Ideas behind the bottle ?

1.   Strategy

2.   Business

3.   Market

4.   Target groups

5.   Wine Style

6.   Image

7.   Competency

8.   Vineyard

9.   Varieties

10. Cultivation

11. Wine making

12. Technology

13. Quality

Villa Sandahl is a new player in a traditional wine region, dating from thousands of years back in time. Needless to say, it is utterly important to refine the specific terroir opportunities and all accumulated values from the past, but it is equally important to bring in new approaches where significant progress have been made since the old times.

The behaviour among wine consuming people is under constant evolution and has changed drastically in the latest decades. It is necessary to keep up with offering a product that is recognised for being modern and competitive.

To keep energized and passionate in the long run, it is also vital that the owners of Villa Sandahl love their wines and adores to taste them.

Villa Sandahl is resolutely and dedicatedly taking on the competition in the top quality segment of dry white wine, and have already achieved to be "Hungary's best dry Rhine Riesling wine”. Next improvement step is to push the quality level up to produce "one of the worlds best Riesling wines".

It is a fact in most parts of the world, that cheap and low quality wines have lesser and lesser demand. Wine is more and more seen to fill a life style and being a source of adventures, instead of a cheap way of getting drunk. Consequently low quality wines are exposed for a hard price press and risk to get unprofitable to produce.

On the other hand and quite contrary, high quality wine have a lot better profit margin. This fact has a lot of reasons, and amongst other can be mentioned the scarceness of ultimate vineyards, the difficulties to find necessary competency, and the timeless problem to get quality into all parts of the wine operation.

High quality wines have good margins but will always be a very limited volume market. The preferred business situation for Villa Sandahl is to produce relatively small amounts of very high quality wines.

The Villa Sandahl company group is a solely family owned operation, and the structure being established for wine production and sale, consists of one Hungarian company, called Villa Sandahl Kft to cultivate vineyards, and a Swedish company called Sandahl International AB, to own the Hungarian company and marketing the wine in the wide world.

Villa Sandahl has some barriers when entering the market

• Hungarian dry white wine use to be cheap

• Villa Sandahl is currently unknown

On the other hand, Villa Sandahl has a couple of strengths:

• The wines are big value for the money (The quality is far higher then the price asked for)

• A unique and remarkable history of success, crowned by medals from Riesling du Monde and Decanter.

To use the strengths and overcome the barriers, it is important to find the right target groups and the best market channels to reach them. The following targets are identified, based on business and vision:

1. Price-insensitive persons seeking the best

2. Wine loving people seeking something extra

Price-insensitive persons can be reach in a number of ways, for example at fashionable restaurants, quality retailers or internet shops addressed by selective advertisement. Top restaurants are also good, since Villa Sandahl wines go very well with food.

Wine loving "ordinary" people are more sensitive for the price. But if the quality and image is obviously high but reasonable priced, these people are prepared to pay more then they use to do. Dedicated quality retailers or selected internet shops are good channels.

Because Villa Sandahl is unknown and Hungary is mostly known for cheap box wines, the above two targets  need selling personal assistance, who likes the Villa Sandahl success and want to sell Villa Sandahl wines to them. This assistance can be specialized retailers, skilled sommeliers or newsletters in a mail box.

To offer the wine via internet shops and ship directly to private persons also eliminate all middlemen between the producer and consumer. This is currently made in Sweden with very good result.

Supermarkets chains and general grocery shops are hardly good channels for selling Villa Sandahl wines. Such stores sell big volumes of cheap wine, without offering any kind of sale assistance. The Swedish monopoly Systembolaget is also in this category.

These two Villa Sandahl targets are not very big on the wine market, implying that only small volumes can be sold at each time. Even with Villa Sandahl's modest volume production (couple of ten thousands bottles), there are not an enough big market for this price segment within Sweden, or even not within Scandinavia. Many countries in Europe must be targeted, or considering to export some parts to America or Asia.

Based on targets and channels in previous discussion, the following targets groups can be identified:

1) Villa Sandahl first mission is to satisfy vine loving "ordinary people", looking for such wines that offer them something extra. That might be their unique and successful history, the rich wine type, the value for money or the trend for Riesling. The wines are intended to be enjoyed with home cocking, or being an adventure in itself.

2) Wine quality is not very transparent and easy analysed by people in general, resulting in a shortage of reliable advices and guidance. This is provided by wine critics, writing in newspapers or judging on wine competitions, who thereby get very influential, thus becoming the second important target for Villa Sandahl.

3) Sommeliers at restaurants are the third target for Villa Sandahl. Their preferences are between the experienced ordinary consumers and wine critics. Since sommeliers are working close to their customers, their attitudes are somewhere between ordinary people and wine critics.

4) An implicit target group is the owners of Villa Sandahl themselves. To produce a quality wine is impossible if the owners are not passionate for the quality of their products.

