Ep. 1534 Ana Lovaglio Balbo | Masterclass US Wine Market With Juliana Colangelo

Since twenty seventeen, the Italian One podcast has exploded and expects to hit six million listens by the end of July twenty twenty three. We're celebrating this success by recognizing those who have shared the journey with us and giving them the opportunity to contribute to the on success of the shows. By buying a paper copy of the Italian wine unplugged two point o or making a donation to help the ongoing running costs, members of the international Italian wine community will be given the chance to nominate future guests and even enter a price draw to have lunch with Stevie Kim and Professor Atigioshenza. To find out more, visit us at Italian wine podcast dot com. Welcome to Mastercost US Market with me, Juliana Colangelo. This show has been designed to demystify the US market for Italian wineries through interviews of experts in sales and distribution, social media, communications, and so much more. We will quiz each of our esteemed guests at the end of each episode to solidify the lessons that we've learned. So sharpen your pencils, get out your notebooks, and join us each week to learn more about the US market. Hello. Welcome to master class US wine market. Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Anna Lovallio Balbo to the Italian wine podcast. The daughter of Susana Balbo, Argentina's first female winemaker, Anna was born in Salta, grew up in Mendoza, and studied business administration at University Dad de San Andreas in Buenos Aires. In two thousand and twelve, she returned to Mendoza and joined her mother's winery as Susana Babo's marketing and hospitality manager. Anna's entrepreneurial spirit led her to open Osaria De Creier, the first restaurant at the winery where the food is paired with Susanna Bubbles wines, and she's introduced some other interesting projects at the winery that we're really excited to learn more about in today's conversation around second generation family leadership. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast, Anna. It's so great to have you here. Thanks, Julianna. Thanks for coming me. Of course. Of course. So before we dive in today's discussion, Anna, you work with your mother. Tell us a little bit more about here. You came into that role today at Susana Balvo. Yes. As you mentioned, I joined my mother in two thousand twelve. Before that, I started business in Buenos Aires and I honestly didn't know. I wanted to join the family business. So I did my own wine for a little while, and I worked in some corporate finance. Around that year, my mother was seeing me in another company and doing pretty well, actually. So she started telling me you need to come work with me. You'll have more flexibility, which is true. You'll work less, which is not true. And I was away from my hometown Mendoza back then more than eight years. I started having second thoughts, and I wanted to come back to Mendoza. So then I applied, what my grandfather used to say that if if there's a decision you wanted to take later, you should take it sooner, you know. I don't know how to translate that, but So I thought it would be more fair with my my current boss at the time, a, because he had a lot of expectation for me to tell him before to come back. And I did that. I started working with my mother. You know, currents can be really subjective with their kids, and there are different types of parents. I believe in this kind of family business. Some of them are very tough, actually, with their kids, and some of them are here are my kids, and they are the very best thing in the world. And my mother is is like that. Like, she believes we are the best. And I didn't want her to put me in with a lot of responsibilities from the very beginning. So I just told her, look. This is my last paycheck. This is exactly what I wanna earn, not a peso more, not a peso less. Yep. And after two weeks working with her, a boy that was in charge of comics, left, and I told her I was back then, like, just wandering around. I'm trying to learn a little bit of everything. Right. And I told her, let me replace Bruno and start from here and understand this part of the business. That was sales in the domestic and Latin American markets and then grow into other positions. So that's how I actually, began. And I think I really fell in love with the industry because it's been more than ten years with a a lot of changes and different roles within the the company, but it feels like yesterday, you know. Yeah. It moves fast. Yeah. But that's I really like that approach that you took with your mother and your family business. And I think you know, there's so many family businesses as we know in Italian wine as well. So I think that there's some really strong lessons and parallels that we our listeners can draw from, but that idea of starting from humble beginnings, really starting at the bottom to learn the business from the ground up, and understand it from different lenses. It sounds like you took that approach of really trying to understand the whole business before going into leadership role. You know, my former boss, I was doing corporate finance in a big company, He didn't want me to live. So he told me you don't have to be the person doing the French fries and the McDonald's to run the McDonald's. And I told him that's a terrible advice. And I think I should definitely need to know how to do the French fries before I run the McDonald's. So he called my mother and told her that they could share me and that I could work with him from Mondays to Thursday in Buenos Aires and then come back to Mendoza from Fridays to Sundays and maybe be part of the the board. So then I I came back and and that's the approach I took here, to start learning from very basic roles until growing into leadership. So, Anna, in this episode, we're gonna talk about how to build a luxury wine brand