Our business

Improvements

Villa Sandahl Kft is a new player in a traditional wine region, which has been growing vines since the roman empire (at least). Needless to say, it is 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 all over the world since the old times.

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

To keep energized and passionate in the long run, it is also vital when producing wine, that the owners of Villa Sandahl themselves adores to drink their own wines and enthusiastically like to present their thrilling story.

Models

To succeed to realize the vision and all other values referred above, Villa Sandahl must:

• Applying quality- and business skill
• Create profit margin by customer satisfaction
• Find the right people (and get rid of the rest)

• 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.

Image

There is an image concept called 'out of the box'. Inside the box there are such companies and persons, which are mainstream and rather easy to predict. For example Brittney Speers and soap operas.

Outside of the box there might also reside companies and persons. They are much more unique and harder to keep track of. If their products and offerings are strong and high in demand, their customers like them, because they are creative and don't follow the majority. Examples of 'out of the box' are 'Monte Python's Flying Circus' and Lars von Trier films.

From the early start in 2004, Villa Sandahl has in fact acted very much 'out of the box'. How many finds the most amazing vineyards in Hungary, how many starts a wine production without any degree from schools, who wins several Decanter medals after a few years, etc.

Villa Sandahl has actively taken the decision to strive for uniquely high quality, implying that an 'out of the box' position would be highly beneficial. A recent example is to apply a unique label for each wine and vintage. This is introduced by the 2010 wines, and has been enthusiastically received from critics and customers.

Strategy

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 a wine production.

High quality wines have good margins but will always be a very limited volume on the wine market. Villa Sandahl's vineyard has the potential to give the necessary grape raw material for excellent quality wine. Thus, the preferred business situation for Villa Sandahl is to produce relatively small amounts of very high quality wines.

The company structure being established consists of one Hungarian company, called Sandahl Viticult Kft. to cultivate vineyards and one Hungarian company called Villa Sandahl Kft. to produce wine, and one Swedish company, called Sandahl International AB, to be the 'umbrella' company marketing the wines.

Badacsony

The Villa Sandahl vineyards are located in straight south on the premium land of the Badacsony hill. They are recently named by Villa Sandahl, in both English and Hungarian, see below.

Wine style

When deciding which wine type to produce and to offer on the market, this depends on :

• What wine style is best supported by the vineyards, its soil and climate.
• What wine style has the best demand on the market and can give the best margin
• What whine style do the owners like and think is the most funny to produce.

We have 10 hectare south facing mineral vineyards in the core of the Badacsony hill. Rather early we clearly understood that the climate was a bit too warm for early ripening grape varieties. For this reasons we identified (Rainaj) Riesling to be the choice of excellence because :

• Riesling as variety has a bit higher acidity, which better persists the a hot climate
• Riesling as variety ripens a litter later, and ideal for late harvest with modest sugar growth
• Riesling is very stylish, and good to expose the mineral soil
• Riesling has a world wide reputation to be an excellent variety
• Riesling can have high rich concentration without a clumsy character

To conclude, we decided to go for Riesling with rich "new world" body but not on the cost of elegance and subtleness. To achieve both richness and elegance is the most difficult, but a good vision. Acidity in our wines should be modest, and residual sugar level should be detectable but not much more. Higher quality may have a bit more acidity and a bit lower sugar.

We also decided to make as high quality as possible, even if the volume of the best wines get low. This is also a flirt with the market, to show the best wines at tastings and exhibitions, and let this pull the allover sale. This decision result in separation of the best raw material, by harvesting vineyards or parts thereof and pressing to several fractions.

Consumers

Comparing with basic food, water, shelter etc, wine is a not product that is necessary for a human to survive. Because of that, wine can easily be excluded and replaced by something else, and consequently a wine products get rather sensitive for any kind of influences, e.g. fashion, trends, politics etc. One way to structure the wine consumers into segments, is to look on how they use wine:

	4. Drinking for an experience	5. Drinking as a passion	6. Drinking to show prestige
	Wine has special role in an arrangement , e.g. the food depends on the wine	Wine has a crucial role in an arrangement, e.g. tasting of rare wines without food	The price tag is crucial, e.g. cheering after signing an expensive contract
	Mid range quality, € 10 - 20	Rare peak quality, € 20 - 50	Boutique quality, > € 50
	1. Drinking to get drunk	2. Drinking to get social	3. Drinking to get a feeling
	Anything containing alcohol is suitable	People and accompany is more important then the wine, e.g. ordinary parties	Wine has an own role in an arrangement , e.g. a good dinner with fine wine
	Low quality, < € 2	Ordinary quality, € 2 - 5	Solid ground quality, € 5 - 10

A lot of other segment models could imagined, but this rather simple segment model is good enough.

