The officials of the winemaker in Moldavia said in December demand for wine varied last year. Cotnari was able to keep the sales volume and level flat on 2019 but had to invest in the rebranding of the Cotnari range and in opening an online store.
“We organized our entire year around this new brand identity and managed to keep the volume and value sales at the same level as the previous year,” Stefan Chiritescu, marketing manager of Cotnari said at the time.
Cotnari also made investments in automation in 2020, to be able to cope with the shortage of labor in the last few years. It also separated production from sales.
“The sales team works for a different entity of the group (Cramele Cotnari SA i.e.). Part of the work in the vineyard was mechanized because it was never easy to find people for the harvest – a problem of the entire wine market, especially for the large actors, so the number of day laborers dropped,” the company representatives added.
Casa de Vinuri Cotnari (Cotnari Domenii si Colocviu) has 350 hectares of vineyard and makes upper range wines. It has a storage capacity of about 26 million liters, according to the latest data available. Its competitors are Cramele Recas and Jidvei.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)