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StateWays ■ www.stateways.com ■ September/October 2015 16 B R A N D S P O T L I G H T Q & A Mia Offers Fun, Bright Wine for Young Palates By Nicholas Upton I recently sat down with Gloria Collell to get the low- down on Mia wines, the fun-forward, entry-level wine available from Freixenet USA. Collell says the wine was researched every step of the way to create a line specifi cally for new wine drinkers. Freixenet – looking to renew its offerings – and Collell spent two years before they had a blend, and then contin- ued to tweak the recipes, labels and the messaging based on consumer focus groups. The outcome is an easy-drinking wine with an engaging story and a fun label. Collell says the background of the line differs drastically from the way things used to be done. "Twenty fi ve years ago, a winery would say, 'This is my terroir, this is my soil, those are the grapes I can grow, those are the wines I can make and the consumer should like it," she says. "Now, we've realized we need to talk to the consumer and can't just take the wine Mother Nature is giving us." Most of the big brands have moved toward this research and product, as the risk of creating a new line becomes a million-dollar gamble. "If you're making 2,000 bottles, go ahead. If nobody likes it, you can drink it with your friends. But if you're selling one million bottles you need to understand what the consumer wants," said Collell. "To me that's the big change in the wine business — and that's good. We need to talk; we need to understand what people want." SW: What was that research like? GC: I think the whole trade and Freixenet especially realized that we had to do something different. So in 2009 we started deep research into what the consumer was all about. And the wine was released in 2011. In 2011, we started more research into the consumer's needs. The young consumers that we approached desired uncomplicated wines. They wanted "easy to drink" and "easy to understand." At the same time there was this de- sire for real stories. But that demographic wants real stories, they want true stories - they don't want marketing SW: What was the inspiration for these wines? GC: For me, it was clear that we had to be ambassadors of Spanish grapes. So we said, "Let's make this style of new-generation wine, but with a Spanish fl air." So Mia was born of the Spanish taste with the Barcelona look, because people love Barcelona. SW: Can you describe the wines? GC: The white is a blend of three white grapes (Macabeo, Xarel-lo and Parellada) with a secondary fermentation. Then we add 15% of Moscatel to have all those romantic and fl owery fl avors. It goes very well with seafood — all kinds of fi sh and shrimp. The rosé is a premium rosé. There is a big trend for pre- mium rosés right now. For me it goes very well with a lot of Thai and other spicy cuisine — it cleans out the pallet, but at the same time it has the body to stand out. The red is the fi rst wine we made. To me, it was clear that we needed to go with a Tempranillo. So this is 100 percent Tempranillo. It's fruity, fresh, easy to drink — it has a lot of power on the fruit. It's spicy, but at the same time it's very easy to drink. We also have the pink Moscato — the red has just 10 percent of the Tempranillo, just to give it a little twist. I like it as an appetizer. The French, they drink sweet wines as an aperitif. It's really sweet, but refreshing at the same time. SW: Why do you think new wine drinkers want something so sweet? GC: We were seeing that the young people were getting into wine consumption later and later. Why? Because they have grown up drinking sweet drinks — soft drinks like Coca Cola or Fanta. And second, when they want to get into the wine knowl- edge, the only thing they could fi nd were the dark, really heavy-tannin wines like Cabs from Napa, Tuscans, Bor- deaux — for a new consumer, they are not pleasing at all. They didn't like it!