like Cizana Balbo, and more specifically how to lead it into the second generation. So many Italian wineries are also family run and moving into their second generation. And recent research has actually shown that successful leaders in the second generation are often very creative and entrepreneurial but also still maintain that really collective family mindset. So we wanna talk to you a little bit about how do you balance those two things. So we're really excited to learn about how you're carrying forward your family's vision from the vineyard to hospitality. Our three key takeaways for today's master class, what we're excited to talk to you about, Anna, are number one, how do you transition a well known first generation winery to a second generation winery? Number two, how do you expand the winery's business to new opportunities? And finally, number three, how do you develop unique hospitality offerings within a winery that can attract new consumers? So let's just start a little bit with a little more of the history of Susanna Babo. This is the Italian wine podcast, and we know you're in Argentina, so not all of our listeners, might be as familiar with Susana Balbo. Susana introduced new technology, critical role in modernizing the Argentinian wine industry. Tell us a little bit more about the history of the family business. Yeah. Sure. It's pretty interesting because first of all, my mother became a a winemaker, by chance. She has always been a quite unique person. And, actually, she wanted to study nuclear engineering. Oh, wow. And my grandfather wouldn't allow her to go eighteen years old, lead by herself, and the only university that would teach that. It's at the south of Argentina in Valologic. Because at the same time, there was a military government here in Argentina. So it was very difficult and dangerous times to be around. So she became the first female winemaker by chance because she studied winemaking because there was a lot of physics and chemistry, and she said, okay, maybe I can start from here, and this university is in Mendoza. And then I can move on to this nuclear engineering, and she really wanted. And she was lucky enough to fell in love with the career and you have great teachers. And she became the first girl I made her, you know, which has kind of of drove our uniqueness because her approach as a female has been completely different and unique. And after that, she couldn't find a decent job in in Mendoza. Because it was this men dominated industry at ten, and she was given the opportunity in Northern Argentina in Salta in the Cal Chiquis Valley, which is a quite remote place nowadays. So imagine forty years Yeah. It is. And I have been to Bara Lotte and Susalta, so familiar with both places, and they're both incredibly beautiful, but very remote and extreme weather as well. Exactly. And that's how also she became related with Dorontes, which today is one of our flagship white varieties for Argentina, and I think my mother has done a lot for that. And we have work in this approach because when she started in Salta, Torantez was only seen as stable grapes and as a lot of productions. And she was one of the first winemakers to see an international and fine wine approach to this grape. Mhmm. So that's why Torantez is very important to our winery. And we have done a lot of changes and styles throughout the years even until today. Like, last year, we still launched different wines out of Toronto to show what's coming next for Toronto. So after that, she came back to Argentina. And back then, she was ten years in Salta, and she was working from somebody else. And the company she worked for, Sociio, Michel Marino, went through different administrations. So the last administration, the last owners were not from the wine industry, and they were speculating there was hyperinflation in Argentina. There is a lot of context to all these decisions. And my mother was to to make a long story short. She was one year without getting her salary paid. Wow. So that was the first time she said I will never work for somebody else again. I need to have my own thing. I need to be an entrepreneur. So she met my father in Salta. Actually, Jose and I were both born in Salta, even though we we never lived there for a long time, and they came back with my father and tried to make their own winery here in Argentina. And they completely failed. And they almost went bankrupt, and they got scammed. And it was difficult for them to succeed at that first project, but she took a lot of killing from that. So well. As a consultant, she had made a great reputation for herself of being a very professional winemaker and very good at what she did. And she consulted different wineries abroad in Argentina. She started doing this double vintage in the US, in the northern hemisphere, and in Mendoza, and becoming very conscious of everything we were lacking like technology or know how our expertise. I wanted to change things here in her hometown. At the same time. She was also hired by Katena, and she worked for, around four years for Katena. On the one hand, she was in charge of building the pyramids. Catena Zapata's winery is a pyramids. So She was in charge of making that investment happening and being the technical voice with the architect to make it also functional, you know. Right. And when she was hired, she told Nicholas, I know I will wanna have my own thing again. And he still wanted to move on hiring her. And she was also this role that she still knows that that's for our wiry of having a technical person traveling and defining the style of the wines. You know, when you have technical people, white makers, visiting the markets. It's instant when you interpretate what the consumer is feeling and what you have to do with the winery to make it better, you know, or to make the wine better for a decision. Right. Getting that perspective. