Industry still struggling to find new markets
Print14 July 2015
Remember the BRICs? Yes, that’s right; these were the emerging economies that were going to save European wine exports from stagnation in local markets and, even for Australia, the USA and South America, they promised a brave new world of eager wine drinkers.
Well, Chile and Argentina are now looking closer to home for new markets, as consumers in Columbia, Mexico and Central America are now said to be as promising as Russia and China once were. Of the BRICs, Brazil and China have both slowed, while the Russian market has been described as being in crisis, as the crashing rouble has added to other economic and political difficulties.
The new buzzword, in fact, is the MINTs – Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey – but it’s hard to see these nations competing with the BRICs behemoths in the mopping up of any surplus wine. Mexico drinks just 6m cases of wine per year, while Turkey and Indonesia have a large teetotal population. Given its growing affluence and education, Nigeria might be the best long-term bet, but at present, its wine import market is only valued at around US$370m, while its population remains strongly wedded to local beer and palm wine.
With around 270 million hectolitres of wine washing around the world each year, the marketing men won’t be out of work any time soon. The USA, at around 30m hectolitres is now the largest consumer wine market, only recently beating France’s consumption of 28m hectolitres.
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