Savoring growth at Chateau Morrisette in Floyd County
As part of a five-year plan, Chateau Morrisette Winery has hired more people, expanded its brand and embarked on an export deal with China.
George Weldon
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Chateau Morrisette Winery had reached a plateau in growth. This stagnation wouldn't do, so its owners began to plan a revamp.
Through negotiations with Gov. Bob McDonnell's office and Tianjin Commodity Exchange Co. Ltd., the winery was able to work up an export deal and ship 1,150 cases of merlot to China in May.
The winery's general manager, George Weldon, played a part in setting up the deal with China. Weldon comes from 20 years in apparel marketing and exporting with a company in Greensboro, N.C. He has been with Chateau Morrisette for two years.
Chateau Morrisette's export deal moved quickly. TJComex paid a visit to the winery. By the end of dinner, a preliminary export deal had been put together. Three days later, a contract was finalized.
The decision to export came as part of a five-year plan. Company growth has allowed the winery to hire more people, including more truck drivers, a festival coordinator, grounds keepers and a marketing specialist.
Repackaging the Chateau Morrisette brand is also part of the five-year plan. Weldon said that the brand is keeping the iconic black lab as its mascot, but is going from cartoon dogs to a more grown-up version of the pooch.
"That image of the dog is always going to be considered a very friendly, approachable icon. Our philosophy has always been making wine approachable," Weldon said.
Weldon talked recently about selling wine to China and how it has affected Chateau Morrisette.
Q: How did Chateau Morrisette come to the decision to export its wine?
A: It's part of a five-year growth strategy that began with a rebranding. The first thing was to make sure that our brand perception and branding was consistent in the market. Then we looked at product categories. As we looked at our capacity and then worked with the governor's office, there just seemed to be a lot of opportunity for us to export.
We took about a year to look at all the opportunities out there. [Owner] David Morrisette and I went to Hong Kong. All of the things lined up for us to partner up with a reputable firm that really understands branding. Their focus is that they wanted to build a brand in Chateau Morrisette in China and be very protective of that brand because there is so much difficulty with counterfeit in China. We had the excess capacity, and it was an opportunity for us to get to the next level. We were just filling a niche in our overall capacity.
Q: Have you considered exporting to other countries in addition to China?
A: We've looked at England, the U.K. and a lot of other European countries. The problem is that nobody has the ability to purchase the volumes of wine that China does. Because of our size, whether we are shipping two cases or 2,200 cases, it's the same amount of work. We are looking for one partner who could take larger quantities who could also give us a five-year commitment. That is how we ended up with TJComex in China.
Q: What is the wine market like in China? Is there a high demand for certain types?
A: The Chinese have a love affair with the French wine market. They are really not white wine drinkers. They really like the French wines, the heavy reds like merlots, cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon. The Chinese don't really know wines other than the main ones like the merlots. That's why we chose for our first shipment a very easily understandable merlot.
They are also used to drinking dry wines. We think that long term, the sweet wines that we produce are going to be more sellable than the dry reds. Part of our goal over the next few years is to work with them to develop more wine tastings and wine parings, teaching them how to take their foods and pair wines with them. They are just avid about wanting to learn more and more about wine.
In five years, it will be a totally different group of wines that they are importing.
Q: How has exporting changed business for Chateau Morrisette?
A: In the state of Virginia, we are required to have a very large percentage of wines made from grapes grown in the state. The state doesn't grow enough grapes to produce all the wine we could be consuming. Because we have more wineries than we have vineyards to support, the price of these grapes continues to go up, making Virginia state wines noncompetitive with states like Oregon, Washington or California.
We have really been working with the governor on how to develop a better plan to support the planting and production of more grapes so that the state wines become more competitive. The China deal is helping us grow. But the long-term plan is how do we become more competitive from a price standpoint as we go into the wholesale market with, say, California.
Q: Do you have a short-term plan to make yourselves more competitive and profitable in the near future?
A: When you can grow the actual amount of wine that you are producing, you are spreading out the cost across more cases of wine. That is why the whole growth strategy is looking at growing our total volume so that we can become more efficient at making more. As we look at marketing, in order to produce more wine, you have to be able to sell more wine. That kind of shows you why we're going back and looking at our packaging so that we become more fresh.
Our goal is to continue to grow the brand. We are expanding the brand into food products under the Morrisette Farms brand. The goal is to grow the brand and raise consumer awareness of it.
Q: What challenges have you encountered in exporting?
A: To ship wine and food products, we have to have certain certificates saying that it's drinkable, and there's nothing wrong with it. Our government will stamp it saying it's approved, but China wants a physical signature. The state was great directing us to the right shipper out of California. That part was easy.
Once you get off the docks and you go through Chinese customs, it's about having all the right documentations. Another thing is that 0.075 liters is the same as 75 milliliters. The label says 75 milliliters but the paperwork said 0.075 liters. It's the same amount, but because it wasn't identical, we had to redo the paperwork and get it back to them. It took us three days to get that resolved. It's not that anything is that hard, but the devil is in the details.
Q: Do your labels have to be in Chinese?
A: They wanted to market a Virginia wine, so it had to be in English. On the back, there is English and Chinese. If it had been all in Chinese, it would have looked like a counterfeit. We had to make sure it maintained the integrity of the brand that someone coming here would have seen.
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