MAN IN A SUIT: MARCELO PAPA

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PAST GALLERIES

A winemaker from Chile wears a suit as smooth as a glass of Syrah ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, Winter 2010

THE MAN
For a man in charge of making nearly 42m bottles of wine a year at Chile’s Concha y Toro estate, Marcelo Papa looks remarkably unflustered. Whether he’s overseeing a vineyard crew, topping a barrel of young red or pouring his latest cuvées for customers, if the stress of producing all that booze ever gets to him, it doesn’t show. With his close-cropped stubble, broad smile and loose-limbed Latin charm, he is relaxation personified.

In some ways, Papa seems more easy-going Argentine than formal, stoical Chilean. His ancestors came to South America from north-west Italy, he says, and could just as easily have settled in Mendoza, on the other side of the Andes, as Santiago. True to his Piedmontese roots, Papa loves good food and smart Italian leather shoes, which he buys on trips to Milan. “I’d wear them more often if I didn’t have to work in wineries, where there’s lots of water on the floor,” he says.

Papa is one of the most respected young winemakers in the world. He’s proved he can make elegant, small-batch Chardonnay and Syrah from Limarí under the Quebrada Seca label, but his greatest achievement is arguably the impressively consistent Casillero del Diablo brand, whose bestselling Cabernet Sauvignon, blended from vineyards all over Chile, is one of the southern hemisphere’s best-value reds. “Believe me,” he says, “it’s much harder to make 1.2m cases of the same wine than 500. You’ve got to understand all of Chile’s wine regions, not just one.”

THE SUIT
The trick with Papa’s suit—at least according to its tailor, Timothy Everest, who made it as part of his new, affordable capsule collections for the high-street retailer Marks & Spencer—is all in the fabric. “It has a gunmetal sheen to it, almost like mohair,” he says. “So the whole suit looks expensive, even though it’s anything but.” Meanwhile the low break in the jacket lengthens and slims the torso, while the curved shawl collar adds a touch of dash: Papa looks cool, but not flash. Was he pleased with it? “Oh yes. As soon as this is over, I’m going to buy one to take home.”

THE DETAILS
Blue single-breasted suit, £199, by Timothy Everest for M&S; pale blue shirt, £160, by Canali; yellow silk pin-dot scarf, £25, by Ede & Ravenscroft

Photographer: Alex Lake Stylist: Crystal McClory at one Stylist’s assistant: Dani Bavister

Tim Atkin is a Master of Wine and our Wine-List Inspector