São Paulo – The Rio Grande do Sul-based winery Miolo has increased its exports of wine to the Middle East. The surge in the volume exported between 2016 and 2017 was due to two partnerships recently signed, one with airline Qatar Airways, based in Doha, Qatar, and the other with Brazilian restaurant Fogo de Chão in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The Brazilian winery has been exporting three labels to the Arabs. The red wine Miolo Cuvée Giuseppe Merlot-Cabernet Sauvignon will be served to Qatar Airways first-class passengers. For steakhouse Fogo de Chão, it has selected the red wine Miolo Reserva Pinot Noir and the white wine Miolo Reserva Sauvignon Blanc, broadening its existing partnership with the steakhouse chain that already includes the restaurants based in Brazil and the United States.
In an interview to ANBA, Miolo’s exporting manager, Anderson Tirloni, said that the partnership with Qatar Airways was made via a bidding round; but the agreement with the Brazilian restaurant took place through a visit of the buyer to Brazil, in a negotiation that included Miolo, the emirate’s trader and the buyer.
Before the partnerships, the winery exported only to the UAE among the Arab destinations. “We have been exporting to the UAE for over ten years,” said the manager. He said that the company is not prospecting business in any other Arab country. “Right now, we are focusing our efforts on the partnerships that we have and the ones that we just signed,” he explained.
The winery’s superintendent, Adriano Miolo, said in a statement that “the [winery’s] main goal is to strengthen the consumption of Brazilian wines abroad, with an ever-growing presence in the main consumer markets throughout the world.”
About the partner companies
Airline Qatar Airways was founded 26 years ago and operates in Brazil since 2010, when it launched the first flight between São Paulo and Doha. Currently, Qatar flies to over 150 destinations.
In addition to the steakhouse in Dubai, Fogo de Chão has another restaurant in the Middle East, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (where alcoholic beverages are forbidden). The brand has eight restaurants in Brazil and over thirty in the United States.
The winery
The winery Miolo has a 100-hectares estate near Bento Gonçalves, region of Vale dos Vinhedos (Vineyards Valley), Rio Grande do Sul. The Miolo Group also owns three other wineries in the country; Seival, with 200 hectares, in Candiota, Campanha Meridional, and Almadén, the biggest of them all with 450 hectares in Santana do Livramento, Campanha Central, both in Rio Grande do Sul. In Bahia, the winery Terranova, in Casa Nova, Vale do São Francisco, has 200 hectares.
Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
