Personalities

Ornellaia new milestones
«Vinnaya Karta» №2(103)March 2009

In a quarter century of its existence Tenuta dell’Ornellaia achieved outstanding results.

Supertucan Ornellaia and Masseto received highest international recognition and entered the ranks of the global winemaking elite. Managing director Giovanni Geddes kindly agreed to give Vinnaya Karta his first Russian interview.

– Ornellaia is a benchmark name both in Italian and global winemaking. How did the estate achieve such great success?

– Quality right from the beginning, the perception of quality and the total quality. We also managed to convey our philosophy to the market. When I say quality, I talk not only about what is inside the bottle and the professionalism of our people. Quality distribution quality is also very important, that is being in the right places and making sure we are creating demand for our wines. Working with the market is essential. We need to ensure that we have right people who represent us. It is also important that all people in our team, from general manager to agronomist and winemaker can correctly present the wine. Very often you find great technical people in the estates, but they are not really willing to promote wines.

– You’ve been with the company for a long time. What milestones the company development can you note especially?

– I’ve been the company CEO since 1999, so that’s 9 years now. A big evolution happened at the beginning of this century — in 2001-2002. We went through a very difficult for economy time, but that made our brands much stronger. Demand for Ornellaia and Masseto grew enormously. You can talk of very few Italian wines that have such great international demand like Masseto.

– At that period the company changed ownership, but that did not affect the international reputation of the estate, nor the quality of wines...

– There were two changes of ownership. First the Mondavi family went in as a minority, then majority shareholder. I became CEO when the Mondavis just entered the company. At the beginning of 2000 they sold 50% of business to the Frescobaldis which later bought the other 50% from Constellation Brands who bought Mondavi. That happened at the beginning of 2005.

In the past 10 years we successively had 3 winemakers ( one worked in 1998-2000, another — in 2001-2003, and starting from 2004 we have Axel Heinz). The interpretation, obviously, comes from each person, but there’s always been a basic idea of how to make wine at Ornellaia, and it has never changed, plus we are trying to upgrade production all the time. Every new step is more difficult. Production process is right at the top, every initiative is more expensive and means more responsibility.

– Talking about investment — what are the latest programmes in the vineyards or the winery?

– Well, we are upgrading all the time. The latest big project is upgrading barrel rooms. This year we finished Ornellaia cellars, and next year we are upgrading Masseto barrel room. It’s a continuous work, we never give up. If you give up one day, you start falling backwards.

– Can you say that your wines, especially the top ones — Ornellaia and Masseto, have reached the highest maximum potential?

– Absolutely not. We are still far away from the level where top Bordeaux or top Burgundy are. We have a lot of room to improve.

– The latest news is that starting from vintage 2006, 20% of Masseto production will be sold by Bordeaux negociants. You stated that you wanted to understand better how markets work and where is demand. What can you say about Russia in this respect?

– Russia is without doubt one of the important markets which has grown enormously. One of the things I said, we don’t know where the highest demand is today because we allocate our wines to importers on a historical base. Masseto production is anyway very limited. If we give 20% to the Place de Bordeaux, they are free to sell the wine where the maximum demand for the wine is. That will make us understand much better where the demand is and what level of price the market can sustain.

– Why Masseto and not Ornellaia was chosen?

– Masseto production is much smaller, it is about a fifth of the production of Ornellaia, so the choice was obvious. As Serena Sutcliffe (head of Sotheby’s wine department) says, it isn’t just about the volume. Demand and quality really create a certain image for wine.

– Masseto at the Place de Bordeaux set a precedent. For the first time negociants will work with a wine that is not of Bordeaux origin and neither has Bordeaux connections.

– Absolutely right. This puts us in a very special position, together with the greatest wines of the world. That’s also one of the reasons why we launched sales via Place de Bordeaux. Masseto is not only one of the greatest wines of Italy, but of the world.

– In conclusion, what are your further plans? Where do you see Tenuta dell’Ornellaia and its wines in 5 years?

– The company will not grow so much in terms of volume. The volume remains limited to our production which is 100 hectares. The value can be much higher. You can see what Chateau Lafite or Chateau Mouton have done with the same vineyard size. Of course, they have 180-200 years of history, but the world is moving much faster nowadays. We can still grow in that direction.