Turning Mangoes into Wine

Roberto "Oby" Castañeda began as a theater actor. He took voice lessons, studied acting, appeared in stage plays, TV commercials and even played the part of Nida Blanca’s husband in the Nida Blanca Special a few years ago.

He later ventured into the food business, going as far as Victoria in Vancouver, Canada in the hopes of setting up the restaurant of his dreams.

But life and "the Lord" had other things planned and it took him a year and a half in Baguio, doing mostly charity work, to discover what this was.

This "charity work" would later weave into his life the idea, the opportunity and the skill to develop his own product, Don Roberto’s sweet mango wine.

Oby returned to Manila from Vancouver because he found that the bond he was required to put up for the restaurant business was too high. While waiting for his visa to be processed, he set up a restaurant in Baguio which, he explains, "is just like Victoria."

"It was a sizzling type of restaurant. I did everything there by myself. I did the cooking and even the marketing," says Oby.

On week-ends he helped some seminarians with their outreach program and played father on weekends to poor children. In one of these sessions, he met up with a group of Belgian nuns who were working on a vocation program to take to the Cordillera region in the hopes of attracting more vocations to their congregation.

It took Oby one sleepless night to come up with exactly the program the nuns needed. He not only made the program, but also trained the nuns in acting and gave them voice lessons so that a month later, the group was ready to conquer the Cordillera region. Oby went as far as touring with the nuns for a month. This is what he likes to refer to as his charity work. "All for the Lord," is what Oby is very fond of saying.

In the midst of all this, the restaurant no longer appealed to him, so he sold it. He volunteered to cook for the nuns, with whom he had become good friends, at least twice a week. "I wanted to be able to extend my charity work by making sure that the nuns had something good to eat," Oby says.

At the convent one day, he tasted a guava wine that a nun was making. "I immediately fell in love with what I had just tasted," Oby recalls. He wanted the nun to teach him how to make the wine. But since the recipe was a secret of the convent, Oby had to get the permission of the Mother Superior, who gave her consent to Oby. Furthermore, the nuns asked him to help them register and market their own guava and strawberry wines.

"I also asked the nuns to pray that I would be successful in this business because I am going to set aside ten percent of the profit for the use of spreading of the faith,’’ Oby informs us.

The nuns were most helpful throughout his experimentation process. In fact, whenever they came to Manila they visited Oby in Cavite to sample his wine and give suggestions as to how it could be improved.

Once the yellow wine was ready I got a visit from a friend who said that I should also try doing the same thing with green mangoes. I did that too. So I had two kinds of wine–yellow and green,’’ Oby explains. "I retained the colors of the fruits: the yellow mango wine is yellow and the green, green. My son said that there is no such thing as green and yellow wine in the world. I told him, ‘Before there was no jeepney until Sarao made them and so why can’t I make yellow and green wine?’ Tutal kung suntok sa buwan ’to I may as well go all the way. Malay mo matamaan ko," adds Oby excitedly. He is proud of the fact that his green wine tastes like red wine while the yellow wine is sweet.

Bottling and labelling were two problems he was faced with. He tried to buy shoktong and patis bottles, but his friends joked that his wine looked like patis and no one would be interested.

Fate intervenes again when he meets Henry Tiu, who has the biggest label making factory in Asia. Henry was helping a group called Twilight Harmony, composed of professionals who sing on the side; Henry asked Oby to help train the group. Henry believed in the wines of Oby and volunteered to help make the labels. "He told me that I had to raise the money for new labels. Indeed the Lord works in mysterious ways because the next day my brother came over and gave me a check for just the amount I needed," Oby shares.

"The shape of my bottle is like a pyramid. It represents the three persons in one God– Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So my wine is 12.5 percent alcohol and 100 percent Spirit of the Lord," Oby reveals. "And another thing is that the 750 ml bottle is made of plastic," Oby reveals.

All is set for the launching of the wine on December 2. There is a fashion show by Bill Calubaguid directed by Mon Mapua.
His friends from theater will be there to lend a hand, including Bimbo Cerrudo, John Melo, Robert Sena, Isay Alvarez, Dulce, Beverly Salviejo, Nestor Torre and Pinky Marquez. Even the Belgian nuns have been invited to the launching.

Oby is all excited about the launch but he is more thrilled about the fact that he has a good product. He is praying that the wine will became a big hit not just among Filipino wine drinkers but also abroad. "I plan to start selling the wine in Japan early next year. And this is just for starters," Oby says proudly.

The path from theater to restaurant to wine took some unexpected turns along the way, but Oby is sure about one thing. "If the Lord is backing me and telling me what to do and where to go, how can I go wrong?"