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The big interview: Belvedere Vodka
By Melita KielyPoland’s Belvedere Vodka is targeting the luxury sector with its Belvedere 10 release. But rather than focusing on bling, CEO François-Xavier Desplancke reveals how sustainability, quality and connection are creating a highly desirable brand.

*This feature was originally published in the June 2024 issue of The Spirits Business magazine.

“My name can be hard to pronounce, so I say to people ‘just call me FX’,” François-Xavier Desplancke tells me, “that’s my nickname.” The Frenchman is eager to put the conversation at ease from the get-go – and it soon becomes apparent this quality is inherently in his nature. Today, he holds the position of president and CEO of Belvedere, but his career spans two decades with the vodka brand’s parent company.
“It’s a privilege to have been with Moët Hennessy for 20 years,” he continues. “It’s a privilege to witness the passion we have about our brands, about people, about talent, about the journey you can have with a luxury brand; it’s quite amazing. We are part of the life of the brand.”
Experience counts
Desplancke has held numerous roles at the company during his tenure. These have taken him to Copenhagen, where he spent more than four years working as general manager of the Nordics. From there, he moved to Vienna in Austria, where he looked over 23 countries as managing director of Central and Southern Europe. Additional positions included managing director of Moët Hennessy CEE, CEO of the company’s Russia arm, PDG (president director general) of Moët Hennessy Diageo France, and, since November 2021, president and CEO of Belvedere Vodka.
“I was always passionate about food and drink, about wine – I am French after all,” Desplancke explains. “My first job was part of the Moët Chandon family. It’s a family business with so much history. Today, Belvedere reminds me of that. We are inspired by 600 years of vodka-making tradition in Poland.
“We make our vodka in one of the oldest operating Polish distilleries, it has been making vodka since 1910, and together we are really passionate about bringing Belvedere Vodka to consumers.”
The super-premium vodka is crafted from Polska rye at the Polmos Żyrardów distillery. The brand is proud of its Polish roots, and sources all of its grains locally, allowing 100% traceability of the raw materials.
“What I love about Belvedere is the excellent interactivity that we are doing to serve the long-term vision,” says Desplancke. “The creativity we are doing is always to serve the desirability of the brand. That is the main goal: to be the most desirable brand of vodka in the world.”

In recent years Belvedere has taken bold steps to reach this goal. In 2022, the brand worked with Oscar award-winning filmmaker Taika Waititi, who directed Belvedere’s campaign starring James Bond actor Daniel Craig. In the piece, the former 007 star can be seen dancing through Paris in sequences designed to show how life might look away from the cameras.
Belvedere held nothing back when the campaign initially aired, first in Times Square in New York, before London’s bustling Piccadilly Circus.
“It always goes back to brand desirability,” Desplancke says. “That’s my main purpose, to inject unique creativity in our marketing campaigns. And something that is crucial for us as well is to make sure that we are leading with creativity. The Daniel Craig campaign was a fantastic example of that. It had an unmatched cultural impact. It had a ‘boom’ effect; it was everywhere on social media. Worldwide, everyone was talking about it. It was a viral sensation.”