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's so important in the wine world, especially if you're gonna build an international brand, right, to have the perspective of what's happening in other markets, take those key learnings back to adapt what you're doing to suit the consumer, right, ultimately we have to sell the wine. Of course. Yes. Definitely. And I think that was Argentina's approach back then. Today is a little bit different. We define more what we wanna make and what we believe is special from Argentina, and then we hope people to like it, you know. But Argentina has done a a trend into establishing and creating a category on where we are standing as a industry today. So after that, she started her own winery as she always wanted, It was when she was come from the first project. She sold it and saved that money for Jose and and my education. And then when she was trying to find a investor to build Susana Valgo Mhmm. And she couldn't, she said, okay, if If I don't trust my own talent, who will, so she invested her own money to start what we have today in a very small way. We have the winery we have today has been in large and grew and leasing three for stages. There is a lot of complexity into Argentina's economy because there was that intention, but at the same time, Argentina went through something quite complex. That is El Coralito in two thousand one. So everyone's savings were kind of trapped in the banks. By the government, and you couldn't access that. Mhmm. And my mother was always a very well informed person with a lot of friends. So she had some friends in banking. Wow. And you never really know, but the streets were saying that the corralita was going to happen. Italian wine podcast, part of the mama jumbo shrimp family. So she asked her bank to change and wire her money out her savings. And when the Galita came, she went to her manager at the bank and said, like, what happened? And he said, you are right, I couldn't because in Argentina, there are so many things you can never explain. But the only way I can give you your money back, Susana, is if you spend it, you need to spend every single peso or dollar. So she was investing and doing Susana Algo of the winery in the middle of the worst crisis Argentina had. But then after that crisis, Argentina has the first big devaluation of three to one and she already because of her learnings from the first project knew she wanted to focus this in exports. So her working capital tripled because she was selling abroad, and then there was a three to one evaluation. So that was, like, the first boost of investment energy this project had to make it more stable, let's say. In the middle, she always has this backbone personality of when you want things to change, you need to get involved. So she got involved with the presidency or voice of Argentina in three opportunities, and she realized, and let's talk now thirty years ago, of forty, thirty something that Argentina didn't have a cafe and that she had to get involved with other colleagues to make that happen, to have a space in the shelves of the world. So she has been also very active into our industry in general, not only for our own company. So, really, building the entire export brand of not just Susana Balbo, but also Argentina as just a category. She was instrumental on that. It was amazing. Definitely. Like, building her own reality to make her company successful is, like, before my company will be successfully in export, Argentina has to have a favor rebuild, you know. Right. But while so many accomplishments that your mother has under her belt is really inspiring. And I imagine someone that's really inspiring for you to work with as well. So, Anna, you told us about your humble beginnings. Joining the family business, but tell us a little bit more about your role today at the winery and also what you're doing in the hospitality space more specifically. Right. Yes. We as being part of the family, we were a lot of different hats. Yeah. Of course. So we are members of the board, and we are really involved with the strategy at the Burry Broadway, but also in my case, I'm marketing and communication manager of the winery. So I drive the strategy in the different markets, and I have a colleague of mine doing sales, and we do that together for the all the different brands. And as a side, let's say side project, and that drives a little bit, which I have found, in the recent years to be my passion. When I joined the winery in two thousand twelve, I realized that we had an amazing place with beautiful views to the MDs, and we were doing nothing specifically for tourism in a more offensive way. But then we only receive what we call professional visits, you know, like thirty to eighty people a year. That would be other way makers or or sales rep, orters, trade, yeah, etcetera. Mhmm. So in two thousand thirteen, I founded our first restaurant and opened the doors of the Windery to tourism, and that restaurant has only grown year after year on the winery. Incredible. To give you an idea, in two thousand nineteen, we were at our peak of visitors with around twenty two thousand people coming to the winery every year to cheese or tastings or weddings. And then COVID happened, of course. But after COVID, last year was even better than two thousand nineteen, and this year is even better than last year. So it has really exploded, and we were able to capitalize that because we were very early. Yeah. I was gonna ask, Anna. I mean, how did when you opened the first restaurant in two thousand twelve, what was tourism like in Mendoza when you opened that that first restaurant. Were there a lot of tasting rooms or was it more, you know, smaller boutiques? Tell us just a little bit more about, like, the landscape in Mendoza at that time. So ten years ago, there were definitely not as many offering as there are today. Let's say we were, like, a fast second. There