About
My name is Gert Carl. I have worked with wine all my life - and I’m literally born into the wine business! I am out of a Danish family-in-wine. My father, Erling Carl, started in the wine industry in 1944 and founded in 1973 Chris-Wine in Denmark. My brother, Michael Carl, joined the family business in 1975 and I joined it in 1979. Since expanded Chris-Wine and we opened sales offices in Sweden, Finland and Norway. I was responsible for Sweden, Norway and Finland in the years 2003-2013 with headquarter in Sweden.
Our family company Chris-Wine in Denmark had bottling facilities to bottle about 5 mio. btls/yr, and in addition we bought the first château in 1985, Château de Seguin in Bordeaux and later Villa Bona Terra in Romania. I have stayed for 6 months at a château in Bordeaux and helped with the harvest and in the cellars, and as a buyer I have visited many of the classic wine regions, represented many producers. Recently I have been responsible for all wine and spirits in Dagrofa (prev. VinGros) who is supplying wine and spirits for more than 20% of the Danish population, so all in all I know the challenges within the vineyards, the cellars, the production, and in the purchasing and marketing of the products – and particularly to the monopolies in the Nordic region with an emphasis on the Swedish monopoly, Systembolaget.
Precisely because the Swedish market is so interesting and because Systembolaget is so special I have chosen to focus most on this market. I have allied myself with Björn Nyqvist. Björn is Swedish and he has been my CFO for Chris-Wine for 10 and all together Björn has for 16 years been responsible for finance and IT for several companies in the sales and imports of wine and spirits in the Nordic region.