Increased UK imports of Romanian wine

During the Wine Fair that recently took place in London, wine producer Cramele Recas landed contracts to export over one million bottles of wine to the British market this year. The company also concluded a contract with the specialised chain Victoria Wine.

“Our exports aimed at the British market will grow this year by 500%. We will even enter Victoria Wine store chains with a dry white wine, Pinot Gris, and red wines,” says Philip Cox, trade manager and a Cramele Recas shareholder. He maintains that Romanian exports of bottled wine destined for the British market have registered a steep decrease over the last several years.

“Even though Romanian wines are good, they cannot be sold at very high prices since British consumers have a negative perception about Romanian products because of the low-quality exports of recent years,” Cox states.

The price of a 0.75 litre bottle of wine exported by Cramele Recas onto the British market will range between 1.1 and 1.4 euros.

Cramele Recas predicts sales worth 3.5 million euros for this year, 75% higher as compared to the previous year, and production amounting to 3 million bottles. More than two thirds of this year’s production will be destined for export.

Cramele Recas owns 700 hectares of vineyard in Banat and a wine centre with a storage capacity of 7 million litres per year. The company is held by a group of Romanian and British investors. Together with Bottoms Up, Drinks Cabin and Haddows, the Victoria chain is part of Thresher Group, the largest British drinks retailer operating over 2,000 shops, of which 1,400 shops specialise in wine sales, while 600 specialise in beverages.

Romanian wines were weakly represented at the London Wine Fair that closed at the end of last week. The main reason that was repeatedly cited in explanation was that the Romanian state did not financially support the Romanian stand, as it had done three months ago during the exhibition in Dusseldorf.

Beside Cramele Recas, Halewood Romania also aims to make massive exports onto the British market. Last year, Halewood Romania exported 1.8 million bottles, according to Dan Muntean, the company’s manager.
stelian.negrea@zf.ro