Fontana agrees, adding: “Pisco is very easy to understand because to produce pisco, you need to produce wine – the same processes as any wine in the world.” With a successful domestic presence, the brand is continuing to grow its positioning in Europe, holding masterclasses in the continent as “we believe education is essential for people to discover how wonderful pisco is”, Ballarta adds.
FUTURE GROWTH
While there’s still work needed on the education side of the category, De Mola notes challenges back home when it comes to ensuring the longevity of the grapes themselves.
“Most agriculture is competing for the best yielding crops – blueberries have taken over the market and most will say pisco grapes won’t give the yield. We need to get more involved in planting as we’re competing with the higher yielding crops. If we rent or buy land, we’re doing it to continue to supply the industry that we’re in. We do it because we want the agricultural business to be consistent quality wise, cost wise, with what we need to preserve the quality of the liquid in the bottle that we’re going to bring to the world,” says De Mola.
“What we are doing is exploring a few more grapes. We are in the latter part of a couple of years playing with Albilla grapes which we haven’t used before, and with Mollar. Our Moscatel has been a success. We’re now experimenting with a Mosto Verde Moscatel. I don’t release pisco for the sake of releasing something. We’ve done a few private labels as limited editions, but pisco is hard to scale up, you have to be consistent. We’re in 53 countries, so I have to make sure that what I have is solid enough to supply those countries,” De Mola continues.
Alongside grape growing, Barsol is also expanding its facilities. “We’re reaching our maximum capacity and Barsol is looking for a strategic partner to come and join us so we can expand production, actually get into the agricultural side and buy or rent land so that we can grow our own grains and control quality, which is at the top of our priorities.
“We don’t want volume, we want quality, and we will scale up as long as we can control that quality as we grow. Sometimes the category is too small for big companies to look at, but a mid-size investor that would like to take it to the next level would be the appropriate investor into the category.”
Despite its quality and proven ability in the mixology world, the future of pisco will depend on more than just what’s in the bottle. The category will need to balance identity and education, with some producers securing the backing of larger investors to help move pisco from a more niche offering to an established global spirit.
