Chilean Wine, U.S. Cities, and Women in Government

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The prestigious Chilean winery Concha y Toro has a long history. It was founded in 1883 by Melchor Concha y Toro, a member of Chilean nobility. It started trading in the country’s stock market in 1933. Interestingly, it became the first winery to trade in the NYSE in 1994 but was delisted in 2018.

Since its inception in the 19th century, its wine has had growing international demand, exporting first to the Netherlands. Nowadays, it sells in more than 140 countries under various brands, the most notable being Casillero del Diablo. The company has made a few moves that have secured it as a truly global company in the last decade. In 2010, it secured a deal with Manchester United to be the team’s official wine partner. One year later, Concha y Toro acquired Fetzer Vineyards in California for $238M.

The acquisition secured for Concha y Toro 1,060 new acres. It also owns 25K+ acres in Chile and Argentina, making it one of the world’s largest wine companies in terms of land ownership. In its latest full-year report of 2020, the company sold approximately 420M bottles of wine worldwide. Interestingly, its top-selling market is the UK, where people enjoy Malbec the most. That Manchester United partnership sure looks like it’s paying off.

The US economy is the largest globally, dwarfing every other country. In 2020, it had a gross domestic product (GDP) of $20.9 trillion. GDP is the total worth of goods and services produced in a given year by a country. Perhaps more impressive, however, is breaking down the US GDP by city and then comparing each one to a Latin American country for perspective. What the findings reveal is nothing short of amazing.

Here are some astonishing statistics you can use that will impress your friends: New York City’s GDP is greater than the entire economy of Brazil or Mexico. Chile’s and Peru’s economic output roughly equals that of Detroit’s.

Additionally, we were surprised to discover that Venezuela’s economy in 2014 was among the highest in LatAm, even above Colombia. Since then, it has come down dramatically, and the country has stopped reporting official figures. Estimations put it at $43B in 2021, roughly the same as Honolulu. Another shocking realization for us was that freezing Anchorage has a higher GDP than El Salvador and Honduras.

As we celebrated International Women’s Day last week, we decided to look into women’s representation in Latin America’s governments. Although most of the continent is still far from achieving gender parity and providing safety and equal pay for women, we found a few indicators that are positive outliers.

Mexico and Nicaragua now have half of their parliaments composed of women. Since 2000, the percent of women elected to serve in Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies has increased 3x. The share of women in Nicaragua’s and Mexico’s parliaments is now greater than most developed nations: almost double the United States’ (28%), over five times greater than Japan’s (9.7%), and even greater than Sweden’s (47%), which has historically had a high percentage.

A series of legal initiatives can be attributed to the increase. In 2008, “Anexo 13” was introduced into the Mexican legislature, stating that a portion of government spending must go towards programs that promote gender equality. In 2014, a law was passed mandating that all parties must have a 50-50 gender split among their candidates at a federal level. Similar quotas have been introduced by Nicaragua. In a region where there’s still much to be done to reach equality, we are happy to see that progress is happening, at least in some areas.

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That’s all for this week 👋

Comment of the week, from Reddit, in response to our Russia LatAm imports chart.

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