Market

In the above table, the quality level and the price for a 75 cl bottle is indicated. We have decided to offer 3 wine quality grades to cover the segment number 3 to 5 in above table. From the 2018 vintage, all Sandahl bottles will be clearer marked to make it easier for our different target segments to select the appropriate quality level of a Sandahl bottle.

• The Solid ground grade will not have cork, but a screw cap with white text, below to the right.
• The Mid range grade will appear as before, with cork and capsule with white text, below in middle.
• The Rare peak grade will appear slightly different, with cork but capsule with gold text, below to the left

To reach the identified segments on the market, will need some different strategies.

The segment 1. Drinking to get drunk we don't support for obvious reasons.

The segment 2. Drinking to get social, we neither support, because these consumers seldom look on the label, and if they do they don't want to understand or bother. Consequently they seldom come back if they have happened to find a bottle from us.

The segment 3. Drinking to get a feeling is rather price sensitive and has rather much to choose from. These consumer don't generally look on patrol stations or supermarkets to find their preferable wines, but these consumers can buy there when they come into emergency to by a gift or a dinner wine. When these consumers have found their darlings, they are rather loyal to come back. When these consumers visit a restaurant with considerable price markups, they get doubtful and often select a more ordinary wine than usual. If they visit a restaurant on business cost, these consumers may order more expensive wines to impress unaware people (miniatures of segment 6.). Typically this segment choose from Solid Ground wines.

The segment 4. Drinking for an experience is not very price sensitive, and know rather well what the offering to choose from. These consumers seldom buy wines on patrol stations or supermarkets, because they can not find enough exciting wines there. This segment must be attracted by something connected with the wine, for example quality, origin or character. This segment is not very loyal, but come back if the wine is exciting and decent value. On restaurants, these consumers are rather inventive, and may order favorite and expensive wines if somebody else pay, but in other case order beer, juice or whatever to drink. Solid ground is a bit unexciting for this segment, they regularly try in the Mid Range, and for more festive occasions they can by Rare Peaks.

The segment 5. Drinking as a passion is not at all sensitive to price. These consumers are very well-informed and buy exactly the wine they have planned. They are rather influential with journalist and blogging friends, and can be good help in communication to the market. They seldom spend money on restaurants, because few restaurant offer such exciting wines and if so these get too expensive. This segment demands at least Rare Peaks, and they love to compare wines of this grade with other producers wine of equal or better quality.

The segment 6. Drinking to show power, we have nothing against, but this is for the moment not likely to be reachable.

Channels

As indicated in the previous chapter the channels to our 3 segment become a bit different.

Wholesalers and retailers. These channels are the backbone for Villa Sandahl. Currently we have a good connection with Bortársaság in Hungary, and try to find corresponding wholesalers and retailers in key countries in Europe and states in USA.

Restaurants and sommeliers. These channels are very good for us, because our wines in their menu or a bottle on the table of a prestige restaurant is a very good advertising pillar. Also the sommelier recommends our wines and tells god stories about us.

Exhibitions and fairs. There are very good exhibitions and there are meaningless. The trick is to know which are good for you to a reasonable price, and which are the reverse. We are frequently participating on more dedicated exhibitions and avoid big and anonymous ones.

Wine critics and journalists. The problem with critics and journalists are that they are lousy on tasting wines. The use a fashionable vocabulary to hide their incompetency. The knowledgeable critics and journalists are very useful, and the incompetent must be avoided, since they risk to hurt you with writing things that are wrong or doubtful.

Wine challenges. There is very good business to arrange wine challenges, and new challenges are popping up like mushrooms after a rain, but most of them suffer from lousy tasters and distributes medals in a random way. Decanter has had a good reputation, but recently show surprisingly inconsistency. Beware !

Media and advertising. Modern media like Facebook are great to use, but traditional four-color printings are expensive and rather meaningless.

Consultants. If very selectively used, they can be good for marketing.

Further information

Download our pdf presentation Introduction vers 20 <8 M bytes>

Download our pdf Leaflet vers 18 (Double sided page plus folding instruction) < 2,3 M bytes

Download our zip public photo map < 121 M Bytes