were a couple that really intrigued me. So I was, like, I definitely need to do this for our winery, but maybe there were, like, let's say, no more than five big players or important players. Okay. And nowadays, There are twenty, thirty. I don't know. It's amazing. How many different offers have opened in different wineries from Mendoza. There are like fine dining and high end or food trucks or picnics or just platters and tastings. And I think we are capitalizing today because tourism is really booming in Mendoza. A good job done for more than ten years in a very consistent way. You know, last week, we were announced that the Michelin Guide is opening Guide for Argentina, and it's, beginning with Mendoza and Buenos Aires. So everyone is very excited about that. Oh, wow. Congratulations. Yeah. We we don't know who will get listed, but it's definitely a sign that Mendoza is doing a hospitality job really well, and we are getting a lot of attention. And the first list will be shown, November the twenty fourth. Excited. After, inaugurria, the restaurant, a couple of years later, I opened a second space that it was for more casual picnics and kind of a multi space that is called Espas Prios. And now it's the heart of our tourism because people come here, but they can have lunch or just tour. And if they tour, they might have an experience that can be a different tasting with a specific theme, or it can be a blending competition, or it can be a cooking class, or it can be their different offers at the winery nowadays. Very cool. And also before COVID, I got interested in having our own e commerce platform. I did a an e commerce platform to do direct to consumer sales in Argentina. And that was very convenient the time as well because during COVID, everything was functioning, and we also capitalized that. Yes. And well, now recently, we have just, integrated, small luxury hotel. Wow. It's not inside the winery. It's fifteen minutes away in the small town, which is at the same distance from the city center than Lucandecugio are the wineries. So it's a very nice location. I think the important thing to to understand here is how, myself being a second generation that I I'm not a white maker, I could find my own space within our family project and have my own, you know, achievements and and my own interpreters inside our project, and and I could make career without overstepping nor my mother's role or nor my my brother's role, and that's very satisfying. You know? Yeah. Absolutely. And it's also you developed an entire new revenue stream for your family's business and the hospitality space with the restaurant. The multi use space and now the, you know, luxury boutique hotel. I mean, you're you're creating new new forms of business. So that's also really impressive and and important, you know, to diversify. Right? You know, that way, let's say, exports, or having a tough year, you can lean more on hospitality, vice versa. We have to be ready for everything if we learned anything from twenty twenty. So it's important to have different capabilities in a business as well. You know, and that was wasn't very clear at the beginning. And because I studied business and I will do a business plan for every project I open in the winery, when I started with tourists no more, when I started with e commerce, for example, I told my mother and and the rest of the team, our CEO, our general manager, like, I need to invest this amount of money, and we are going to lose money two years to start earning the third year. So you need to trust me, and I need some backup for this because then it's going to pay off. And this year, for example, that, exports for Argentina are tricky. And after COVID, the category has been very challenging. Mhmm. Everything we have done in tourism has really become a, as you said, a very important revenue stream and very tangible, you know, with good margins and a very interesting way of bringing the eggs in different baskets somehow. And, well, but then it's it's the result after ten years of work. You know, it wasn't that clear at the beginning. Yeah. It doesn't happen overnight. And like you said, you have to take some risks and maybe for a couple of years, lose some money and order for the long term gain to gain some notoriety and to create a viable revenue stream. How do you think the hospitality space that you've developed for Susana Balbo has further established Susana Balbo as an international brand? I think it's one of the most relevant marketing tools we have because when people come here, they close the loop between whatever they had in their heads about the brand. Or whatever we have promised, let's say, in communication, in our website, in pictures with the real thing. So when they come here and they see how passionate we are for details, how clean everything is, how professional the team is in hospit hospitality, they kind of say, okay. And and the wines are like that. They are clean, and they're well done, and they're very consistent in quality. So the philosophy of the brand, it doesn't matter if it's about utility or if it's about the wines, it's the same. And you can see that that line very clearly, and I think it creates consumer for life, you know, forever. So I think it's a great contributor to establish the brand as a luxury wine brand, because there are other tangible aspects of the brand that they can experience or see or live. That goes beyond the wine. And it creates a memory, right, as well after they visit the property. It creates something so tangible in their minds that they can relate to when they're back in their home market and they see that bottle on the shelf when they're in the store. So it really, yeah, makes a lot of sense how that really cements the brand by having that experience. Definitely. Yes. That that's exactly what it yeah. Of course, we need to do a good job here, you know, but Of course. Yes. I'm going