Taste
Masters to Watch: Henrico van Lammeren
A good wine is essential during Christmas dinner. MASTERS spoke with Henrico van Lammeren, CEO of the family business Vinites. What trends does he observe in wine, and which bottle should you bring this Christmas to truly impress your guests?
A good wine is actually indispensable during Christmas dinner. MASTERS talked to Henrico van Lammeren, CEO of the family business Vinites. What trends does he see in the field of wine and which wine should you bring this Christmas to really surprise your guests at the table?
Storytelling
“When I was still working at a subsidiary publisher of De Telegraaf, I developed a loyalty program for subscribers of the daily newspapers produced there based on their areas of interest, including food and drinks. Together with Vinites I developed a wine website – that was something completely new twenty years ago. A year and a half later I was the marketing manager of the wine importer. That was quite a change for me, because until then I didn't drink wine at all. Now I can really crave certain grapes and flavors in the evening, sometimes a Cabernet Sauvignon, other times a delicious Sangiovese. People sometimes ask about my best wine moment. That's why I came to work at Vinites: then a world opened up for me. Wines have enriched my life, and that is partly due to the storytelling. I am a story man and there is a story behind every bottle of wine. Vinites distinguishes itself from other wine importers in several areas. Firstly, Italian and Spanish wines form the backbone of our range. Secondly, with the exception of the consumer, we supply to all channels in the Netherlands: catering, wine specialists, wholesalers, internet players and supermarkets. Thirdly, Vinites is a family business, founded in 1979 by owner Eddy de Boer. Winemakers like to work with us because of this family structure: short lines, approachable, enthusiastic. We do 95 percent of our wineries on an exclusive basis and the majority of them are also family businesses - that gives a huge click."
Better for more
“The trend I see in wine is 'better for more'. There is a world of difference in quality between a five euro bottle from the supermarket and the same wine from the same area that you buy for double the amount in a wine shop. During corona, more and more consumers started enriching their home-made food, whether or not purchased in the well-known containers at a restaurant, with wine from wine specialists. That has taken off enormously. But good and accessibly priced wines will always exist. For example, with the energy crisis you see that some people are taking a step down in their expenditure and choosing a slightly cheaper wine, because they want to continue enjoying it. Another trend is driven by climate change. This leads to a shift in temperature zones, as a result of which certain grapes can no longer grow or acquire more sugar, causing the alcohol percentage to rise. So you go wine sourcing in cooler areas, including the Netherlands: we work with Wijnhoeve de Kleine Schorre from Schouwen-Duiveland, which produces a range of wines from the classic grape varieties originally from Alsace. Our history may be in Italy, but we also have wines from almost every wine-producing country, even Patagonia.”
Shelling
“In addition to better and cool climate wines, biodynamic and natural wines are more popular. Yet another trend is that consumers are drinking less alcohol – and the ideal non-alcoholic wine has not yet been found. We drink from each other's pond; Sometimes you lose some ground to special beer, other times to gin and tonic. My challenge lies in offering as much as possible to my customers. Actually, I would like them to be able to buy everything they are looking for from us based on the one-stop shopping principle. We respond to this with a range of certain distilled products from Italy that fit well with our portfolio. Then you think of grappa, whiskey and also gin: the Marconi 42 has really gone through the roof. We even worked with Peroni beer brewery for a few years. We continue to innovate, although the wine world is a very traditional world. People were already drinking wine 7.000 years ago, when there was not even beer yet. There is so much history and culture behind it! Check it out: we work with the oldest wine dynasty in the world, Barone Ricasoli: that family has been making wine since 1141. These people have already experienced everything: shelling by knights on foot and on horseback, attacks by the Germans. Talking about storytelling!”
Mission
“The thing I like most about my job is that you can get people excited about the product very quickly. Funny enough, because I'm into wine, my family has started drinking better wine. I received a message from my cousin last week: 'We started the red wine tonight. You have brought us so much! Because we now drink something completely different than before.' That is my mission: to bring people into contact with better quality wines. In Restaurant M* at MASTERS EXPO we introduce guests to a sparkling wine from Gusbourne Estate, a top of the bill sparkling producer from Appledore in the English county of Kent, where grapes can now be planted due to the rise in temperatures. Twenty-five years ago that would not have been possible. The guests sitting at the table in Restaurant M* have already experienced it all. But we are really going to surprise them with this!”
MASTERS MAGAZINE
The winter issue of MASTERS was created in collaboration with Jordi van den Bussche. Many will know him as YouTuber Kwebbelkop, but he has been working hard as an entrepreneur for some time, as he explains in the Great Interview. What is new is that his company JVDB Studios offers to do social media marketing and short format content marketing for other companies. “They can also figure it out themselves, but we cracked the code.” Jordi gives a platform to like-minded entrepreneurs such as Jay-Jay Boske, Demy de Zeeuw, Chahid Charrak and Marcella de Bie, and discusses developments surrounding games, crypto and NFT: “Just as bitcoin turned the financial system upside down, will that also happen with gaming.” This extra thick winter issue also focuses on Lengers' first own ship, an interview with Corendon CEO Atilay Uslu, specials about the new BMW 7 Series and Samsung foldables, and - exclusively for MASTERS! – an interview with Max Verstappen.
