Open to the world

By: trademagazin Date: 2009. 08. 27. 08:00

In the past few years domestic wine consumption slightly decreased, but quality wine sales augmented, together with a growing market share of bottled import wines (which is still below the 3 percent threshold). Among quality import wines dry categories are more popular. Red wines represent 55 percent of domestic wine consumption, in the case of import wines this ratio is 85-90 percent. In recent years fresh, fruity wines from South Africa, Chile, Australia, California and New Zealand have started to conquer the Hungarian market. In my opinion, New World wines have started to lose popularity by now. There is an emerging segment of wine connoisseurs in Hungary, indicated by growing sales of Burgundy, premium Bordeaux and Italian Brunello wines, which require advanced competency in wine-tasting. As for import wines, the category is dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, with Shiraz and Malbec showing an upward trend. There is a wide selection of Hungarian wines: even experts struggle to find their way among them. Consumers try to orientate according to familiar names of wine makers, bottle design and price. The HUF 1,000 and HUF 2,000 price thresholds will remain significant. In the past 10 years innovations in packaging, like bag-in-box or Tetra Pak were introduced. Studies on the beneficial effects of wine consumption expand the group of potential wine drinkers. Heinemann testvérek Kft have distributed exclusively import wines up until the present year.

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