Heaven, a $2 million business

After having challenged the dry wine segment with the Sec wines, the Romanian winemaker Vie Vin Murfatlar has decided to strike back with a sweet wine, Rai de Murfatlar (Murfatlar’s Heaven), directly competing with the Bucium and Cotnari wines.
The company is this way meeting the tastes of the Romanian consumers halfway, as most of them like their wine sweet. A recent survey by the market research company MEMRB showed that 75% of the Romanian consumers like sweet and half-sweet wines. On the other hand, the Western consumers like their wines dry or half-dry at best.
“The Romanian consumer likes sweet wines, because this is the type of wine that goes with water, whereas to those abroad the wine is just wine and nothing else,” the media manager of Vincon Vrancea Vlad Sanders said.
The Rai de Murfatlar wine range, derived by mixing several wine assortments, is sold in three flavours, red, pink and white, with the company planning to sell 1.2 million bottles this year. One such bottle costs 70,000 or 80,000 ROL, so that sales should reach more than two million dollars. This is why the company has launched a PR campaign handled by the D’Arcy advertising agency and titled “The Guardian Angel.”
The company did not care to provide details as to the exact investments required by the launch and promotion of the new brand.
The consumers’ taste for sweet wines has made almost every company targeting the local market offer such products. The sweet or half-sweet wines in Vincon Vrancea’s portfolio are Galbena de Odobesti, Muscat Otonel, Tamaioasa Romaneasca, Grasa de Cotnari and Busuioaca de Bohotin.
Vie Vin Murfatlar posted approximately $16 million turnover last year, 61% more than in 2001, the company’s PR manager Adrian Popescu said. It had posted $9.9 million turnover in 2001, as well as net losses of $3.2 million, according to the Finance Ministry.
It invested $2 million in technology in 2002, in addition to promotional campaigns totalling $3.6 million (rate card).
The company is held by Societatea Agricola ISAGRI (69%) and SIF Transilvania (30%). Vie Vin Murfatlar also makes Sec de Murfatlar, Premiat, Vinoteca and Vinars.
Surveys of the Wine Makers and Exporters Association (APEV) show Vincon Vrancea to be the top wine producer, followed by Vie Vin Murfatlar, Jidvei and Cotnari. Murfatlar comes first in terms of value, followed by Jidvei, Vincon and Cotnari. The controlled origin wine production amounted to 312,000 hectolitres in 2001 and appears to have been lower in 2002, due to the 6% poorer crops, APEV says.