Meet Paola Castro

Paola, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born in Uruguay, a small country in South America, known for its natural beauty, slow-paced lifestyle and welcoming people.I have lived with the intense energy, the kind of energy present in those who set sails and make this big wide world their home.  This joie de vivre took me in my early days to Australia, with just a backpack full of dreams and the only certainty of an adventurous future. I found myself studying at a language school in Sydney, where I was the only Uruguayan among many new friends from Asia, mainly China, Japan and Korea. Australia taught me how to master two necessities of life, speaking English and drinking wine.As time passed, I slowly made my way back to South America, where I ended working in Argentina at the Four Seasons Hotel in Buenos Aires, putting my degree in Hospitality to good use for about ten years. From 2006 and until 2012 I worked and traveled the world, promoting my own real estate development in Argentina and Punta del Este, Uruguay, a series of boutique rental apartments, tastefully designed and decorated in a joint venture with my partner at the time.France, Switzerland, Greece, Spain, Italy, Australia, NZ, Latin America and USA, and many other places gave the most beautiful memories, feelings, music, vivid scents, intense colours and flavours for my soul and spirit to grow. In 2012, inspired by the rich memories of my travels and experiences with good food and good life in many sunny shores of the globe, I gave birth to Vintium, my bespoke wine bags, which echoed these memories in their textures and colours.Vinitium is a meeting place for wine and longing, to explore and to learn. We design the most original leather wine bags that you can imagine.

Behind the grin of a logo are Paola’s dreams, still very close to those dreams back at the Uruguayan countryside of my youth.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
There is a new lesson to be learned every day but selling is tough one to master.

I started my business on the road, stopping and offering my wine bags to the most famous wineries in Argentina, it was a very difficult time at the time, no one knew me and I had no contacts in the industry, I just had my dreams.

I used to go four times a year from Buenos Aires to Mendoza (Argentina’s wine region 630 miles away from my home), with my car full of my new products to sell and my big smile and a heart full of hope. As a result I achieved a certain degree of success in my career designing bespoke collections for prestigious wineries in Argentina such as Achaval Ferrer,  Cheval des Andes and Chandon.

Throughout the years I expanded my design portfolio not only to the wine industry for wine lovers but also bringing a design concept into the homes, by developing a Home Décor line, and also luxury corporate gifts serving clients such as American Express, UBS and Porsche.After this successful acclaim I opened a new market in Brazil, and then continued growth of my creative journey afforded me the opportunity to live in amazing places such us Bordeaux and Paris in France, Geneva in Switzerland and now based in Miami Florida. My next step is serving the American market by opening a Vintium store in Amazon and continue the expansion of my business to allow women to have their presence felt no matter where they are.

Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
My business is a relationship business I know my clients, my suppliers and each artisan involved in the process of making the final piece. I sell products from the heart.

Craftsmanship for me is a gathering with friends, always respecting their freedom of expression in everything they do. This shared heart between Vintium and me feed off intensity and passion, unsure where one starts and the other one ends.

GAUCHO collection is my specialty.

This collection represents the origin of the brand, it is the meeting place for the Rio de la Plata gaucho iconography with modern times carried out in style. It is here to resolve a specific need to carry good wines, but it digs deeper beyond appearances as a wine represents part of our identity.

The tradition among these lands involves the countryside, the smell of leather, horses, sun, polo, and vitality. Wine is much more than a beverage; it is something that inhabits within the center of friendship and celebrations among loved ones. It is the essence of an honest encounter.

Designed wine bags are simple and elegant with lively colors, but they also resemble the earth. They are the reflection of the sun setting behind the Andean vineyards, they are water and sky, intense green as the pampa’s meadows.

TIMELESS collection invites me to continue playing.

This is a line that invites us to live a timeless experience without borders. We combine spaces, textures, cultures, and figures because we believe in the immortality of innovative ideas in freedom. To make this happen, we got together with copywriters that feel and who can express themselves beyond the conventional. We are not restricted by any guidelines, but still, always maintain the elegance together with the functionality. Even though the essence is to travel with the bottle, the uses that emerge from its original and unique design make every piece a work of art.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The thing I feel the proudest about is my determination to keep going with my vision. After nine years of hard work with this project, there were many challenging days where it would have been easy to simply give up, but I never stopped dreaming and moved forward. This path has led me at times, to deep soul-searching journeys.

My vision was always to articulate a very important message; giving a more prominent presence to women in the world of wines, allowing us to keep our feminine traits and bring taste and design even to the way we carry ourselves and carry wine. I once read a quote that says that a woman can carry a bag, but it is the shoe that carries a woman and I dreamt to challenge that and think of a woman who can carry herself but also carry a great wine and what a powerful combo that is.

Pricing: