桑巴国度的葡萄酒雄心
A vineyard’s ambitions for a bouquet from Brazil
When Morgana Miolo started doing business in China two years ago, the Brazilian was struck by the cultural differences of operating in the world’s second-largest economy.
当两年前摩根娜•米奥罗(Morgana Miolo)开始在中国经商时，世界第二大经济体在经商文化上的差异让这位巴西人感触很深。
“The Chinese close a deal with the most important person at the table raising a glass in toast higher than the others,” says the gaúcha, as people from Brazil’s southern state of Rio Grande do Sul are known. “My first time there, I didn’t know this stuff.”
她说：“中国人敲定一项交易的方式是，酒席上身份最重要的那个人在祝酒时举杯比别人高。我当时第一次来中国，还不知道这回事。”她来自巴西南方的南里奥格兰德州(Rio Grande do Sul)，这里的人也被称为“高乔”(gaúcho)人。
More unusual than the vagaries of doing business in China, however, was the product Ms Miolo was selling. Hailing from a country best known in China for its savvy on the football field, this fourth-generation scion of a family of Brazilian viticulturists was in Shanghai to establish a market for her Miolo wine brands.
不过，比起在中国经商的奇事，更不寻常的是米奥罗女士所销售的产品。她来自一个在中国以足球技艺精湛闻名的国度，但她却是一个葡萄栽培世家的第四代子孙。她来到上海，是希望为她的米奥罗葡萄酒品牌建立市场。
Now Miolo is achieving a feat many Brazilian companies can only dream of: selling something to the Chinese that is not soyabeans or iron ore. It is part of a wine industry that has been forging new paths into overseas markets in spite of Brazil’s high costs, and with a product not normally associated with Latin America’s largest economy.
不少巴西公司可望而不可即的一个梦，如今正被米奥罗变成现实：向中国人出售既非大豆也非铁矿石的产品。巴西的葡萄酒行业正在努力摆脱高成本的影响，开拓进入海外市场的新途径，而它依赖的并不是拉美最大经济体的主打产品。
The push is part of a wider campaign to promote exports of value-added products to try to offset the country’s dependence on unprocessed raw materials and commodities, particularly in commerce with China, its biggest trading partner. “We see analysis come out that there is a complementarity between the Brazilian and Chinese economies, but we want to go beyond complementarity, we don’t just want to sell commodities and import manufactured goods exclusively,” foreign minister Antonio Patriota recently told the Financial Times.
巴西正在大力鼓励附加值产品出口，以减轻该国对未加工原料和大宗商品的依赖，尤其是在与最大贸易伙伴中国的贸易中。巴西外长安东尼奥•帕特里奥塔(Antonio Patriota)最近对英国《金融时报》表示：“我们发现有分析称巴西和中国经济互补，但我们不希望停留在互补层面。我们不希望只是出口大宗商品，进口制成品。”
The story of Miolo tracks that of Brazil’s wider wine industry. Ms Miolo’s great grandfather, Giuseppe, arrived in Brazil in 1897 like thousands of other Italian immigrants at that time. He went to Bento Gonçalves in the Serra Gaúcha, a mountain range in Rio Grande do Sul, and bought “Lote 43”, some land in what became known as the Vale dos Vinhedos, or Valley of the Vineyards.
米奥罗的故事与整个巴西葡萄酒行业的历史紧密相连。米奥罗女士的曾祖父朱塞佩(Giuseppe)在1897年像成千上万名意大利移民那样来到巴西。他在南里奥格兰德州高乔山脉(Serra Gaúcha)的本图贡萨尔维斯(Bento Gonçalves)买下了“43号地”，这块土地后来以“葡萄园山谷”而闻名。
The family produced grapes for sale to vineyards until the 1980s, when prices collapsed, and Guiseppe’s three grandsons, Antônio, Darcy and Paulo, switched to making wine themselves. They produced their first, the Reserva Miolo Merlot, in 1992. “The family had to make a decision for its survival, so it started producing wine as an alternative source of income.”
米奥罗家族种植葡萄，出售给葡萄园。到了20世纪80年代，葡萄价格暴跌，朱塞佩的三个孙子安东尼奥(Antônio)、达西(Darcy)和保罗(Paulo)转而自行酿造葡萄酒。1992年，他们生产出第一款葡萄酒——珍藏米奥罗梅乐(Reserva Miolo Merlot)。“家族必须为生存找到一条出路，因此开始酿造葡萄酒，补贴收入。”
Today the company claims to have 40 per cent of the fine-wines market in Brazil – wines using the vinifera grape varieties of Europe – and 15 per cent of Brazil’s spumante market. It produces 12m litres of wine from 1,150 hectares of vineyards across Brazil. These include those in Vale do Sao Francisco in tropical Bahia state, which produces three harvests every two years rather than the normal one per year. Miolo exports to 20 countries and revenue has grown from R$1m in 2000 to R$100m by 2010.
如今，公司声称掌握巴西上等葡萄酒（用欧洲酿酒葡萄品种酿造的葡萄酒）市场40%的份额，以及巴西起泡酒市场15%的份额。它在巴西各地拥有1150公顷的葡萄园，葡萄酒产量达1200万升。其中，位于热带巴伊亚(Bahia)州的圣弗朗西斯科山谷(Vale do Sao Francisco)每两年收获三次葡萄，而不是传统的一年收获一次。米奥罗葡萄酒行销20个国家，营收从2000年的100万巴西雷亚尔增长至2010年的1亿巴西雷亚尔。
In the early 2000s, as the eight great-grandchildren of Guiseppe, comprising the fourth generation, assumed day-to-day management of the business, they began to see the limitations of Brazil’s still immature domestic market for fine wines.
本世纪初，朱塞佩的8位曾孙子和曾孙女（家族的第四代子孙）接过企业的日常经营事务。他们开始认识到，巴西国内尚不成熟的上等葡萄酒市场存在着局限性。
Among the newer generation, Adriano Miolo, now chief executive, and his brother Fabio, had studied oenology, the science of winemaking, and knew that to be properly recognised inside and outside Brazil, Miolo would have to establish its brand overseas. “The inspiration to export came from our desire to make Miolo an international brand, the reference for Brazilian wine abroad,” says Ms Miolo.
在新一代子孙中，现任首席执行官的阿德里亚诺•米奥罗(Adriano Miolo)及其兄弟法比奥(Fabio)学习过葡萄酒酿造学，他们知道，要得到巴西国内外的认可，米奥罗必须在海外树立品牌。米奥罗女士表示：“之所以看重出口，是因为我们希望把米奥罗打造成国际品牌，令其成为巴西葡萄酒在国外的标杆。”
The transformation started in 2003, when they contracted Frenchman Michel Rolland – one of the “flying winemakers”, a group of elite international travelling wine consultants who have transformed the industry globally – for 10 years to work on quality at Miolo.
转型开始于2003年，公司与法国人、“飞行酿酒师”米切尔•罗兰(Michel Rolland)签约10年，由其改进米奥罗葡萄酒的质量。“飞行酿酒师”指的是一群在全球各地旅行的葡萄酒顾问精英，他们改变了全球葡萄酒行业的面貌。
Realising, too, that it did not have the financial muscle to create an international brand, Miolo teamed up with other local vineyards and a state industry group to form in 2002 what would become Wines of Brazil.
米奥罗还意识到，凭借自身的经济能力不足以打造国际品牌，于是与当地其他的葡萄园和一家国有产业集团合作，在2002年成立了后来名为“巴西葡萄酒”(Wines of Brazil)的机构。
For years, Brazilian wines had depended on the exotic idea that the country of samba and beaches could produce wine. However, to build a sustainable export industry, the wine producers needed to convince consumers that the wines were not just exotic but also good. The organisation set about creating a more serious image by attending fairs, inviting foreign wine writers to Brazil, and matchmaking Brazilian producers with importers. “We wanted to show that we have quality wines,” says Andreia Gentilini Milan, promotions director of Wines of Brazil.
