Chile sparkles

Wines & Vines, June, 2000 by Kevin Sinclair

Asian buying interest is keen. While 1998 was a watershed year for Chile with record sales, the Asian economic crisis hit wine exporters hard. Santiago Larrain, export executive of Santa Carolina which ships 1.3 million cases abroad annually, says many Asian distributors had placed big orders before the crisis hit, and found themselves with full warehouses and little demand.

"Buyers took a holiday for a year" adds Hernan de la Cruz, export manager of Valdivieso, which has been selling in Asia for a decade.

Today, the phones are ringing with new orders, typically for quality wines costing about US$25 per case FOB.

"Asian drinkers are climbing the ladder of quality," Larrain explains. Demand is spreading to wineries of all sizes. Vina Canepa, for instance, sells 30,000 cases yearly to Japan and smaller amounts to Bong Kong, Singapore and the Philippines.

Export Manager Jorge Taulis says their sales strategy in Asia is to focus on getting their reserve range into quality restaurants and specialty stores.

There's one very interesting little blip on the sales charts that intrigues many people. Japan has recently been ordering more white wines.

Two decades ago, when Japanese gourmets first began their romance with classical grape wines, whites were the favored varietals. This was thought natural; they are natural companions for the traditional fish-based Japanese diet.

The "French paradox" and growing palate sophistication saw the sales of red wines soaring and in recent years Japan has been importing about three bottles of red to every bottle of white. Toward the end of last year, exporters like Jose Miguel Viu of the respected Vin Manent winery in the Colchagua Valley, began to see a sudden reversal. Japanese orders, which had dried up almost completely in mid-'98 because of earlier over-supply, suddenly started again. But the demand was for whites. He recently shipped two containers of Sauvignon blanc and Chardonnay and has more orders being packed.

He suspects this could be largely due to Japanese wine buyers still holding large inventories of reds, but there is undeniably a renewed interest in whites.

"It's the girls," contends market analyst Maria Jose Viera of Vina San Pedro. "They are the ones who order white wine by the glass."