Layers of problems

This article is available for reading in Trade magazin 2025/12-2026.01

Máté Varga
vice president for 
interprofessional
affairs
National Council
of Wine Communities

In 2025 the biggest challenge was the Flavesccence dorée (FD) infection. In the autumn more than 200 inspection teams worked in the domestic wine regions, examining a total of 8,691 hectares of vineyards during the programme. The circular economy and the introduction of the deposit return system (DRS) has placed a heavy burden on companies in the sector, owing to the reporting obligations associated with the management of packaging materials and waste.

Small wine transfer price increase or no increase at all has put many wineries in a difficult position, as the price of grapes has grown significantly – albeit to varying degrees (depending on the wine region) – because of low yields over many years. As production costs have also increased since 2020, the profit margin of wineries dropped considerably, in many cases disappearing altogether. As a result, many wineries have tried to find sales opportunities abroad.

What is more, dropping consumer demand made retail chains rethink their purchasing structure and wine offering. Declining domestic purchasing power has stimulated exports: in 2024 Hungarian wineries sold nearly 1.4 million hectolitres of wine abroad – the biggest volume since 2010. Import has decreased over the past ten years, to less than 100,000 hectolitres (this is a fraction of the wine import prior to 2015 and consists almost entirely of bottled products).