“While the representative of Marichal winery was in London with the delegation from Wines of Uruguay, just before the opening of the London International Wine Fair 2009, he was interviewed by the journalist Gabriela Frías for CNN.

The interview was broadcast on May 11 in the program for personal finance "En efectivo", produced by the leading news channel in Latin America, conducted by the Mexican journalist Gabriela Frías.
The idea was to know the opinion of the representative of Marichal winery on the challenges that imply to carry on a family business and, at the same time, to insert Uruguay in the world map of countries which are producers of fine wines.
Thanks to the courtesy of CNN we can reproduce the two blocks in which this interview was divided, and also highlight some of its fragments.

 



To the first question, Juan Andrés expressed: "Our family business is not simple to carry on, particularly when there are two generations living together in the place where the most important decisions are taken, but making our business more professional is basic to improve the time that decision making processes imply."

Regarding the inquiry on which advice could be given to a small Latin American entrepreneur who decides to enter the wine market, he answered: "There is a market for small entrepreneurs, what is important is that they aim at high quality, to a product than can offer a differential and not be massive."

 
After describing the structure of his winery and the roles developed by each member of the family in the company, Marichal explained on the position in which Uruguay is placed among wine producing countries in the world scenario: "Uruguay has a fairly old tradition at producing wines but is rather unknown internationally because we really produce a small volume for the international market and have only looked abroad in the last 10 years. For this reason we are little known and we have to take part in this sort of events like the London Wine Fair to reach contacts and develop the image of Uruguay as wine producing country to some extent."

"The emblematic varietal of our wine is a red grape of French origin called tannat, which found in Uruguay excellent conditions to render wines of very high quality... the position attained by Uruguay in the recent years has been linked to this varietal, the tannat: it is intense, complex and enables to achieve pretty different products", he ascertained referring to the differential that offer the Uruguayan wines.

Finally, when asked on what kind of consumer is the target for the Uruguayan wine industry, Marichal replied: "Our wine is for the conoisseur, the person whose expertise enables him to appreciate the quality of a wine with quite a good differential".”

Sources: www.bodegasdeluruguay.com, www.cnn.com