多年来，巴西葡萄酒一直依赖着一种颇具异域风情的理念：这个桑巴与沙滩之国也能酿造出葡萄酒。然而，要打造可持续的出口行业，葡萄酒酿造商就需要说服消费者：巴西葡萄酒不仅新奇，而且优质。为了让巴西葡萄酒的形象更加成熟，Wines of Brazil参加展会，邀请国外的葡萄酒作家来巴西访问，还为巴西酿造商与进口商牵线搭桥。“我们希望展示巴西也拥有优质葡萄酒，”Wines of Brazil推广总监安德烈娅•真蒂利尼•米兰(Andreia Gentilini Milan)表示。
The trade body is now staging international events around Brazil’s hosting of the World Cup next year and the Olympics in 2016, such as the Wine Cup, a series of wine tasting competitions culminating in a final in Brazil next year.
目前，Wines of Brazil围绕着巴西明年即将主办的世界杯和2016年将主办的奥运会，开展多项国际活动。其中，葡萄酒世界杯(Wine Cup)是一项葡萄酒品鉴系列赛，最终将于明年在巴西举行决赛。
Despite the export drives, Brazil and Miolo alike still sell a fraction of their production overseas. The UK is Miolo’s biggest market followed by China, where it sells only 7,000 cases a year (up from almost nothing two years ago).
尽管巴西大力推动出口，但大到整个葡萄酒行业，小到米奥罗公司，销往海外的产量仍然微不足道。英国是米奥罗的头号出口市场，中国紧随其后，但年销量只有7000箱（当然两年前的销量还几乎为零）。
Meanwhile, Brazilian producers struggle with high costs. They pay as much to ship a bottle of wine to the nearest port less than 500km away from Miolo’s vineyard in the Vale dos Vinhedos as to ship it to China. In the domestic market, they pay half the price of a bottle in tax, handing the advantage to producers in neighbouring Chile and Argentina, which can enter Brazil duty-free. Perhaps for this reason, foreign products constitute 80 per cent of the Brazilian wine market.
同时，高成本让巴西厂商难以承受。将一瓶葡萄酒从米奥罗位于“葡萄园山谷”的葡萄园运输至不到500公里之外的最近港口，成本与将这瓶葡萄酒发运至中国一样多。而在巴西国内，税收占葡萄酒价格的一半。这让优势落入邻国智利和阿根廷的酿造商手中，因为它们的产品可以零关税进入巴西。或许出于这个缘故，外国产品占据了巴西葡萄酒市场的80%。
Indeed, the real prize for Brazilian and foreign producers alike is this domestic market. Brazilians consume only 2 litres of wine per capita per year compared with 23 litres for neighbouring Argentina, leaving room for enormous potential growth.
事实上，巴西和外国酿造商真正垂涎的，恰恰是这块国内市场。巴西每年的人均葡萄酒消费量只有2升，远低于邻国阿根廷的23升，增长空间巨大。
This is where being an exporter can help a Brazilian producer’s fortunes at home, Ms Miolo argues. Brazilians value imported products above domestic ones, but they are willing to grant an exception for Brazilian companies that have succeeded abroad.
米奥罗女士认为，将产品远销海外能帮助巴西酿造商扭转在国内的销量。巴西人对进口产品的喜爱要甚于对本土产品，但如果巴西公司能在国外取得成功，他们也愿意刮目相看。
“When consumers see that a Brazilian vineyard exports, they assign their products the status of an imported wine,” says Ms Miolo.
米奥罗女士称：“如果消费者发现一家巴西葡萄园将产品出口国外，他们便认为它的产品与进口葡萄酒拥有同样的地位。”
Overall, Brazilian wines may not be the cheapest but the fact they are not French or Italian or Chilean or Argentine continues to be their strength because they attract wine connoisseurs who are ever keen to experience something new.
总之，巴西葡萄酒可能不是最便宜的，但它们的优势在于，它们既不是法国或意大利的葡萄酒，也不是智利或阿根廷的葡萄酒，它们吸引着乐于尝鲜的酒饕。
Ms Miolo says “we have turned lemons into lemonade”, using the Portuguese expression for creating something good out of something bad, or in this case turning a disadvantage into an advantage.
米奥罗女士引用了一句葡萄牙语俗语“我们把柠檬做成了柠檬汁”，意思是化腐朽为神奇。在这里，这句话的意思是将劣势转化为优势。
天之聪教育
2013-06-19
天之聪教育
278次
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