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A city phenomenon
Wine is still a big city phenomenon, drunk mainly in the ten major metropolises. The citizens of Warsaw, Cracow, Wrocław or Poznań are used to drinking twice as much as the national average and up to four times more than in countryside and in smaller towns, where vodka and beer remain the favourites.
The wine trade is concentrated in Poland’s capital, Warsaw: officially it has 1.7m inhabitants, unofficially 2.5m. This is the real heart of Poland’s wine business, where the important players - importers, retailers, hotels, restaurants, wine bars and so on – are to be found. In second place is Cracow, with its almost 1m inhabitants, plus the millions of tourists who visit every year to see one of Poland’s most historic cities, which remained virtually unscathed by World War II.
Katowice, the metropolitan heart of Silesia, is a major market, as is Wrocław, the dynamic, developing city of Poland’s south-west. Poznań is the leading city in western Poland, along with Szczecin, the city situated almost on the Polish-German border. Another wine city is Gdansk, which together with the industrial Gdynia and spa resort Soot tripolis, forms the most agglomeration in northern part of the country. The university city of Toruń, 200 km north of Warsaw, is another important wine consumption centre in Poland, as is Lublin in the east. In all these cities you can find specialised wine retailers, a growing number of wine bars and reasonably well put-together restaurant wine lists.
Not surprisingly, Poland’s beginner market is, in general, full of red wine drinkers. According to AC Nielsen data, red wine constitutes two third of all wines drunk in the country. On the one hand it’s a question of taste, with easy drinking New World Merlots, Shirazes and other reds popular, and on the other hand, a question of prestige, as the best wines to show off in Poland are Brunellos, Super Tuscans, big Riojas and, occasionally, Bordeaux.
White wines represent approximately 28% of total sales and, except among the small group of wine enthusiasts, are treated mostly as easy going wines for every day drinking. It’s still relatively rare to spend a higher amount of money for great white wine. Rosé wines are still waiting for their turn in Poland. The climate is not very favourable and for a long time, the availability of fresh vintages of Rosé was limited. This has changed rapidly in the last few years, so Rosé’s share of the market, which currently stands at 5%, is likely to grow quickly.
Slow but steady
It seems that Poland will not see a wine revolution within the next few years as growth is slow, though stable. In 2008, the value of wine imported to Poland was around 2.5bn zloty ($757m approx). Most of the wine on sale in the country is cheap. According to the Central Statistical Office (GUS) the average price of white |
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wine bottle sold in Poland in 2007 was PLN7.98, which is around $2.40.
According to data provided by marketing research companies AC Nielsen and GFK Polonia, two thirds of wine sold in Poland is sold by the off-trade and the rest via HoReCa. According Grzegorz Jach, marketing director in Centrum Wina, one of the major Polish wine importers, the value of wines sold in HoReCa between January and November 2008 reached PLN410m ($124.7m). But the prices in this sector of the market are still relatively high and the majority of restaurant owners still do not have much of an interest in wine. On the other hand, the number of high quality restaurants focused on fine wines is growing, as are a number of specialized wine bars, which are often combined with wine shops. These are usually created by importers themselves and cities where man can find the biggest number of this kind of places are Warsaw, Cracow and Wrocław.
Małgorzata Cichecka from ACNielsen Polska gave her opinion about general structure of shops selling alcohol in Poland to Rynki Alkoholowe trade magazine: “Over the last few years, the number of retail establishments has been maintained at a rather stable level, with a slight downward tendency (a drop in the number of traditional establishments by 3% in 2007, to nearly 110,000 shops). Of individual shop types, we observe a growth in the number of large groceries (101-300m2), which is mainly caused by new openings of this type of establishment and reclassification from medium sized groceries. While the number of medium sized groceries (41-100 m2) is stable, we observe a drop in the number of small groceries (<40 m2), the number of which dropped through their closings. We also observe a further growth of off-licenses, which gain greater importance in the sale of most alcohol categories.”
Almost half of the wine sold in Poland goes via hyper-markets (more than 20%) and supermarkets (more than 25%). The biggest players are Tesco, Carrefour, Auchan, and Leclerc. Some of the chains offer their own brands. Among discount chains the biggest wine sellers are Biedronka, from the Portuguese group Jeronimo Martins, Lidl, from the Schwarz Gruppe, and Plus of Tengelmann. Most of them sell the cheapest wines on the market. On the other hand, in the bigger cities mentioned before, higher quality wines are sold via chains of delicatessen like Alma, Bomi or Piotr & Paweł where one can find everything from German Liebfraumilch to Châteaux Margaux. Among the wholesalers, the leader is Makro with 10-15% of the market. Sixty per cent of wine sold in Makro goes to HoReCa and small groceries. The company itself doesn’t import wine to Poland.
