MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Argentina fails to broach British wine market.
While the United Kingdom is the main destination for Argentine wines, these only account for 1.6% of the whole UK market, July Halstead, of Wine Intelligence, told the Herald.
The UK researcher gave an overall description of a market where Argentina appears to be doing little to have a stake in Britain's growing thirst for wines from around the world.
Painting a UK market that is dominated by the large supermarket chains, which account for 75 percent of wine retail sales, Halstead describes a market that is fiercely competitive and where the trade buyers, or "gatekeepers", wield enormous power when it comes to deciding what goes on supermarket shelves. "Unfortunately, Argentina has no positioning in the UK market," Halstead said, adding that this is mainly Argentina's fault.
Using Australia as an example ? the former colony has 23 percent of the UK wine market ? Halstead described how Australia had put together a 30-year wine export plan, the "2025 Plan," and then actively marketed its products in the UK. Halstead adds that Australia's success has also been largely due to the fact that wine producers and the industry as a whole operated as a community rather than on an individual basis and worked actively with the "gatekeepers."
According to Halstead, all these elements appear to be lacking in Argentina, which appears to be content with selling wines at the bottom range with the average price of a bottle of Argentine wine coming in at £3.62 a bottle (which includes £1.50 in excise duty).
According to research carried out by Wine Intelligence, the profile of the average drinker of Argentine wines tends to be male, between 35 and 55, more affluent than the average, a frequent drinker and spends more than the average consumer on drinks. However, he is not particularly loyal to Argentine wines.
"In fact we found that Argentine wines attracted the lowest loyalty," Halstead pointed out, adding that this is probably due to poor branding. This is bad news for Argentina, especially as the top five wines consumed in the UK are all from the so-called "new world" countries.
Two of these come from California, two from Australia and one from South Africa. Argentina lags way behind in the ranking with one wine in 20th place. The reason for this, Halstead implied, may lie in the lack of close contact with the trade buyers and the lack of any marketing plan to position Argentine brands; also that Argentina has done little to dispel the conception that the trade buyers may have that Argentina is unable to supply sustainable quality.
"Tesco supermarkets, the largest in the UK makes little distinction of Argentine wines. If lucky, they may be shelved with other wines from Latin America, but they almost never have a spot for themselves on the shelves," Halstead stated. Another failing that the expert pointed out is the lack of a point of contact where the market is: London.
"Wine traders want a point of contact in situ, i.e. London, if Argentina isn't there its slot will be taken by someone else," Halstead emphasized.
Asked what opportunities are open to Argentina, Halstead said that it should be focusing on developing higher price ranges of wines with special emphasis on quality and sustainability, and that Argentina's Malbec varietal could be a strong selling point.
Halstead also painted a UK wine market that is beginning to move away from the lack of differentiation that it suffered from in the past and that there are growing opportunities for new styles of wine.
By Peter Johnson - Buenos Aires Herald
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