European wines are running out of steam on the Russian market – Kommersant FM

Supplies of wines from Spain and France fell by one and a half times over the year. Import volumes for December 2022 and 2023 were compared by Roskachestvo: overall, in 2023, wine imports from Spain decreased by 11%, from France by 4%, and from Italy by 1%. Experts predict a further reduction in supplies, the main factor being the increased duty that Russia has imposed on alcohol from unfriendly countries. Meanwhile, the BRICS countries are actively increasing their wine supplies. South Africa became the leader – imports from there increased by 25%, to 10.5 million liters per year. The record volume for several years came from China, five times more than in 2021.

However, friendly countries will not be able to completely replace European suppliers, says Fortwine executive director Alexander Lipilin: “The figures are confirmed by other sources, in particular, European data. Everything is explained very simply – this is due to the increase in duties in August 2023. They especially changed for inexpensive wines, that is, there was a clause about at least $1.5 per liter. This led to the fact that the price of a number of drinks increased not by 7-10%, but by 30-40%. And for some specific categories, for example, Spanish wine in tetra-pack packaging, the growth was about 80%.

Not all of this is yet noticeable by the price tag on the shelf, but importers are already adapting to this situation, and some categories are purchasing less.

All this leads to a decrease in imports. At the same time, you need to understand that not all BRICS countries are doing well with wine. Argentina, Chile, and South Africa are growing in supplies, but the volumes still cannot compare with Italy, France or Spain, if we take last year’s statistics. In addition, there are certain varieties that are not produced in states friendly to Russia; for example, pinot gris wine is difficult to find there. Naturally, there is no prosecco, cava, and not many sparkling wines. Therefore, complete replacement cannot occur. So far, Italy, Spain, France and Georgia remain the leaders.

As for the cost, since the duty for alcohol from the BRICS countries has remained the same, it looks more advantageous. For such drinks there has been a slight increase in price, which is associated with the rise in exchange rates. As a result, a paradoxical situation has arisen – often wine, which is more expensive when purchased, turns out to be cheaper on the shelf after all payments have been made.”

From May 2024, excise taxes on some alcohol, including wine and champagne, will triple. Now the duty is 34 rubles. per liter, it will increase to 108 rubles. The tax on sparkling wines will increase from 45 rubles. up to 141 rub. per liter All this will lead to another increase in prices for European alcohol, noted AST CEO Leonid Rafailov:

“Prices for products from the EU are already changing. The stocks brought before September 1, 2023, which were in retail and importers, are running out. This will now be affected by the change in excise taxes from May 1. I think that we will see an increase in prices for inexpensive wines, that is, for the category from 400 rubles. up to 1 thousand rubles There the price increase can be up to 15%.

As for drinks from the BRICS countries, to be honest, neither Brazil, nor India, nor China are any significant wine producers. So the main beneficiaries will probably be our colleagues from South Africa, Chile and Argentina.

At the same time, we very much hope that high-quality wines from Russian wine-growing regions will fill the niche that will be vacated. First of all, of course, these are drinks in the 400-700 rubles category. There the difference will be significant in the price-quality ratio. I do not rule out that over the next year or a year and a half we will see almost complete replacement of all imported wines in this category with Russian ones, the latter will definitely be more than 70%.”

According to Roskachestvo, from January to March 2024, the production of Russian still wines increased by 25% year-on-year, and sparkling wines by 26.5%.

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Ulyana Gorelova