About Us
Deewan was coined from the Filipino term "Diwang" meaning celebration.
We, at Deewan, celebrate the ingenuity and craftmanship of the Filipino wine-maker. We believe we can produce excellent wines that can compete in the international market.
We only carry artisan wines that have been carefully concocted by local wine-makers. We aim to make our local wines a staple of Filipino gatherings and celebrations.
Drinking wine can be fun, relaxed and easy! And every time you choose to celebrate with our wines, you also support our advocacies!
Our Team
Jing
My focus is on research, digital marketing and social media management. I am addicted to travel and I will always find an excuse to explore. Cooking makes me happy and I'm a voracious reader with a huge book collection. I still dream of traveling the world and stop by every vineyard and winery I can possibly visit.
Malot
I am in charge of physical marketing, product development and design. Being a foodie, I always look for the exotic and unfamiliar. I am also a self-taught baker and I spend most of my time experimenting with my little girl. I would love to have my own cacao farm someday so I can make my own artisan chocolates that would match with our wines.
Tom
I am in charge of our dragon fruit plants and I do physical marketing. I love cracking corny jokes and playing with my little girl.Tinkering with computer stuff and gardening on my spare time relaxes me. I would love to see Europe someday and I dream of having my own farm in the near future.
Our Story
Our fondness for wine has been deeply connected to our passion for travel and adventure. And this fondness grew as we've come to associate wine with the warmth of family, the feelings of belonging and the ties that can never be broken. But Deewan was born out of the realization that first, Filipinos can make great wines worthy of international recognition. And second, the wine-making enterprise can make not just big profits but also make a big impact and change people's lives.
It was a typical day of wanting to try something new when we sipped a beautifully chilled dragon fruit wine. We were surprised that it actually tasted really good and that it was locally produced. We've been drinking wine for so many years but we've never really explored local wines.
That feeling of delight led us to wanting more and decided to find where it came from. That brought us to meeting a talented artisanal wine-maker who motivated us to try all our local wines and inspired us to be wine-makers in the near future.
We did our research and found out that although there are a few dedicated artisan wine-makers, local wines haven't been given the attention that they deserve. You couldn't easily find them at your local wine shop when you find yourself craving for one or just wanting to try more of them. They're not easy to find in the big cities either. Finding local wines still means trekking all the way to the regions where they are produced.
We wanted to CHANGE that!
We wanted Filipinos to find their local artisan wines in specialty shops, wine bars and respectable restaurants. We wanted these to be available online and be delivered to their doorsteps in a couple of days. We wanted Filipinos to have easier access to local wines so it becomes an integral part of their rituals and celebrations.
We wanted local artisan wine-makers to have an avenue to showcase their wines, help them in packaging and marketing their products.
The Dragon Fruit wine swept us off our feet. It became our primary product and we promoted it relentlessly. We never really expected that it would raise a high level of curiosity among wine drinkers. We just promoted it among friends and we were getting new orders everyday. Friends who tried our wine recommended them to other people. Total strangers reached out and organizations invited us to tie up. We introduced other local wines and people were open to trying them. Soon after the positive response we launched our social media page, launched our website and the word spread quickly.
The feedback was overwhelming that we started dreaming big and decided to scale up. We reached out to the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and other established wine-makers and even social enterprises. This also led us to dreaming of becoming a social enterprise. This means we would optimize our profit by helping people especially the farmers and unknown wine-makers.
We have become something we haven't really imagined. It was beyond our wildest dreams that tasting the dragon fruit wine and meeting our artisanal wine-maker would lead us to dreaming big. We are now preparing our own winery so we can learn how to make our wines. We would like to push ourselves to produce the best wines and to create new ones.
We continue to discover more local wines and meet more artisan wine-makers. We love to discover and hear the stories behind the wines. We encountered a lot of challenges and have experienced a lot of setbacks but because we are clear about our cause, we remain determined.
Today, our wines means so much more to us. They remind us of our advocacies and our dedication to pursue them.