Wine Snapshot

By Laurence Civil

Importing foreign wines into Thailand is a relatively new business that only started in the late 70's. In the early days, only selected premium hotels and restaurants were buying wines for their customers. The early 80’s saw overseas producers eager to export more of their products approaching several of the established wine companies in Thailand to carry a greater range of their products but the market was still limited. Whereas the economic prosperity of the 90s led to retail sale of wines. The wine boom in Thailand started in 1995 when wine drinking was promoted as being good for health, consuming for medical rather than pleasure and this is possibly one of the reasons for the popularity of red wine with local consumers. In the pre economic crisis years, the demand was for premium French wines from regions such as Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne as a prestige product. This was the era when there was a demand for suppliers to offer multiple brands from the major wine producing regions of the world.

The golden wine years really lasted little over two years until the Asian Economic Crisis of 1997. In post 1997 era, wine drinking suddenly became unfashionable, almost unpatriotic with an advertising campaign showing blood running down a corkscrew with the caption that ran along the lines "To drink wine is to drink the blood of the nation". At the same time French cuisine became less popular, being replaced by the new fashion, more affordable and relaxed Italian cuisine.

To explore the ups and down of the imported wine industry, we have selected Vanichwathana as a sample wine company to profile. They are a conservative wine supplier, mostly focusing on premium wines and have taken time to establish names and reputation of the wine and spirit producers they represent. To best correspond to their customers, they carry the full range of their products even when they know some won't work in this market. Their aim is to have a long-term relationship with the suppliers they signify and consistency that has led them to have a good share of the market. They are more comfortable in maintaining their established portfolio through characterization of new product introductions.

Despite of their own approach, they attend to and are driven by the demands of the market in providing affordable wines of acceptable quality. The new generation of wine drinkers tend to prefer easy to drink wines, primarily from Australia and Chile with the most popular grape varieties being Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.

Here are some of the wine producers they represent around the world.

Joseph Drouhin et Fils

The founder of the company that still bears his name was Joseph DROUHIN. Born in the Yonne Department near Chablis, his passion for wine led him to find his own wine broking company in 1880. The phylloxera epidemic didn't falter his faith in the wine business, his goal remained to offer quality wines bearing his name. He decided to settle in Beaune, the capital of the Burgundy wine trade. He noticed that the industrial revolution had vastly improved the standards of living and that the newly built railroads made the shipping of wine much easier. In those days, wine was shipped in barrels, and then bottled by restaurants and wine shops. The distribution network was getting better organized and people demanded higher quality.

Maurice, his son, took over his father's business in 1918. After the dark days of World War I, the taste for an easy life and its pleasures came back. Just as energetic as his father and endowed with a strong personality, he continued to build the fame of the firm by creating its own domaine. With great patience, he acquired several vineyards near Beaune, starting with the famous Clos des Mouches, and with each purchase, he replanted the vines there by increasing the value of his vineyard. Maison Joseph Drouhin could now proudly inscribe on its labels "R?colte du Domaine". He was a key founding member of the Committee of the Appellations of Origin that set the rules for the French wine industry. After the Second World War, he traveled around the world, to the United States in particular, and developed the international distribution of his wines. Today the company Joseph Drouhin, 125 years after it was founded, remains one of the few wine producers that is still family owned and managed. Its now in the hands of the great grandsons and great granddaughter of the founder Philippe, V?ronique, Laurent and Fr?d?ric; the children of Robert and Fran?oise Drouhin. They work together in the house that bears their name and was founded in Burgundy by their great grand-father. The house produces some of the finest wines in both Burgundy and Oregon. Chapoutier

The name CHAPOUTIER has been present in the Rh?ne Valley since 1808. In 1879, the distant ancestor Polydor CHAPOUTIER was the first to begin to buy vines, thus moving from the status of wine-grower of an estate to that of a viticulturist, a wine producer and a businessman. The pioneering spirit was already present in the family. Seven generations later Michel, forty something, with a real passion for the expression of soils, is at the head of this exceptional vineyard firmly anchored in history and traditions. This young, determined man, opting