| Year 2003-2004 News
& Magazine Articles
Hispanic
Market New Toast of Wine Industry
HispanicBusiness.com
April 27, 2005
Carolyn Jung
For decades, Latinos
have picked the grapes for world-renowned Napa Valley
wines. Now, they are being courted by those same wineries
as the newest generation of wine drinkers.
There are bilingual
wine labels, a Spanish-language winery tour, wine
promotions at Latino markets, Latino cultural events
sponsored by wineries and a Spanish-language radio
program on food and wine.
"Wineries are
very cognizant of changing demographics all over the
United States, but especially with the Hispanic community,"
says Eileen Fredrikson, a partner in Gomberg, Fredrikson
& Associates, a wine industry research firm in
Woodside. "Florida is one of the fastest growing
markets for wine, and Hispanics are driving that market.
This is a culture that's generally very family-oriented
and food-oriented. And wine fits because it has traditionally
been a beverage of the table."
Hispanics now are
the largest minority group in the United States, according
to the U.S. Census Bureau, comprising 13 percent of
the population, or 39 million people. Moreover, their
buying power has nearly tripled, from $222 billion
in 1990 to $653 billion in 2003, according to a University
of Georgia report.
Drinking
More Wine
Latinos also are
developing a palate for wine. In 1998, according to
the Adams Wine Handbook, 12 percent of Hispanic adults
consumed domestic table wine. In 2003, that figure
jumped to 22 percent.
A survey last year
by the Wine Market Council asked people if they were
drinking more, less or the same amount of wine as
a year ago. It found an 11 percent gain in wine consumption
frequency among whites, and a 31 percent gain among
Hispanics.
Add the fact that
there are now a handful of Latino families who own
their own wineries in California, and it's clear how
circumstances have come together to create this emerging
consumer group.
Although wine is
an integral part of the culture of Spain and parts
of South America, Latinos in the United States, many
of whom are of Mexican heritage, have not historically
been major consumers of wine.
Isabel Valdes, a
Latino marketing expert in San Francisco, researched
the topic more than a decade ago for Gallo Winery.
The conclusion then was that Latinos preferred beer,
and didn't have enough discretionary income for wines.
Not any more.
"The time has
come," Valdes says. "People are making more
money, they are getting more sophisticated, and they
want to be more mainstream."
Round Hill Vineyards
& Cellars of Rutherford recognized that. A year
ago, it hired an ethnic marketing manager and sent
him to Spanish-language school in Mexico.
Since then, John
Fontes has created a Spanish-language page on the
Round Hill Web site; promoted the wines at Expo Comida
Latina, a huge Latino food and beverage trade show;
poured the wines at a Latin Grammys party; and organized
promotions in Latino grocery stores in Southern California.
"We have Latinos
talk to Latina shoppers, who are the ones in the family
in charge of the purse strings," Fontes says.
"We'll say, `Señora, what are you making
for dinner tonight? Carne asada? That's fabulous with
our Round Hill cabernet. Cheese enchiladas? Try it
with our chardonnay.' "
Store Promotions
Round Hill also has
held promotions in 99 Ranch stores in Southern California
to attract new Chinese-American and Korean-American
wine drinkers.
The results speak
for themselves. Round Hill credits its ethnic outreach
programs for a nearly 400 percent increase in total
case sales over the past year by Asian-American and
Latino consumers.
Still, John Gillespie,
president of the Wine Market Council, wonders, "Are
these methods really effective, or is it that more
and more Hispanics are just trying wine now?"
Beringer Vineyards
of St. Helena, the oldest continually operating winery
in the Napa Valley, took the plunge last May when
it released 30,000 cases of its white zinfandel with
labels in Spanish and English in Southern California,
Arizona and Texas.
Winery Tour
It also added a weekly
Spanish-language winery tour, which attracts as many
as a dozen people at a time from the United States,
Latin America and Spain. Visitors often ask for tour
guide Ed Ayala's autograph.
"For them, hearing
it in Spanish gives it a more personal touch,"
Ayala says.
Sandra Gonzalez understands
the need for that. For 10 years, she traveled the
state meeting with wine industry insiders as an executive
with the San Francisco-based Wine Institute trade
association. Rarely did she hear any attention paid
to Latino wine drinkers.
So three years ago,
she started Vino con Vida (Wine with Life), a Sacramento-based
wine education company focused on Latino consumers
like herself. In addition, she's on the air twice
a week: speaking on food and wine in Spanish on KBBF
FM (89.1); and on food, wine and travel related to
Latino culture in English on KVON-AM (1440).
"My friends
and I enjoy wine," Gonzalez says. "But I
didn't really see industry or advertising doing messages
I could connect with."
For some Latinos,
though, this push to nurture more Latino wine drinkers
comes with some concern.
"Alcohol can
be a dual-edged sword," says Luis Arteaga, executive
director of Latino Issues Forum in San Francisco,
which accepts no alcohol or tobacco company funding
because of its work on health initiatives. "On
one hand, people talk about the health advantages
of drinking wine in moderation. On the other hand,
you have severe health problems with high rates of
alcoholism in our community."
Indeed, four years
ago, in the first national death data study that included
ethnic origin, researchers at the National Institute
on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that cirrhosis
of the liver kills Latinos more often than Americans
of other origins.
But Valdes doesn't
believe wine will exacerbate that problem because
it's perceived by Latino consumers as a more sophisticated
beverage, and one that's consumed with food.
Gonzalez is thrilled
that Latinos are now on the radar of more wineries
in this new way. Her parents, who picked grapes in
vineyards all over California, never envisioned such
a day would come.
"After working
for so long in the fields, they knew they didn't want
that life for their daughters," Gonzalez says.
"Here I am now, working in the same industry,
but as part of the education process to introduce
more Latinos to the pleasures of wine. It's come full
circle."
Source: (c)2004 San
Jose Mercury News. All Rights Reserved.
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