Mateus by Sogrape was founded by a Portuguese, Fernando Van Zeller Guedes in 1942. The striking image of the Mateus bottle, which is derived from the hipflask that soldiers used to carry during the First World War, coupled with its unique flavours have catapulted this rose wine to worldwide fame. From Steve Jobs to Jimmy Hendrix, the brand has been the talk of the town since a long time. The popularity of the brand has also put Portugal on the map of international wineries.
To elucidate the fact, a data by IWSR states that the Portuguese wine industry has grown by a whopping 511.9% from 2020 to 2021 and now Mateus is looking to make its presence known in the Indian market which also has seen a significant rise in the consumption of wines.
Hugo Souto, Area Manager, Mateus and Miguel Pinto, Mateus visited India recently and spoke about the popularity of this age old wine that’s all the rage across the world. Mateus’s story is largely the story of Fernando van Zeller Guedes, the visionary founder of Sogrape, and the man who dreamed up Mateus and brought it into being. A man ahead of his time, whose ambition was to make the best wines in Portugal and introduce them to the world. Mateus first became popular in the United Kingdom and enormously successful in the USA. In the 1950s, it became a truly global brand. By the late 1970s, Sogrape was selling in around 120 countries.