Different target group has different preferences, like:

They are a bit "classic" conservative with correct rules like:

"Wine to food must be dry"
"Noticeable sugar is undesired"
"Acidity must be noticeable"
"Wines must be region typical"

They are easier to flatter, and skip correctness and might say like:

"Pour any good wine available"
"Some sweet body is preferred"
"Acidity may not be disturbing"
"Typicality not a big matter"
 

Villa Sandahl always have to consider making different types of wine for their different target groups, or try to make compromises that both these target groups are ready to accept.

Most wine loving "ordinary people" prefer a boost of the body with some sugar (5 - 7 g/l). This is a bit over the detectable level at a tastings but clearly within the EU definition of dry wine.

However, for wine critics this sugar content might be (a couple of grams) too high. Consequently, Villa Sandahl ferment the Silver Line to higher residual sugar to satisfy wine loving "ordinary people", and ferment the Golden Line with less sugar to catch the critics (and more "classic" wine loving "ordinary people").

Furthermore, Villa Sandahl don't want that their wines should be referred to as "sour" or "acid" (quite common perception of white wines). This means that the acidity level should be moderate (5 - 7 g/l, or about the same level as for sugar) and that the acidity should be round and ripe. Consequently, the "soft acidity" is mainly achieved by moderate levels of acidity and by late grape harvesting.

On the other hand, acidity brings elegance and freshness. Villa Sandahl's "soft acidity" approach must consequently be balanced by a "fresh acidity" contrast. This is obtained by using the "mineral acidity" Riesling variety as the optimal variety of choice, and to avoid  malolactic fermentation (which anyway doesn't go well with Riesling). Also prevention from oxidation is important to not destroy the fragile elegance.

Volatile acidity in excess levels can be regarded as a flaw in a wine. However, in a moderate level (0.5 - 0.7 g/l), volatile acidity release the smell and brings complexity to the wines.

Late grape harvest cause the sugar to rise, which means that the alcohol level can get high (above 13 %). This is not a big problem if the wine is rich, so that the alcohol can be hidden among a lot of other supplying components. Despite this, Villa Sandahl must avoid a too high alcohol level, since health care institutions see high alcohol levels as unfashionable.

To attract the target groups above, Villa Sandahl want to be referred as:

• Apply quality- and business skill

• Create profit margin by customer satisfaction

• Find the right people

• Don’t fear new thinking

• Be energized and passionate

• Keep persistent and long-term

Models from other business professions are such companies as Toyota, Ikea and Google. They are interpreted as reliable, serious, persistent, long term, inventive, market oriented and quality driven.

It is important to show preferred characteristics in everything concrete being done. For example:

• Producing top quality wine to reasonable prices for satisfied customers.

• Being awarded with medals from the most prestigious wine competitions in the world, such as Riesling du Monde and Decanter.

• Building a stylish promotion house, where Villa Sandahl can receive preferred retailers and brokers.

• Changing and improving the vineyard binding to show a model of farming.

• To be informative and honest about the Villa Sandahl operation, like this page on the web site.

One of the most important areas for to succeed with a quality operation, is to find the right people, and to do without the others. The Villa Sandahl team is so far:

Thord Sandahl from Värnamo in Sweden, has a genuine experience of business and leadership, being president of the large size Swedish road carrier family corporation Sandahlsbolagen AB.

 

Christer Sandahl from Lund in Sweden, has a long experience of official wine judgements in the Swedish wine association Munskänkarna, and has collected and tasted rare wines from all over the world for over 25 years.
 

The owners are in favour to get support from dedicated specialists like:

Fabien Stirn from Sigolsheim in Alsace. He is a talented wine maker of the fifth generation, producing superb Alsace grand cru wines. He is the invaluable oenological consultant for us.

Stefan Cezar, who from Hungary, but have also lived in Sweden for long. He is the inimitable entrepreneur  managing the Cezar Winery in Nagyrada. This company ferment and bottle the Villa Sandahl wines.
 

Tibor Toth from Hungary. He is cultivating the Villa Sandahl vineyards and taking care of the Villa Sandahl's real estates.

All of Hungary is scattered with traditional wine areas, well known by Hungarians, but often rather unknown for the rest of the world. Badacsony is one of the most famous and situated in the west part of Hungary, on the northern shore of lake Balaton.

During the 18.–19. centuries, the Badacsony wine region was, together with Tokaj, the most well reputed wine area in Hungary and even in the rest of Europe. Sadly this area has declined in quality since then, with an accelerated speed during the communist era.

The Badacsony Hill has excellent volcanic eroded basalt soil and steep slopes down to the Balaton Lake with perfect sun exposure.

This area has always had an enormous potential, but for the moment this is not optimally utilized. Villa Sandahl is dedicated to once again release this potential, when to intend to produce the best dry white wines of Hungary.

The vineyard is called "Zsuzsannas vineyard", after the former owner. It is one of the steepest slopes of the Badacsony Hill. The vineyard is 3.4 hectares, has a gradient of about 1:5, and is straight south-facing. Villa Sandahl regard this vineyard to have the same potential as many famous vineyards in Alsace and Wachau.

