite slowly for us though. For Casillero, the Asian market still only represents around five percent of our sales, but it is the potential of these markets that is important.
In a region like Asia, how difficult is it to compete with the reputation of French wines?
When people choose a French wine, they are confident with them as a brand, they don’t feel in their mind that they are taking any risk. It’s not a matter of quality, it’s a matter of confidence. But when people choose a Chilean wine, or even Australian or New Zealand or South African, they are taking more of a risk, so it’s very important that when they take that risk, they get a good experience. So that is my goal with Casillero, to satisfy and over deliver on their expectations.
The famous wine critic Matthew Jukes of the Daily Mail said our 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon was the ‘finest value Cabernet on the planet’.
The marketing campaigns for Casillero Del Diablo really stand out. They are very contemporary, Hollywood style, and you have a partnership with Manchester United. How important has this been for the brand?
I have a lot of respect for what the marketing people are doing with Casillero, but they always say to me that they can win the first battle, which is to give the customer confidence to taste the wine. The second battle is my responsibility.
And what is your focus going forward?
If you look at Chile 20 years ago, 70-80 percent of our sales were Cabernet. Then we started planting Merlot and Shiraz, so today the share of Cabernet is only about 40 percent, but still not many countries can compete with our quality of Cabernet. For the new varieties, I really like what we are doing with Pinot Noir and I think we have a great opportunity because Australia, New Zealand and California all do Pinot Noir but it’s quite expensive, so right now I’m pushing our Cabernet and Pinot Noir.
The legend of Casillero del Diablo (The Devil’s Cellar) was started in 1871 by Don Melchor, the founder of Concha y Toro. When he discovered bottles going missing from his reserve collection, he began a rumour that the Devil lived in his cellar. The rumour spread quickly on the proverbial ‘grape vine’ and the bottles stopped disappearing.
Distributed in Macau by
Summergate Wines
T 853 28752566
www.summergate.com
www.casillerodeldiablo.com
