Interviews
When did you decide that you would dedicate your life to this profession?
Since1984 fate, luck or opportunities guided my own training as an agronomist to a post-graduation in oenology. In 1989, I acted for the first time as international juror in a wine competition. The national, regional, and international conditions as from 1991 gave me the opportunity and INAVI, OIV, FAO, GTZ and MERCOSUR constituted the starting point of an intense career as wine professional. Previously the Ministry of Agriculture and the College of Agriculture had initiated me into working life. This College -my own House of Studies-, did not teach me Oenology, but gave me the most solid basis for studying it in another country and for understand that grapes want to be wine, almost as a rule of life, with an instinct of perpetuity. I was lucky because I could give back to my beloved College such a privilege, reviving its "Course of Oenology" which had been founded in 1908. In summary, although chronology marks a progression, I cannot recall having taken a decision. I think that in our work, one starts engaging, getting involved, and there comes a day when one realizes that everything you look and dream has the colors of wine.
How do you combine your work in the private sector and the one you carry out in INAVI?
Having one single thing in mind, all day, every day: wine. But in harmony with the family, sometimes sharing, prioritizing most of the times, and sometimes negotiating. Some things are easier now. My daughter Casandra is studying Agronomy, but although she focused on other areas, she has the free spirit of the profession and she follows me -I don't know with how much effort on her part-, and I have to reckon that I enjoy listiening to her views and sometimes I even ask for her opinion. This, like any other form of feeling close to them, is a helpful hint for moms (with children of any age) who work long hours.
What are the challenges you are facing in this year?
The wine culture in its broadest sense and other more tangible issues. On the table there are also some strategic issues for checking the quality of our wine, others will be a professional look to ourselves, and an innovation project in terms of assurances for the consumer.
Los Cerros de San Juan was your school, your home for much of your life. What do you consider has been your biggest acquisition there, and what is your most important legacy to the winery?
An excellent approach, nothing more precise than considering Los Cerros de San Juan was my school and my home for 18 harvests (1992 to 2009). The professional life, as life itself, is to give and receive ideas and concretions, projects and realities, designs and technology, successes and failures, good times and belt-tightening times, to innovate and to refer to predecessors, receive and teach. A shared consecration, supported and deeply felt. The professional employee of a company ends up feeling it like a sentimental, not a material, property. That inspired me every day. Imagining a certain wine and obtaining it through trials carried out every year. From time to time, I liked tasting the wines for aging, seing how they grew older, as an offspring. The magic of the assemblages, the hand of an elf whose mischief caused surprise in a certain assemblage. Also a lot of adrenaline because I practice winemaking venture in the pursuit of diversity and originality. When a cycle ends, it's nice to realize that only the architecture remains, it was there before and it will still be there later.
The second part of this question is wonderful, made me reflect on acquisitions and bequests, as I had never thought of it before. My greater acquisition was to "know the Tannat in heart and soul", verify that tannat can grow and mature by itself and when aging it will grew older noble as a wise grandfather. Another acquisition, which should be a well kept secret is that the "elf" of the winery is with me, and is living in a barrel for the time being. But surely there are more things. The love for the local people, for example. My bequest to the company... I don't know. The most important legacy in my opinion would have been to leave successors, and it was frustrated by the early retirement of Gustavo Asandri and Romina Malán. I had projected my continuity through them. It is the only thing that will not happen, and the one I wished more deeply.
There are more and more wine competitions and fairs worldwide, and you are one of the people in Uruguay who receives more invitations to participate in jury panels. How and why do you choose on which to take part or not?
In the contests endorsed by the OIV, the organization designates representatives or umpires from list of tasters previously qualified by them, who must meet severe requirements for being granted such a degree. When OIV appoints his deputy, there is no choice to make. It is a responsibility and a personal honor, but first for the country and the name of our wines. In other cases, invitations meet different criteria. In Vinalies, for example, it is important that the descriptions of the wines that the wine tasters make are used to write the Hachette Guide of The 1000 Best Wines of the World. In summary, I take part in two or at most three contests a year, and not every year.
People speak well of the reconversion carried out in Uruguay, with support from the State, approximately 30 years ago. But people also speak of Uruguay undergoing a second reconversion which still fails to materialize. What is missing for it to take place and what would it consist of?
It could be said that Uruguay had its first restructuring in the late nineteenth century by introducing the graft. By then our vineyards had 2,000 hectares. The second reconversion was performed in the 70's and executed exclusively by the private sector (mainly through the CREA Groups), there were 14,000 hectares then. Some twenty years later, in the late twentieth century, came the substitution of 1.5 ha by 1 h with vines with greater wine performance. In fact, it meant a decrease in surface to almost the current acreage. Roughly speaking, it would be completed when it reached 8,400 ha of vineyards. How could I say what still needs "reconverting" without first knowing where we are aiming at or what to change? To say I have a good wind, I have to know first which port I want to sail to. I percieve we lack other things. Plans, programs, analysis: who we are today, what we want to be tomorrow and long after.
