After Argentina and Chile Brazil is the third biggest grape growing and wine producing county in South America but only 10% of it is vitis vinifera. There is (or to be correct: there would be) a huge potential domestic market with such a population. Reality is quite something different, however.

The major wine growing area is in the south, in the Rio Grande do Sul district, three hours from Porto Alegre, concentrated around the town Bento Goncalves, locals call it only Bento. The wine capital of Brazil, while just a few miles South, Garibaldi could be called the sparkling wine capital. Italian roots are undeniable, but it was the Portuguese who made the vitis vinifera popular and started to make wine in Brazil. The history goes back to the XVI. century but because of the rather difficult climate do grow vine properly hybrids, vitis lambrusca varieties became soon more popular, grapes like Concord, Isabelle and others adapted to the climate far better and because they also need less attention too.

Beside the Portuguese and Spanish, Italian settlers moved into the Sierra Gaucha and brought grapes with them of the Moscato family and famous Italian grapes like Barbera, Trebbiano or Bonarda (I was told this actually is French of origin).

In the Rio Grande do Sul the Vale dos Vinhos does best and I shall point out this region a spot later. Rain is plenty with 1700 mm /annually, humidity is a major problem, you don´t see many organically farmed vineyards around here as fungus can be a problem due to the humidity, another reason why hybrids do better. The Serra Gaucha is primarily based on clay.

Brazil is big and the vine growing area is huge as well, it goes from the South from the border of Uruguay 32° latitude all the way up to 8° latitude almost crossing the equator.

Here are the official wine regions of Brazil (based on the Vineyards, Wineries & Wines of South America Guide, from North to South)

- San Francisco Valley River (Vale do Rio Sao Francisco) the most Northern part (8- 10° latitude) of wine making in Brazil the next biggest city is Recife and the vine growing area is concentrated on the river side around the towns of  Casa Nova and Juazeiro.

- Sao Joaquim
- Serra Gaucha
- Campos da Cima da Serra
- Serra das Encantadas (South of Porto Alegre)
- Campanha (Bagé, close to Uruguay)
- Serra do Sudeste (this and the above one are the most southern regions)

The most southern regions close to Uruguay are around 2000 ha, with a sandy and fertile soil. Here rainfall is generally lower (irrigation is practiced) then in the Serra Gaucha and more sun is reaching the grapes.

New vineyard plantings in the Serra Gaucha are expensive people try to look for alternatives while this region is probably the most exciting. Yet some plantings in higher altitude are becoming more and more interesting, like those over 1300 m in Sao Joaquim or the “Mountain wines” Pino Bandeira.

The wine capital of Brazil, Bento has 100.000 inhabitants and is 650 m above sea level. You kind of feel when coming from the sea side Porto Alegre and driving further inland it becomes hilly, the town Bento itself has a lot of slopes (almost like San Francisco) and it goes up and down a lot. Plenty of hotels and restaurants, the place is set for wine tourism even a nostalgic train is operating from Bento to Garibaldi (of course it was not running while I was there).  The most famous Wine Road is the Vale dos Vinhos covering around 8200 ha of vines and lots of wineries.

Brazil has to focus on wine tourism it would be great just to rely on Brazilian to drink wine, the Brazilian wine business would have all the problems solved if Brazilian would increase from tomorrow wine consumption at say drink at least as much as people per head drink in Uruguay. While in Uruguay wine consumption is around 30 l/head annually this is only 2 litre / people in Brazil. It still comes to 300 million litre of wine a year and makes wine consumption overall a little bit bigger then in Chile but still very small compared to Argentina.

Alberto Miele from the Embrapa was telling me some quite interesting figures.
The domestic drinking habitude is low, only 1,8 litres / person this is due to many factors he said. One is climate, if its hot people don’t like to drink wine, they prefer something cooler despite might be even higher in alcohol (cane spirit). Brazilian appreciate sweetness, hard to deliver quality red wine for instance if people like it only if it´s sweet and easy going. There are a lot of small growers and people are not educated enough when it comes to Brazilian wine. The price plays a major role as well, not every one can afford wine. And I was told by some growers the price of a Brazilian wine tends to be higher compared to imported wine from Argentina for example. This is due to a bilateral agreement, not to tax Argentinean wine (or simply taxing them lower) and grape cost are lower in Argentina, the difference can be up 50%, half the price of an Argentinean wine then a Brazilian. Doesn’t help the Brazilian wine industry too much on the other side Brazil sells different goods to Argentina on a lower price (e.g. shoes) and while the other sectors are more important then wine (I read the figure the wine sector makes only 0,3% up of the total economy,) this explains from the economic point of view the decision. The export market for Brazilian wine is only 1%, the increase of domestic consumption would much help. But fact is Brazilian drink more foreign wine then the neighbouring countries do, loyalty helps a lot to the domestic products.

