The average import price was 4 lei (EUR0.87) per kilogram, ZF has calculated, and the main source of grapes was Italy, which shipped EUR9.7 million worth of grapes to Romania or 30% of last year’s imports.
“We don’t have the grape varieties in Romania that we import. Moreover, we only have grapes in September-December, imports provide grapes during those times we have none, that is seven or eight months a year,” Mugurel Bucataru, owner of a 50-hectare vineyard in Panciu, Vrancea County (a well-known winemaking region in eastern Romania), told ZF.
“Foreigners have more resilient varieties and they also have the refrigerated storage facilities where they can store grapes for a longer time. To us that is expensive, and we can only store grapes for no more than one six weeks.”
A Romanian eats 6.9 kilograms of grapes a year, according to the National Statistics Institute data. At a population of about 19.6 million people, national grape consumption stands at more than 135,000 tons, ZF has calculated.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)