BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 27
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
Over the past few years, the export of Georgian wine has been growing steadily, but in the first quarter of 2020, exports fell by 10 percent year-on-year due to the pandemic, said director of the National Wine Agency Levan Mekhuzla, Trend reports via Georgian media.
As he noted, domestic consumption of wine, aimed mainly at foreign tourists, almost fell to zero.
Both government and business are involved in the solution to this problem. In particular, the National Wine Agency is looking for alternative ways to popularize Georgian wine.
According to Mekhuzla, negotiations with the US Wine.com online service are already underway.
“The program for the popularization of wine has been operating in our country since 2013, but in connection with the pandemic we will have to make some changes to it. In particular, we focus on online marketing. In the US, we are negotiating with a large online wine sales platform Wine.com, and in Germany with vivino. We intend to create a category of Georgian wine there, as well as products from other countries,” Mekhuzla said.
According to him, currently winemaking in Georgia, as well as around the world, faces very big challenges.
“We planned to take part in several wine exhibitions, but because of the coronavirus they were all canceled. Therefore, we plan to start an online campaign. As for export, it decreased by 10 percent, and taking into account the situation around the world. this is quite a bit. But even such a minimal reduction in exports will have a very negative impact on the Georgian wine sector. Our foreign partners are also trying as much as possible to adapt to the situation and help us in overcoming the consequences of the pandemic,” said the head of the wine agency.
As Mekhuzla noted, currently the main problem is the inability to predict anything.
“Reality changes almost every day. We are waiting for the end of the first half of the year to have an idea of the dynamics of exports, after which we can already more accurately plan the strategy,” said Levan Mehuzla.
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