Alberto was telling me a few other interesting figures. The beer consumption in Brazil is 9 billion litres annually this makes 50 l beer / person, and the casacha (cane spirit, main ingredient for caipirinha) consumption is 1,5 billion litres while wine is consumed only 300 million litres in a year.

Amazing numbers! Which explain a lot. Beside the pricing there was some contra brand issue, which also damaged the wine industry of Paraguay too but the import of German wine very much as well (e.g. Liebfraumilch).
The production of sparkling wine is increasing and many see a real opportunity in it. It is true Brazilian love the fizz, without having official stats I can say during my visit I saw local people consuming fairly expensive sparkling wines, mainly Champagne, however. In a lot of places which I visited (restaurant, clubs, party places) there were not even a single Brazilian sparkling wine on the list. Now this is a generalisation but it still sticked out. Brazilian fizz is of course not as good or sophisticated as Champagne and will never be, but using this in cocktails (pink Veuve with strawberry inside, does it enhance the fruit?!) instead of Champagne would easily do the job for the Brazilian wine market. On the other side Champagne at its best is drunk pure anyway (of course a hint of cassis can do nicely from time to time, Kir Royal).
There is a lot to be done but there is also plenty of hope as Dr. Alberto Miele (Viticulture – Enology) from Embrapa was telling me.

Embrapa Uva e Vinho (Grape & Wines)
Is Brazil´s National Grape and Wine Research Center, linked to the Ministry of Agriculture, their headquarter is located in Bento.

We were talking about the closer wine region in the Rio Grande do Sul (1700mm rainfall) and he was so kind to organize a visit to the Miolo Winery on very short notice. He was saying that the average for lambrusca varieties are 18 tones /ha, while vitis vinifera grown on pergola system can still yield up to 16 tones /ha. However, this should change in the future as from 2012 there will be a yield limit of 12 tones / ha enforced for vitis vinifera varieties. He was saying Nitrogen in the soil can cause too much vigour (2,9% organic matter). Beside mentioning those interesting figures (above) he also said a few things about the Research Center which does a great work and helping the wine industry. I shall thank you for Alberto (and the others) to share their knowledge on Brazilian wine and I very much hope to return to investigate Brazilian wine further… A few lines about the Research Center below, explain a little bit more their credits, work and responsibilities in the Brazilian wine industry.

Equipped with all needs, a library with more then 8000 references.

The Enological (Oenological) Chemistry Laboratory and Analytical Centre (analysing must, wine), the
Plant Physiology Laboratory, Sensory Analysis Laboratory (where wine tasting, sensory evaluation of wines with geographical denominations, indication of origin like the Vale does Vinhedos happens). This bears importance as the first geographical denomination is the Vale dos Vinhedos (Valley of the Vineyards) in the Serra Gaucha. Also recognized by the European Union in 2007. Other region will follow…

The Entomology Laboratory (monitoring pest and control strategies, behaviour of insects on different semi chemicals), post harvest laboratory (fruit harvest, storage and packing. Fruits are evaluated by colour, pulp, firmness and flavour).

The Virology Laboratory (identification of viruses and clone cleaning of viruses in vines and temperate fruit plants).

The Phytopathology Laboratory (organism that can cause plant diseases are analyzed here).

Tissue and Biotechnology Laboratory (developing grape cultivars (14 recently), creating new varieties, Embrapa varieties like: BRS Clara, BRS Morena, BRS Linda. Grapes are selected for tropical regions as well, field testing).

Molecular Biology Laboratory (genetic mapping of grape varieties developed by Embrapa)

Microvinification Laboratory (small experimental winery, performance of new varieties, new vinification methods, yeast).

Experimental Beverage Production (grape juice, wines, sparkling wines and brandy other important beverages Lorena Ativa white wine was developed here).

Tissue Analysis and soil laboratory (amounts of nutrients in soil, leaves, fruits and their by-products, support research on soil fertility and plant nutrient).

Geoprocessing Laboratory (geo-references data from vineyards using GPS, satellite images and aerial shot images. Identifying geographic denomination of the producing area. Geographic denomination in wine is a mile stone not only determine quality, production but also for marketing. The above mentioned Valley of Vineyards are a great example.

The Vineyard Database bears the name “Cadastro Viticola” this a database of all the vineyards in the Rio Grande do Sul. Describing vineyards with the help of the growers, but also varieties and destinations of the grapes. Monitoring and controlling the quality of the wines.
Embrapa Grape and Wine stands for: research, development an innovation in grape, wine and temperate fruit production in Brazil.

Tags: embrapa

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