FAIR TRADE WINES
Melania and Taborga Wines, First Fair Trade Wines Available in USA
Coral Gables, Fla., July 11, 2006 -- MELANIA and TABORGA Chilean wines are produced by a Chilean winery certified as a Fair Trade company and are available in the United States.
Melania and Taborga brands wines are estate-produced by Vina Lomas de Cauquenes, one of only two wineries in Chile certified by FLO Cert GmbH in Germany with the Fair Trade status. They are the first Fair Trade wines available in the United States. This certification has heralded significant support by the international community, mainly in the EU, and has increased retail sales significantly.
Melana and Taborga brands are interested in publicizing the advantages that Fair Trade-certified producers in other industries, namely wine, can offer to the retail sector in the United States. As Fair Trade certifications for all products increase in the United States, Melania and Taborga Chilean wines are striving to be at the forefront of the push to increase certification in the wine industry. The labeling, refreshing and artistic by design, and incredible varietal offering, have helped Melania and Melania "Coleccion Especial" to compete with some of the most well-known names in the industry. After obtaining a Silver medal in the World Beverage Competition (www.worldwinecompetition.com) in December for Packaging-Best label design and an 83 rating from Wine Enthusiast magazine, Melania wines have been on their way to a record expansion rate since their start in Miami in January and recent addition of six states and three countries to their distribution network. Taborga, its lower-priced sister line, has become a strong contender in South Florida and is now moving nationally.
FLO Cert Gmbh, Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International, is the worldwide Fair Trade standard-setting and certification organization based in Bonn, Germany: "FLO guarantees that products sold anywhere in the world with a Fairtrade label marketed by a National Initiative conforms to Fairtrade Standards and contributes to the development of disadvantaged producers and workers" - fairtrade.net. In the EU, there are many retail stores that cater to the sale of Fair Trade products with a certification initially made popular by the coffee industry. As they have expanded into other food and commodity products, the ideals of what Fair Trade can offer consumers have increased in popularity.
C&C Imports, LLC (www.melaniawines.com), the U.S. importer, was founded in January 2005 in Miami, Florida and is based on a cooperative agreement with Vina Lomas de Cauquenes located in the Maule Valley of Chile that is producing and estate-bottling MELANIA, MELANIA "Coleccion Especial" and TABORGA brands, Fair Trade (FLO) certified Chilean wines. Their goal has been to offer a refreshing look to the Chilean industry which has taken off in recent
years based on the high price-to-quality ratio wines available.
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