Wine Investments in Chile keep growing
Germany, France, Colombia, The United States, Spain and Italy are the countries that have invested in the Chilean wine industry the past years. Also, Australia recently incorporated Chilean wines into Lindemans portafolio (Foster's Group) showing how the fifth exporter of wines of the world keeps growing attracting wine investors by joint ventures and strategic alliances to commercialize quality wines thanks to the great prestige and successful consistency of the Chilean wines.
The next five years, this type of investments will increase due to the big problems of obtaining quality wines from countries like Australia, that are suffering of great climatic changes like drought, plus the higher cost of wine productions in other countries, that will seek in Chile an strategic partner, as indicates a report of Andes Wines Communications.
The families or investors related to the wine industry, either controllers or owners are Guilisasti (Concha y Toro and Emiliana), Southern Sun Wine Group (Tarapacá Ex-Zavala), Montes, Vidaurre Grand and Murray (Viña Montes), Grupo Claro (Viña Santa Rita), Grupo Luksic (Viña San Pedro) and surprisingly, Colombia, thanks to the holding led by Rafael Piccioto and his recent associate, the Chilean businessman Jose Yuraszceck, they control the traditional Viña Undurraga, which belonged to one of the most traditional wine families in the country.
On the other hand, the owner of Ventisquero Winery, Gonzalo Vial, got a lot of attention when he denied for several months that the winery was for sale, however, a few weeks ago recognized that the company is under sale for at least U$80 million dollars, quantity that the press and specialists considered to be superior to the real value of the company, indicates AndesWines.com's report
The majority of these investments have been developed carefully and focused in being commercial viable fast by renting the facilities of other wineries or buying grapes from different valleys to optimize the resources in the beginning of the operations. Later on, they invest in wine cellars and infrastructure or buy a winery itself.
One example is the French Michele Laroche, who hired the services of a winery in the Elqui Valley at the beginning to produce some of his wines, then bought Villard Estate's facilities, in Colchagua's Valley, for U$ 2 million dollars, where nowadays he concentrates his operations.
From Italy and France, stand out the traditionally families of wine as the Marone Cinzano and Lurton, who bet for the valleys of the Maule and Colchagua, respectively. Jacques Marnier Lapostolle, his daughter, Alexandra Marnier and her husband Cyril de Bournet, invested more than U$ 8 million dollars in the construction of a gravitational winery of more than 25 meters incrusted in a hill in Apalta, in Colchagua's Valley, being the only vineyard that the prestigious enologist Michel Rolland advises in Chile.
The Rothschild also have investments in Chile, standing out Eric de Rothschild, who associated with the Chilean Ricardo Claro, owner of Santa Rita, to produce wines in Los Vascos winery in Colchagua's Valley. Also, Philippine Rothschild, joined Concha y Toro to launch Almaviva Winery.
Contradictory, Laurent Dassault critized the Altaïr performance last year, however his partner on the business, Viña San Pedro controlled by CCU (Luksic), has just spent several million of dollars, on buying Leyda Winery of the San Antonio valley, one of most desired areas in Chile to produce whites. Viña San Pedro during 2006 had losses calculated of U$ 1.6 million dollars according to official national sources and this 2007 the challenge is to recover from the current situation by incorporating the former Los Vascos winemaker Marco Puyó and the wine consultant Paul Hobbs.
The German wine distributor Racke International also has partners in Chile, Viña Aresti, launching the brand “Espiritu de Chile”, which is similar to the alliance that has with South Africa's KWV (Golden Kaan). In this case, Racke improves the logistics and distribution and Chile is the supplier of the quality wine.
United Kingdom continues being the principal wine destination for exportations with 16,7 %, United States, with 15,4 %, Canada, with 5,8 %, Germany with 5,6 %, Denmark, 5,0 %, Holland, 4,3 %, Ireland, with 4,0 %, Brazil, with 3,8 %, Japan, with 3,2 %, and Belgium, with 2,8 %, according to official reports.
AndesWines.com comments, "The last twenty years, Chile managed to be recognized as a producer of wines of good prices and excellent quality, then, focused towards the positioning as producer of Premium Wines. To accomplish this, the wine owners invested in technologies, winemaking consulting and communications, having two major wine leaders; Aurelio Montes (winemaker and partner of Montes Wines) and Eduardo Chadwick (Viña Errazuriz), who have been wine ambassadors and entrepreneurs known internationally changing the image of Chilean Wines as Premium Wines"
Andes Wines Communications
wines@andeswines.com
(56)9-9 219 7117 /(56) 41-221 6106
