“The vineyard has just started producing grapes after we’ve worked on it for ten years. In the first few years we cleaned the mess there (…) and then planted new vine and now the first wines have reached maturity,” the entrepreneur explains. “I want us to grow slowly, do things step by step.”
Anghel’s wine business is one of the few steps he has taken outside his core business: production and trade in grain and oilseeds. The revenue wine generates accounts for a small part of the total. The wine business revenue stands at EUR4 million compared with the EUR100 million a year of Anghel’s group, Cerealcom Dolj.
The entrepreneur’s strategy for the wine market is different from his grain and oilseed strategy, where he focuses on large volumes.
He wants Domeniile Coroanei Segarcea to position itself on the upper segment of the wine market. The premium wine market is estimated at about EUR25 million to EUR30 million a year, one fifth of the total wines sold locally. The Segarcea wines compete with the wines made by Domeniile Sahateni, Serve and Vinarte.
“We don’t have as much land as to produce large amounts of wine. We are focusing on the premium wine segment,” explains Anghel, who bought the vineyard in Dolj County (southern Romania) from the government ten years ago.
The reason for his strategy is that the vineyard he owns has a history that allows him to build such a brand. Domeniile Coroanei Segarcea was part of the Crown Estate of Romania.
Mihai Anghel has invested EUR40 million in his vineyard in Segarcea in replanting the vineyard and retooling the winemaking facilities in the last eight years.
Domeniile Coroanei Segarcea has a bottling capacity of 3 million bottles a year, most of which sold in restaurants and hotels throughout the country.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)