Imports outpaced exports for the first time in 2006, a year before Romania joined the European Union, despite exports significantly exceeding imports before that time.
“The significant increase in imports is because large amounts of wine are imported from Spain and Italy where winegrowing receives hefty subsidies and pricing for lower quality wine is very competitive, as low as 3 lei (EUR0.68) per liter,” explains George Dorobantu, senior manager management consulting services with PricewaterhouseCoopers Romania.
“The crisis and the purchasing power decline helped imports of cheap affordable wine mainly sold by major food retail chains.”
Wine imports reached EUR42 million last year, which means the average price per liter of imported wine was EUR0.6. One liter of Romanian wine exported cost EUR2.2.
Without a strong country brand, Romania’s winemakers have trouble promoting themselves on foreign markets, where they face competition from wines from France and Italy, countries that have learned over decades how to do their marketing in this industry. Romania ranks tenth in the world in terms of hectares of vineyard, but is not a top ten exporter.
“Romania’s wine production has gone down in the last few years because of the aging of the existing vineyards and only recently has shown signs of a rebound as a result of a country-wide vineyard rejuvenation campaign,” said Alexandra Negut, assistant manager, management consulting services PwC Romania.
“The investments were either self-funded or paid for with European funds and gained Romania recognition in Europe for its high quality wine exported at relatively low prices for the EU buying power.”
Romanian exports are not as good as they could be because Romanian producers have trouble positioning on the foreign markets and building a strong brand, she added.
More than twenty winegrowers working no more than 20 hectares each have started operating in the last few years, helped by EU funds, Ovidiu Gheorghe, general manager of Romania’s winegrowers’ association, PNVV, recently said. With the emergence of such winegrowers, investments in wine promotion and quality are increasing, as producers with small vineyards choose premium wines.
Romania has attracted all the EU funds available for the winegrowing sector (EUR42 million a year) in the last five years and is in talks to have the allocation increased.
Wine production went from 5.4 million hectoliters in 2000 to 4 million hectoliters in 2012, with heavy fluctuations year to year. It peaked at 6.7 million hectoliters in 2009 and was at its lowest in 2005, 2.6 million hectoliters.
Wine consumption has gone down in Romania in the last twelve years, as did consumption of all other types of beverages. The best year was 2004, ONVPV data reveal, while the slowest year was 2010.
PwC consultants say that part of the production and consumption of wine makes up the gray market (personal consumption or non-taxed production that is therefore not included in statistics) and the purchasing power decline made consumers prefer this type of market.
Romania’s largest winegrowers include Murfatlar, Vincon, Jidvei, Cotnari and Tohani.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)