There’s something about classy wine that makes you reach for the high life. You might be a heavy drinker, but nothing ever compares to the experience of having a glass of wine. Enter Green Leaf’s exclusive (but very affordable) wine brands—Dielles and Diru. It’s a healthy mixture derived from mead, an alcoholic beverage of fermented honey and water.
Dielles is a Greek term that references “food for the gods,” or in it’s more popular English term, honey. Diru, on the other hand, is an Ilocano term for the bee syrup. These are two brands that collectively sum up what Green Leaf wants to fulfill sometime soon—showcasing the flavors of the Philippines in wine form. It’s a grand plan for the small company’s future, but it doesn’t come far from what Green Leaf can grasp. What with the vast lines and flavors of wines on its shelves, it’s not going to be a too-good-to-be-true dream.
Green Leaf is a concept, service, and marketing company that specializes in cost-effective ways to help out the community and the environment. However, they’re not just your usual Filipino marketing company. Anton Mendoza, the company’s Managing Director (also a Baguio Boy), sees every product in their lineup as something that has more than the mass appeal for consumption. Green Leaf believes in something more than business—there has to be a connection with the community. And so, with their wines within the Dielles and Diru brands, a noble idea comes with the product. Producing income for the community and protecting the environment as well.
Green Leaf has a massive array of networks all over the Philippines. The fruits they use for their honey wines are entirely outsourced from local growers and farms in the country. True, Green Leaf is a small-scale business, but their network exceeds more than that of corporations.
Honey wines made not just for the gods
Green Leaf’s Dielles and Diru honey wines come in different flavors, but the Pilipinas Popcorn team was lucky enough to try their best concoctions—mead, wildberry, strawberry, guango, wildflower, chili, coffee, and the chili-coffee wine. I know, the last three wines sound a bit odd, but it’s one of the best wine blends you’re ever going to experience.
Each wine bottle comes with a quality blend made from the finest ingredients and packaging. Of course, the fruits and other elements used in making the wine blend are all from the Philippines. But the bottles and corks are imported. FUN FACT: the quality of corks can directly affect the quality of taste. As for the bottles, they are made to fit the brand, so it looks very much like a premium alcohol beverage. But then again, don’t let the exclusive packaging fool you because their prices aren’t even that expensive (we’ll get to that in a bit). You can also have them packaged in a recycled wooden box (they have strong feelings against cutting more trees, so they’d rather repurpose existing wooden crates into something new) just in case you want to give it as a gift.
As a starter, we first tasted a mild concoction before we moved on to the more serious ones that left us with odd smiles when we left. The mead is the base wine that is used to come up with the other flavors. It’s a soft blend of honey and alcohol that’s a good companion for pasta dishes and the like. The wild berry and strawberry are red wines that are a surprisingly awesome mix of mead and fruit. But first I have to tell you that I absolutely detest strawberries. However, the strawberry wine was blended so well that I couldn’t even feel the specific strawberry taste in the wine blend. The wild berry, on the other hand, is as perfect as the strawberry wine. Also known as cocktail wines, you can drink these blends before and after dinner.
The guango wine is a combination of guava and mango. At first, you’ll be surprised at how odd and closely similar to that of champagne, but the taste grows on you. I’d recommend this to anyone who’s out for a more fruity wine experience. Then we tried the wildflower wine. It’s a sweet and somewhat perfume-smelling wine blend that’s a relaxing experience to taste. Now, we move on to the three major innovations from Green Leaf’s Dielles and Diru brands. First off, we sampled the coffee wine. It doesn’t have a high alcohol content, but the taste is very strong. Next up was the chili wine. Upon smelling it, you’d be greeted with the strong scent of sili from the get-go.
Once you taste it, though, the spice kicks in but also fades as soon as you swallow it. It has everything you need to have that videoke experience more pleasurable. But the interesting about the chili wine is how it gets better as you have sip after sip. The first drink would be weird and somewhat odd for our preconceived wine taste, but after each sip, the taste becomes friendlier. And if you happen to have more than one bottle, you’ll end up in the drunk winery heavens of bliss. One would think that combining alcohol and chili would make your stomach hurt, but it’s actually a myth.
Aside from using the chili wine as a sole wine drink, you can also use it for cooking meat. Finally, the chili and coffee wine is what we call an infused concoction. This is where things get more interesting. The coffee wine in itself is good for me, but combining it with chili actually works to its advantage. Never have I ever tried an alcoholic drink that made me want to taste and smell it at the same time repeatedly.
Pricing
As for the price, well, you’d be surprised. Each flavor comes in 187, 375, and 750 ml bottles. The smallest clocks in at a retail price of P150, P350, and P650. The Coffee-Chili wine only comes at 500 ml (though you can always request for your own bottle dosage) for P450 only.
The Green Leaf advantage
What makes Green Leaf more than just a wine production company is the way it offers you something more than just the wine and taste of it—social and cultural human connection are one of the things that separate them from the usual commercial wines out there. Each flavor has a story.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, their fruits are exported from different provinces in the Philippines. Green Leaf is a company that encourages its employees and friends to have a healthy relationship with the locals. Because only by befriending and starting a relationship with them will you have the authentic taste of what their product is. There’s some kind of emotional and cultural investment that is infused in these wines. From their plants in Muntinlupa to a soon-t0-be-built plant in Baguio, from the small farms that supply them with fruits to the distilling process of these ingredients along with the honey, nothing could ever compare to the authentic and noble brand that Green Leaf aims to project.
Aside from showcasing the flavors of the Philippines, Green Leaf also aims to be the identifying brand when it comes to authentic Filipino wine. Now, the company has evolved into a major wine player in the industry. The Dielles and Diru wines are widely available in various prominent hotels in the country like Baguio’s The Manor Hotel, Sofitel, NAIA Pasalubong stalls, and even in Duty-Free. Apart from that, these wines will also be made available to the international markets, namely Spain, Singapore, Taiwan, Bahrain, and more.
Imagine a small-scale company with extensive connections to local businesses and export farmers in the country. Imagine the impact that it can have to represent the Philippines as one of the emerging wine industry players. That in itself is a big thing for Green Leaf. However, they take it a bit further with the principles of helping the community, the local folks, and ultimately, the environment.
That said, Green Leaf’s Dielles and Diru wines aren’t made just to please the casual wine drinker and the connoisseurs. They’re perfectly blended and crafted to show you that we have so much more to offer than the usual Philippine goods. We have premium wines that are up to par with Spain and Italy’s products.
But you’re not just tasting wine—you’re experiencing it.
Visit Green Leaf at the 3rd Floor, Ecco Building, Assumption Road, Baguio City, or like them on Facebook at Green Leaf Csp Co.