New wine cellars to open in Bulgaria in 2013
Eleven new wine cellars will start working in Bulgaria in 2013, Krassimir Koev, executive director of Bulgaria’s executive agency for vine and wine told local media on February 8 2013.
He said that the setting up of new wine cellars was luring domestic consumers back to local Bulgarian wines.
Koev said that there had been a 10 per cent increase in sales of Bulgarian wines on the domestic market, which represented 100 million litres.
On the international market, sales were up by about 1.5 per cent, or a million litres.
Forty-five per cent of Bulgarian wine exports went to the Russian market.
Sales to China were increasing and the Far Eastern markets represented new opportunities for Bulgarian wine producers, Koev said.
Bulgarian wines were well represented in the markets in Romania, Poland, Slovakia and Germany.
According to a recent report by public broadcaster Bulgarian National Radio, the 2012 wine harvest was of very good quality in spite of the severe winter. Vine growers now were wishing for better weather.
In the past year, Bulgaria produced about 130 million litres of wine, 20 per cent more than in 2011.
The positive trend of growing exports was also continuing, the report said.
In 2009, the global financial crisis caused a decrease in Bulgarian wine exports by about 50 per cent but in 2010 exports increased by 10 per cent.
The report also said that Russia was a major market for Bulgarian wines, followed by Poland, Germany, Romania and the Czech Republic.
The US market for Bulgarian wine has been growing, while breakthroughs on some Asian markets were expected.
In 2012, Bulgarians consumed 90 million litres of wine, 17.4 per cent more than 2011. Last year more than 50 million litres of Bulgarian wines were exported, an increase of 7.4 per cent year-on-year, the Bulgarian Wine Export Association said.
(Photo: Antti Simonen/sxc.hu)