Zsuzsanna Vineyard is planted with 25 years old vines of Rhine Riesling and Pinot Gris, with some additional Zeus.

Villa Sandahl have recognised that the Zsuzsanna vineyard is one of the hottest and driest microclimate of then Badacsony hill. Thus the vineyard seem to be a location favourable for both white and red varieties, either sun resistant white varieties or easy ripening red varieties.

The late ripening Rhine Riesling is found to be the perfect mach for the hot microclimate, and is also worldwide highly regarded as a quality variety. Since it is already the major variety in the vineyard, Villa Sandahl will proceed with this variety as the major target.

Villa Sandahl runs an improvement program to engraft the other varieties (Zeus and maybe Pinot Gris) into Rhine Riesling.

When to producing a top quality wine, it is crucial to have control in the vineyard and for example limit the harvest yield. Fortunately, there has never been any overproduction in the Zsuzsanna vineyard since the current vines were planted 1983, so there is no big need for any challenging changes in this matter.

Currently the standard for Villa Sandahl is to take out 5 ton per hectare, corresponding to about 31 hectolitre wine per hectare. This is a very modest yield, which maybe considered to be heighten a bit without scarifying wine quality.

Harvest is a substantial risky moment and must be supervised down to details. Grape clusters must be cut off gently, carefully placed in small collecting boxes, which may not be over filled. A grape that get even the smallest rip, starts to oxidise, which erodes the wine quality.

The transport to Nagyrada is an additional risk for crushing more grapes and expose them to oxygen from the wind blowing through the load.

One of the most important moment in white wine making, is the grape pressing procedure. Villa Sandahl press whole clusters (without destemming) gently and slowly for several hours.

During the ongoing pressing, Villa Sandahl applies the method to separate the must in several fractions of different qualities. After pressing is finished, a first judgment can be made if to mix any of the fractions or to ferment all of them separately.

The fermentation is done very slowly in a reductive environment, in months rather than weeks. This enriches the wine considerably as well as the required low temperature keep freshness and bring elegance to the wine. There is never a need for malolactic fermentation.

To control the fermentation speed, temperature must be continuously watched. All wines being under fermentation is measured and analysed every day.

After fermenting, another judgment is made which tanks is up to standard for Golden Line and what must be declassified to Silver Line. Qualities below Silver Line is not sold under the Villa Sandahl label.

Bottling is done in sterile environment into stylish bottles, and without compromising cork quality.

A quality wine is the result from impeccable treatment by adequate technology.

In the vineyard the Carrera TRX 9400 AC tractor with low gravitation centre and wide balloon tyres is the key enabler. To the tractor connects sprayer, crass cutter and sprout cutters.

The grape press is essential for making white wine. Villa Sandahl use an Bucher-Vaslin XPF 80  It is possible to program the press with the pressure schema, to get a reliable pressing process.

Some producers use large casks to be traditional and/or enable some micro oxidation. Villa Sandahl avoid wood, because the fear to strip down the elegance and to accelerate the maturation of the bottled wine. Villa Sandahl use only stainless steel tanks, many of them with movable top, because fractions differ in volume for every vintage.

To be able to measure in an efficient and accurate way in a stressing reality, Villa Sandahl acquired an analysing instrument named "Oenofoss" from a Danish company. From a wine sample drop this machine deliver the nine most common measurements with enough accuracy within a half minute.

To ferment and bottle the wines, Villa Sandahl has a close and long term cooperation with the Cezar Winery just outside Nagyrada in the Kis-Balaton Area. This vinery is establishing a top modern winemaking production site and will produce around 1 million bottles in a couple of years to come. Most of their wines are red from their own vineyard grapes.

Quality control is one of the most crucial aspects when to produce great wines. The overall difficulty is, that quality can not be separated out as a stand alone activity performed by a certain person or group. Quality must instead be understood and applied in every part of the operation by everybody working for Villa Sandahl.

First of all, the value chain of the Villa Sandahl operation is captured and understood. This is a map of every activity from the very first planning of the vineyard, all the way through green work, harvesting, pressing, fermentation, and up to the wine is in the bottle and consumed by a satisfied customer. Se the quality presentation that explains this more in detail.

After capturing the value chain, all spots in the chain  influencing the wine quality is identified. After that, a prioritized plan is established, describing which spots having which quality weaknesses and in what prioritized order to improve them.

Finally and most difficult, the decided quality improvements have to be implemented and realized. The improvement have sometimes been to acquire better equipment, sometimes to change supplier etc, but most often have been to deal with changing the way people think and work. This is often considered to be a painful transition, but when Villa Sandahl has has decided what must be done, there is commitment and patience until the implementation has proven to be in place.

The above quality work is not a one-time-activity, but must be continually repeated as a "continuous learning and improvement" concept. To not improve and learn, is in best case to stay still, but if competitors are moving forward, then yourself are moving backward relatively to them.

Villa Sandahl Kft
8261 Badacsony
Római út 203/1
Hungary

Sandahl International AB
Box 2045
331 02 Värnamo
Sweden