WINE
text
Agnès Peillet
PHOTO
Liz Maelane
Wine
anyone?
Increasingly people shy away from sticking
to things they have done in the past.
ABOVE
Diego Baeza
Regional Sales Director Africa & Middle East
36.
D
iego Baeza is a man on
a mission; the mission
of bringing wine to
the Kenyan masses.
As it turns out, the
expansion of the Kenyan middle
class combined with its appetite
for a Western lifestyle, could soon
turn Diego’s wine mission into a fait
accompli.
“People have more and more
disposable income” says Baeza,
“they can spend more and are on the
lookout for new trends. Increasingly
people shy away from sticking to
things they have done in the past
and are excited to try something
new.”
As Concha Y Toro Regional Sales
Director for Africa & Middle East,
Baeza knows a thing or two about
wine and about what it will take
to turn Kenyan wine amateurs into
wine connoisseurs. According to
him, right now the Kenyan alcohol
consumption is made up of 60
percent of beer, 20 percent of spirits,
15 percent of local brew and 4-5
percent of wine. While the taste
for wine is still low (about four
litres of wine per capita per year in
Kenya versus 50 litres in France for
example), a new trend in catching
on, he says. Over the last five years
Concha y Tora (CyT) has registered
a 10 percent growth in wine sales.
The market is expanding and CyT is
paying attention.
“When most people start drinking
wine, their palate searches for
flavours they can associate with and
what can most people associate with
at first? Sweetness,” he explains.
“That’s why for lots of people in
Africa, where wine culture is still
growing, they enjoy sweet wines.”
The success of CYT here in
Kenya, as seen during the Nairobi
Restaurant Week, is due to the
company’s strong focus on
expansion and the ability to position
itself globally as a brand. Of course,
Baeza insists, having a reliable
distributor like Viva Global helps
tremendously.
“When it comes to Chilean wine
we have 70 percent market share
in this region. That means for every
ten bottles of Chilean wine you see
seven of the bottles will be CyT
brand.”
The popularity of Chilean
wines in general can be linked
to the country’s wine valleys’
Mediterranean climate. With its hot
days and cool nights, the area lends
itself perfectly to wine production.
CyT controls every step of the
winemaking process, allowing the
company to attain consistency in
terms of production capabilities
and taste and consistency in