Juan Montt
Can you explain your role and what services you provide for the overall group?
My job as a transversal is to coordinate the execution of commercial projects between our wineries in Chile and Spain, our marketing team and the different commercial teams around the world. Working hand in hand with the commercial teams, we identify the different needs of the markets where we reach with our wines and then, together with the wineries and our marketing team, coordinate the execution of the different projects.
Juan Montt is able to work directly with Les Grands Chais de France's producers across South America and then with local sales teams in its key markets like the UK
I also represent and promote the company's Chilean, Spanish and Argentinian wines at the different trade fairs and on our trips visiting our customers.
How many winemaking consultants and coordinators are there within the group and which markets do they cover?
We are just over 30 experts, specialised in each wine region where Les Grands Chais has wineries. Together we cover all the markets where the company reaches with its wines, which today are more than 170 countries, that is, practically all over the world.
How do you work with the key markets to find out how best you can support them?
Our main source of information is the commercial teams, most of whom live and are originally from the country where our wines are sold. They understand the culture and needs very well, while we as experts understand very well the potential we have in each region where we make wine in order to meet those market needs. Working side by side with the commercial teams is essential for us. That is why we regularly travel to the export markets to meet together with the sales people and our customers.
Any good examples of the sort of work you do and the wines you have helped to develop?
One day I received a call from a colleague who invited me to work with a client in the Benelux off-trade channel who was willing to review his portfolio of Chilean wines together with us and identify if there was any potential for our wines. We did the work, analysed and tasted their wines and identified where one of our wines could complete their Chilean wine offering.
The client ended up accepting our proposal and today we have already had two years of excellent sales with our two proposed wines.
What do you like the most about your role and why?
Juan Montt needs to be on top of the winemaking credentials of Les Grands Chais de France's wines but also how they can be relevant in different markets and channels of the trade
I like being able to help our sales teams identify where we have comparative advantages (price, wine profile, packaging, etc.) that make it possible to get a listing of our wines. It is also good to identify where our wines can meet the needs of our customers and then seeing how our products meet those needs, reach their shelves and sell successfully is extremely rewarding.
What do you find most challenging and why?
The main challenge I think is to position our international brands, in my case our Chilean, Spanish and Argentinian wine brands, at the top of the different world wine markets. The competition is extremely hard, and our competitors have been well established in the different markets for decades.
However, the strength of Les Grands Chais de France group, and the overall quality of our wines, together with the great logistics service and reach we have across more than 170 countries, we’re gradually making our international wine brands conquer the different wine markets.
Chris Davies
Chris Davies, channel controller for the on-trade, cash and carry and independent wine merchants.
How do you work with the winemaking coordinators?
Chris Davies is the highly respected and well liked head of Les Grands Chais de France's sales and distribution strategy in the UK
Juan and his colleagues are known internally as “Transversals”.
They provide a cross-functional role ensuring a wider view of all opportunities, technical changes and general information from a wine, region and even country view.
As proficient as the sales team are, they would be unable to provide this level of detailed information whilst also ensuring it's the latest thinking.
The team will visit and help us in the UK particularly when we have our on-trade and independent merchants’ tastings and for me that's a great way for them to meet our customers and discuss our opportunities.
They are always available at the larger fairs such as Wine Paris and ProWein, but to have them locally is a really great asset.
Specific customer tastings play a part in their activity too, but as they cover 170 countries, that's not always possible for all of them.
We all know the best place to taste the wines is next to the vineyard it came from and this is also something we do a lot with the team. Customer trips help cement those relationships and create an experience never to be forgotten.
What do you find most useful about the services they can provide?
For me it's customer reassurance. The transversals’ are first to admit that they are not really sales people, however they can provide our customers with the technical winemaking insights and passion coupled with that specialist country knowledge.
This helps all three parties (client, sales and transversal) understand the objective whether its price, style, alternative blends and now increasingly ABV.
Our clients have built up relationships with the transversal team and will often ask after them, also they are a great resource to ask about latest harvest.
Any good case studies or examples of how you have worked together?
My most memorable of this, that helped our on-trade business in particular, was a trip we did to Bordeaux and took our transversal Pierre-Jean Sauvion from the Loire. That shouldn't have worked in theory but it really did. Pierre-Jean and I were able to explain to the client how we worked as a business as well as reassure them that we are an extremely capable business with very high standards. This trip showed a range of wines from all our properties at the time and secured many listings.
Using our team from Burgundy we have managed to turn historically skeptical customers to taste our wines and having the transversal there at the meeting to explain how we have a new approach to Burgundy, has turned heads and prospects into clients.
Anything else to say?
Las Ninas in Chile is part of the company's growing international portfolio and is helping to bring award-winning wines from Chile into the business
The team has now grown with experts from South Africa, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Juan looking after Chile and Spain. We have just received some great news from Tim Atkin MW and the scores he gave our on-trade range from Las Ninas winery in Chile.
There are some fabulous wines now in this range and since we bought the winery, using our depth of skills and winemaking knowledge and through the work of the entire team, including Juan, of course, the quality has blossomed.
For me it's a real accolade to have these scores from Tim across so many wines in the range.
* You can read more about Les Grands Chais de France at its website here.