The production of fine wine in Uruguay, is really a business, is it a fad associated with the European tradition of a few families or is it, as some say, a challenge that must be overpassed to reach a higher business hierarchy?
I think of it as a business, the wines are made to be sold, let's not fool ourselves. Only the winemaker, and only one in each winery, can enjoy the luxury of lyricism. A nerd is an asset, he can create, dream, innovate, but more than one is a ruin.
Quality adds value. To sell expensive wines the winery has to build a powerful brand. In the wine industry this is called "image" and is associated with the prestige of the winery.
If I understand the question, I think on what is more convenient to do, to make table wine or fine wine. I would say that the winery makes the wine for its market. Table wines have a quality, the first step towards it is the absence of defects. We have very good table wines. In this segment the volumes available are also important. In a more focused answer I should say that the price-quality ratio matters in all the wine categories. Something like allowing consumers to put a price for the satisfaction they receive when drinking this or that wine. I wish the greatest satisfaction -in the same price range- were when drinking our wine.
El Consumidor Rey in 2009 (National Wine Competition) was dedicated to table wine. Although it was not broadcast because diffusion is not established in its Regulations, only for testing purposes I have applied a formula to find the best sensory quality /price among the winning wines, obtaining interesting results. These "homemade" experiences and the analysis of the global market situation can lead us to think about the benefits of achieving in the winery that "my wines have the best PQ ratio", perhaps this is the biggest challenge to face in these years.
Beyond the relativity of international awards obtained by Uruguayan wines, which proportionally were many, how do you evaluate the country's position in the frame of wine producing countries? What projection do you see?
One might say that very little, or a lot, has been made on external markets, but what has been done and what it has generated is a good concept of Uruguayan wine. Now we have to analyze the world. Big changes in wine industry geography, destination markets and consumer habits. One example is the news that OIV has just introduced the first Asian country as a full member: India. The incorporation of the Asia to the wine producing and wine consumer group of continents will be revolutionary, as it has been with other products. Changes take place faster, and this is going to stay. Our answers are not quick, our means and resources are limited. So we need to plan, not to lose the target, not to lose time. There are a couple of examples of Uruguayan exporters who develop a coherent work with well studied planning, the results are in their numbers.
As for the awards, they were and are a way to arise comments on Uruguayan wine in the world, to show its high level in competition. They are an instrument of trade. Not otherwise could be understood that the number of wine bottles in competitions grew every year to reach an average of 3000 wines per contest. The participation in wine contests was very strong in the 90's and this led to the recognition of the value of Tannat, and in the next decade it led to its establishment. In these 20 years, everything done with the tannat was well done, as stressed by the press and the importers. I have just heard all of this from the mouth of a wine importer of Uruguayan wines, Pawel Gasiorek, who was present in Vinitaly. You have also shown it in your Website with an exhaustive research that you did. Today, the truth is that participating in competitions has become very expensive, so fewer products are sent to contests, but even so the wines that participate always come back crowned. A big deal in terms of spreading our image abroad.
I am convinced that we must continue working on tannat. Working it in our own styles. If we need to overage wines because there is a public in search for them, we should overage the tannat. If what is needed are velvet wines, we have to velvet our tannat. We can make it. Tannat can make it by itself, without assemblages, after some serious oenology. In assemblages it grants diversity, and is always an improving element. Fortunately, other regions are growing it to prove that the tannat is quite interesting. Some of them will increase the value of our tannat, as Uruguay did with the Madiran. The Canadian Ambassador to Ecuador, Christian Lapointe told me in Quito (October 2009) "the best Madiran is the Tannat from Uruguay." What a wonderful achievement that of Uruguay. Overwhelming. But, how did this Canadian arrive to said statement? Through the competition Sélections Mondiales de Vins, SAQ, a sommelier writer named Jacques Orhon, ... Of course for this diffusion to be installed creating a concept, the Uruguayan wine available in that market had to meet the expectations. So while the winemakers polish styles, salesmen safely offer a perfectly segmented portfolio. A photograph of a wine-exporting company.
If you had a large amount of money for an investment, what would you do?
A Foundation for the Culture of Wine to recognize so many people for their values, in order to make their work known and give it mass distribution.
We know that each year you pick up a motto, in 2009 it was "Give Full Value", which is the motto for 2010?
"Direct Attitude", understood as a genuine intention to have a straight conduct to face decisions or situations, where ambiguity gives rise to confusion, comings and goings, loss of time and energy. A slogan which is a praise to honesty.
What would you like to do that you have not yet done?
Many things. The first, to take tango dancing lessons with Adriana and Jorge in Joventango. A more distant one, the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James, in Spain) with the supplementary goal of a food map, with meals and wines.
What is your unfulfilled dream?
I would rather not tell it to you because when told they do not become true. I promise that when it does, I will expressly tell.
on wineries in Uruguay.
