We may not have the prestige of Napa valley in California, or the history of the Bordeaux Region in France, but Belizean wine makers make some delicious local wines right in the river valley. Now the Ministry of Agriculture is investigating how those wines can be improved and the knowledge based expanded because there's a possibility that these wines can be exported. Alfonso Noble went to Rancho Dolores today to find out about these magical local spirits.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
Charles Belgrove has been making wines from local fruit for the past 20 years. The stacked shelves in his mini winery in Double Head Cabbage attest to his industry. Today in an effort to capitalize on his experience in wine making, the Ministry of Agriculture has brought together a group of wine producers from the area who like Belgrove, share as much passion for the fine art of wine making.
Charles Bacab,
"The main objective of this activity is to give the people out here in the business of wine or who want to get into wine making a hint of what are the main procedures of making a commercial wine which can be a address to fulfill the standards of the international market."
But while the ministry hopes that experience sharing will improve the overall quality of wine production, Charley's wine needs more. Today he demonstrated how he goes about making his wine, while of course not divulging too much of his secret art. But while he shared, he does have a need to upgrade his product.
Charles Belgrove,
"I have a problem here of proper filtering and proper packaging is our main problem. Some things we want done in the country and we can't get done like having the wine go through tests to tell exactly what are the ingredients in there so we can sell it outside and our packaging, we are having major problems with packaging. In order to market this product you need proper bottling, it must have a nice seal over this, it must be in bottle not scratched this one. You can't sell this in the Princess because if a tourist comes and sees this bottle he wouldn't buy it. You want a proper clean bottle. So these are the little things that have me down right at the present moment. These are what I am trying to get through."
Charles Bacab,
Our biggest challenge right now is actually packaging because Charley's Wines has had the taste for years now because he has been in different exhibitions and he has been making wines for a long time, since the '70s and our final product is where we are getting the big challenge because we have a challenge to get bottles, we have a challenge to get the seals, we have a challenge to get the labels and these are the things that we need to complete the end product. It is very difficult what we are experiencing right now. As I said we attend different expos and things like that and I think at these expos is where we would have the opportunities to speak with other producers and get some input as to how we could get on the line and assist with these marketing packages. I don't think the communication is going as we would want it to. I think that most of the big companies, they are holding back in giving information."
Charles Bacab is the coordinator of agro processing in the Ministry of Agriculture and he says they understand the entrepreneur's struggles. And while the Ministry may not have money, there are ways they seek to address the problems of these cottage industries.
Charles Bacab,
"We are going to assist to him first with analysis of his product. We have to have an analysis of his product before we go into external markets because the main idea of his interest is to get labels and packaging and everything so he can access the international market. Once we have the product analysis we are going to proceed and design a label for him because the product analysis will give us a result which will go on the label so when we have analysis we are going to put on the label and make sure that he has the correct label, the correct information with the correct bottles. We are going to assist him in, like I said before, in getting his product analyzed and we are sure that he has a market here in Belize and we are sure that he has contact already outside and we are going to assist him to get his product outside of Belize to export."
And while seeing another Belizean product in the export market may be the ultimate goal, today it was about sharing. For Charley it meant a lot to have those who may not have as much experience as him drop by and show at least interest in what he does.
Charles Belgrove,
"I could share some of my ideas with people. Sometimes I wish kids would come from the high school and ask questions but it seems to me like no one is interested so I tell kids Friday I'll be doing a certain amount of wines and for them to come along and learn. They don't come and so that's the nature of things. People in Belize Rural North can do much better on the Belize market, put a lot of products, because people in Belize Rural North have thing called land and if you got land, I believe you can put your land to use and this is what we need around this area. We need training, we don't have the proper training."
And maybe this kind of fraternity shown today in wine making discussions and even wine tasting and sharing comrade may go a long way to giving that training a start.
The overall aim of the ministry of agriculture is to ensure that production of wine conforms with international sanitary standards and for this they offer technical support.