to have a great experience. Definitely. You know, you and your mother are constantly innovating. Tell us a little bit more what's on the horizon for you in terms of the business. Are you working on any new projects in the hospitality space or just at the winery in general? Yes. It's part of our brand DNA. Innovation. So we're always working in new projects. For example, if we talk about wine, only in the last five years, we have launched it, lower Atlanta, whole wines, we have transitioned our two business to organic, We have new organic wines. We have, some, beverage out of breath without alcohol at all, but it's not wine. Amazing. Not everything goes to every markets, but we are constantly doing and launching different products. And today, what gets us excited the most about Argentina, it's actually white wine, not red wine. Right. We already produced and sold thirty to forty percent white wine and rosette while an average producer from Argentina will produce an parcel between seven to fifteen. No more than that. Interesting. So, there is a lot of new things going on on the wine side. And in on the hospitality side, today, my focus is to establish in a very consistent way, the hotel because it's only one year old, and we have had great results so far, great, recognition with press. Only in the first year, we were named among the most, relevant openings for condensed, for travel and leisure, And also last week, we were mentioned by the New York Times about one of the most exciting places to go. But then again, we need to deliver the promise here. So I'm I'm very focused to the team and the quality of service and everything we're doing at the hotel. By now, but we already have some new land in the because my hotel is not in the middle of the vineyard. Right? The location is amazing, and it's very near the airport, the city center without being in the city center, a lot of wineries from the Vista, but we want to construct and open a multi lodge so people can come to the hotel in Texas which is also the seven rooms are spot. So it's a place related to wellness as well. And then they can go two or three days to the mountains in the middle of the vineyard and be more immersed in nature. Oh, beautiful. So the next for hospitality is the multi lunch. Exciting. I really need to plan another trip back to Argentina. It sounds like lots to see down there. Definitely. Definitely. When was the last time you work here? Oh, it was I did a post college backpacking trip for six months. And, so it was just over ten years ago, actually. I was in all over Patagonia, Buenos Aires and then up in Salta. And I actually did not go to Mendoza. So that is very much top of my list. So maybe, a trip will be in the works soon. Anyway, sounds like some really beautiful, exciting projects that are in the works and all exciting things. So as we wind down, we'll have to finish always, of course, with our rapid fire quiz where we'll hone in on some of key takeaways that you shared with us, Anna, in today's episode. So if you can do your best to answer these questions in just a couple of sentences, that would be great. So question number one, how do you effectively transition a first generation business to the second generation with in a family company. I think that first, you need a first generation. It really opened my need as my mother that is willing to empower the second generation. And then you need a second generation with a profound respect and admiration of what has been done before. To keep on the legacy and sustaining a brand essence throughout the different generations. Very important. Amazing. Question number two, what are your tips for building a successful hospice entality business? I think that regarding hospitality, it's all about passion to detail. I will summarize this in being very detail oriented in every single aspect of the project. From the people you hire, the aspects of the place, the statistics, and you have the the numbers in order. If you're really detail oriented in everything, I think there is no way at failing in hospitality. Yeah. That's a really good reminder. And important for when you're hiring for a hospitality projects too, the type of people you bring on board. And finally, question number three, you know, Susana Bobo, amazing innovator and history of so many great innovations in Argentina, yourself, constantly innovating in hospitality. What do you think are some of the most effective ways to stay ahead of how the wine business is evolving in order to keep your business relevant? I think the easiest and most effective way is traveling, traveling and traveling. Tasting, talking to people, talking to colleagues, tasting their wines in other regions, visiting their places, talking to press and key opinion leaders about the perception of everything that's happening here and there. That's the best way of staying ahead of how's the business is going to evolve. Gaining perspective. Yeah. That's so important. Well, Anna, thank you so much for joining us today on master class US wine market on the Italian wine podcast. I really enjoyed our conversation. Really inspirational all the work you and your mother are doing, and it's great to catch up and hear more about it. How can our listeners connect with you? Thanks for inviting me. And when I hope it was useful, I have an open Instagram account. So it's a at Analo Alibaba. Okay. And if not in any of our social media of the winery or website, eventually, anyone can can get directly to me. That's the that's how the family business is, you know. Okay. Amazing. Fantastic. Well, Anna, thank you again for joining us today. Thanks to you, and thanks for the audience to listening. Thank you for joining me today. Stay tuned each week for new episodes of Masterclass US wine market with me, Juliana Colangelo. I remember if you enjoyed today's show, hit the like and follow buttons wherever you get your podcasts.