Born on March 12th, 1932 in Copenhagen, Søren Axelsen, a 50-year wine industry veteran involved in all facets from grape growing through sales, passed away on December 6th, 2016.
In 1952, Søren traveled from Denmark to New York on the Marshall Aid Plan where he worked with the Isbrandstsen Steamship Co. and tasked with supervising shipments of iron ore from Chile where he lived for two years. Already back then, he began to realize Chile’s potential for wine production. In 1956, he married Ingrid Andersen, the former Miss Denmark (1953), and immigrated to the United States introducing the Danish beer brand, Tuborg, to the States.
In the early 70s, Søren exited the beer business and started vineyards in Monterey County serving on the board of the Growers Association and becoming one of the early exporters of California wines to Scandinavia eventually forming, as a sales and marketing arm, Cabernet Corporation (Cab.Corp.) which today is wholly owned by the Axelsen family and headquartered in Novato, California. In the late 80s, as Chile began to open-up politically, Søren became one of its early foreign investors and the first to export Chilean wine in bulk to be bottled in Denmark and distributed throughout Scandinavia.
In the early 90s, Søren was joined by sons, Peter and Eric, and launched Viña La Playa from Chile. After several successful years, the Axelsen family formed a joint venture equity partnership in Chile and launched premium tier “AXEL”, the family namesake. In recent years, in addition to importing the Axelsens’ wines from Viña La Playa, Cab.Corp. expanded its import portfolio to include several successful Argentinean wineries.
“Søren never stopped, he had weekly meetings lending strategic insight into the 30+ wines Cab.Corp. manages, said Elliott Sneen, Cab.Corp. Marketing Manager. “He was a wonderful person with great values and will be missed by everyone across our entire organization.”
Søren Axelsen is lovingly survived by his wife, Ingrid, sons, Peter (wife Judith) and Eric (wife Sjoukje), and grandchildren, Lilli, Niklas and Isabella.