Fine wines
In the higher quality wine sector, the situation looks stable and has not changed for the past two or three years. Among the importers and distributors, key roles are played by: Domaine Menada, which mainly imports wines from Bulgaria and Moldova; Partner Center, |
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which deals in wines from around the world, including big brands like Allegrini, Mondavi and Freixenet; Piwnica Wybornych Win, which belongs to Central European Distribution Corporation and imports international brands like Torres and Ornellaia; Grupa Żywiec Trade Holding, which is connected to Heineken; and Centrum Wina, belonging to Sektkellerei Schloss Wachenheim AG, which also deals in big international brands like Antinori, Gaja, Bollinger and Beringer. Most of these companies sell their wine via super- and hypermarkets, smaller retailers and specialised wine boutiques.
When it comes to higher quality wines, the big players are now in competition with a growing number of small, dynamic companies, usually focused on one region or country of wine origin. Even if their distribution channels are restricted, they often offer a good price to quality ratio and are very popular among real wine lovers. The leaders are Robert Mielżyński, the wine importer of the year 2008 according Magazyn WINO, the local bimonthly independent wine magazine; Atlantika, wine importer of the year 2006 and importer of Portuguese wines; 101win.pl, the pioneer of large scale Internet sales, and which offers the best selection of German Rieslings in Poland; Enoteca Polska (former Kawa-Wino-Czekolada), northern Italy; Salute, Italy; Vinarius, France; Austrovin, Austria, and many others. Some of them operate through their own wine boutiques, which are often combined with wine bars or even small restaurants,
Wines by origin
Looking at the available statistics for the bestselling wines in Poland doesn’t tell the whole story about which countries lead the market. Number one by far is Bulgaria, which is the biggest importer of wine to Poland, a fact that seems strange to anyone who spends more than €5 on a bottle of wine, because it’s impossible to find Bulgarian wine in this segment. For decades, this Balkan country supplied oceans of cheap wine to Poland. The 1980s brand ‘Sophia’ was for a long time a synonym for good wine; after the breakdown of communism, Sophia became ownerless. Dozens of wineries built on the ruins of the former system began to use the name ‘Sophia’ for any cheap wine, regardless of region, variety or style, which could be sold in Poland. Today, although the annual sales of ‘Sophia’ are falling, it’s still a bestseller in Poland, mainly because of its attractive, sub-€2 price and the fact that it’s well established on the market. On the other hand, new players such as Domain Menada, a member of wine & spirits Group Belvedere, used Poland’s positive attitude to Bulgarian to successfully sell modern brands such as Château Menada or Tcherga, which sit in the €3-5 sector.
That US is the second largest player in the market, mainly because of Gallo’s Carlo Ross, the second bestselling wine brand, which is also followed by other wines from the Gallo family. The very |
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good position of Germany is a consequence of the popularity of sweetish, light white wines like Liebfraumilch and similar.
If statistics were available for the sales of high quality and more expensive wines, a different market picture would definitely emerge; unfortunately, such numbers are not available. But we can easily suppose that Italy would be the leading country in this segment. Wines from Apennin Peninsula are highly respected and popular among wine lovers in Poland. The majority of individual (even if relatively small) importers are focused on Italian wines and it’s hard to find a region between Alps and Ionian Sea not represented on the Vistula banks.
France is slowly beginning to rebuild its reputation in Poland, but Polish wine lovers are not the first to check out the en primeur prices of new vintage of Médocs. Thanks to the hard work of wine producers, state agencies and individual importers, growing numbers of high quality Spanish, German, Portuguese and in certain extend Austrian wines have been seen on the market in recent years. Last but not least, the almost national support for Georgia during the 2008 conflict with Russia resulted in a higher interest in the wines from this Caucasus country.
Excluding the Carlo Rossi brand, which in Poland is not particularly associated with any region or country, the most popular New World wine country is Chile, providing wines in every price segments. Argentina is still on beginning of the road but support from state and marketing organization can help to promote the country in Poland. South Africa and Australia still have a lot to do, but both countries can be as successful on Polish market as in other European countries.
A version of this article, which includes data not found here, can be found in the current issue of Meininger’s Wine Business International, which is only available by subscription. To subscribe, click here.
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