How A ‘Casa’ Built On Taste, Not Trends, Is The Crown Jewel Of A $400M Empire

Forbes once described Jean-Charles Boisset as “The James Bond of Wine,” a title befitting of the Frenchman, who embodies elegance and sophistication. But at his core, Jean-Charles is fond of nourishing others and sharing his passion for high-quality beverage and food with anyone he encounters.

Jean-Charles and his sister Nathalie lead the current generation of his family’s business, Boisset Collection, a global company that owns dozens of wineries across the world, including in California, France, England and India. According to Forbes, Boisset Collection generates annual sales of around $200 million and has an estimated value of $450 million.

While his primary business is wine, Jean-Charles is also a spirits entrepreneur whose latest project has reunited him with The Beckmann Gonzalez family, known for their extensive history in tequila, in particular as the creators of Jose Cuervo. 

The partnership yielded Casa Obsidiana, an ultra-premium tequila brand that unites the collective expertise of its founding team. Created using estate-grown, 100% Blue Weber agave, the tequila is aged in French Oak wine barrels that once contained Chardonnay from a Boisset Collection winery in Napa Valley. Available in Blanco, Reposado, and Añejo expressions, the tequilas are bottled in Mexican-made hand-crafted ceramic bottles and feature the brand’s namesake obsidian stone.

In this episode, Jean-Charles speaks about how he identifies opportunities to innovate and why he emphasizes taste, not trends, when planning new business ventures and developing new products. He also discusses lessons from prior experience in the spirits industry and how historical context is at the heart of the company’s communication strategy.

Show notes:

0:35: Interview: Jean-Charles Boisset, Co-Founder, Casa Obsidiana – Jean-Charles talks about his childhood dream to become a professional soccer player and why he chose to join the family business instead and why he doesn’t live with regret. He also shares his observations on the current market for beverage alcohol and state of drinking culture, how premiumization impacts innovation, how to create “extraordinary” products and why he stresses the importance of affordability and accessibility. He also explains how the history of the Beckmann Gonzalez family is at the core of Casa Obsidiana’s brand story, the impact of/influence on finishing the tequila in wine barrels and why he and his team thought the artisanally-inspired bottles would be “a wild success or abject failure.”

Brands in this episode: Casa Obsidiana, Lunazul, Jose Cuervo