Filmmaker Waititi returned to work with the brand again this year when he directed Belvedere’s latest campaign, starring Grammy Award-winning artist and rapper Future. “We wanted to bring something different, but with continuity and creativity, and to be unexpected,” Desplancke explains. “That’s what makes Waititi so amazing, and we are very proud to have him work with us.”
The three-minute short film opens with Future driving a Rolls-Royce down a dusty road at sunset, and ends in a dilapidated ‘hacienda-turned-nightclub’, where Future and Waititi are seen sharing a coded handshake, which unlocks access to a bottle of Belvedere 10.
It is extremely poignant for Desplancke to feature Belvedere 10 in the latest campaign. The expression launched in 2023 as an ultra-premium line extension for the brand. The liquid is made from a single harvest of organic Dankowskie Diamond rye, grown in a single field on an estate in northeast Poland. It follows a 10-step production process – including quadruple distillation – which is carried out annually, before the liquid is left to rest for 10 months, said to enhance the vodka’s mouthfeel. Bottled at 40% ABV, it is priced at RRP £180 (US$223). “Belvedere 10 is our new baby, it’s the new iconic luxury vodka that we are very proud of,” Desplancke continues. “The idea is to create a new category. So why did we call it Belvedere 10? Because the distillery was built in 1910. When we went on the journey, what we learned was when you don’t know where to go, you go back to the history. So we went back to how Polish people distilled vodka at that time. We discovered something incredible, and modernised it with the new vision.”
Even the bottle of Belvedere 10 has worked hard to push the boundaries of design. It was made to be ’10 levels tall’, with chiselled facets to generate a diamond-like appearance in homage to the Diamond rye used in distillation. “We are going further than a regular bottle. We are trying to create an experience. What was missing for me was to have an experience in terms of emotion with the brand,” Desplancke says.
The CEO describes Belvedere 10 as one of “two key pillars” in the brand’s portfolio, which also includes a number of flavour-infused bottlings. The other pillar is the brand’s flagship bottling: Belvedere Vodka Organic. To allow time and attention to be focused on these two bottlings, the decision was made to cease production of Belvedere Heritage 176, partially made with Polish malted rye.
Belvedere Vodka was officially certified organic in 2023. “To be the only global luxury, organic vodka is very important to us,” Desplancke says. “Moving to organic, moving to sustainability is not a choice for us. It’s obvious how it’s impacting our suppliers, so we are proud to be so efficient on energy.”
Do consumers place value and purchasing decisions on the brand’s organic claims, though? Desplancke replies: “For us, it’s a commitment. Then, the question you can ask is, is it relevant today, yesterday, or tomorrow? Tomorrow, we know the answer is yes. Today, it is still in between. We can see in some countries, mature countries, organic is becoming an obvious choice. So it’s a journey; there’s no black-and-white answer.”
Not a brand to rest on its laurels, Belvedere has set itself high-reaching targets to improve its sustainability. Its goals centre on five key pillars: reducing the brand’s environmental impact; sustainable farming; involving local communities; responsible consumption; and social engagement.

Since 2012, the vodka brand has cut its energy-related CO2 emissions by 42%. Desplancke highlights the brand’s “unique biomass facility”. In 2021, Belvedere launched its biomass-capture facility on site at its Polish distillery, the culmination of a three-year journey. As a result, the distillery has been able to produce 100%-renewable energy since 2022. “The next step is to support our farms because we are very close to our farmers,” he adds. “This is very close to my heart because we partner with our farmers for many years, and it is very important for us to work closely with them to help them on a joint sustainable transition. And we are doing that as we speak.”
Desplancke is confident these efforts will all play a part in elevating Belvedere ever closer to having “desirability” status. Market-wise, Belvedere is seeing “balanced distribution” across continents. “We are well balanced between the US market, the European market, and Africa, the Middle East, and the APAC [Asia Pacific] market,” he continues.
“We are seeing some interesting trends coming from emerging markets, such as Asia, so that’s very interesting. Asia is not used to vodka. So you have to present the right proposition to them. Instead of saying ‘China is not for vodka’ or ‘Thailand is not for vodka’, it’s about finding their preferred way of consuming spirits by being locally relevant. And that is the beauty of the Moët Hennessy network, as it ensures proximity to our customers and rapid response to local needs” Desplancke says.
In the UK, with gin on a downward trajectory, is there fresh opportunity for vodka to find more favour among consumers? Potentially, but Desplancke has a much bigger picture in mind.
“We don’t only look at the vodka category at Belvedere,” he explains. “We are looking at the super-premium spirits category. Gin is a small part compared with some of those other categories. For that reason, dynamism in the vodka category is important.” It does, though, create greater competition for the brand. But Desplancke is not at all fazed.
“It’s a nice challenge,” he insists, “to which we constantly respond with innovation and excellence, keeping the desirability of the brand at the core of everything we do.”
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