Sparkling consumption grows in Brazil amid economic crisis

Although the economy facing the worst recession of the last 25 years, the Brazilian still seems to be finding reasons to celebrate-and pop bottles of bubbly. Sales rose 16.5% national product from January to November last year, according to data from the Brazilian Institute of wine (Ibravin). National wine of medium and large companies, like the crumb and the Casa Valduga, are betting increasingly their chips into the product, growing at rates far more generous than the fine wines, whose production advanced 4 percent in 2015.
Contrary to what occurs in red wines, in which there is a kind of prejudice in relation to the national product, the sparkling wine made in Brazil dominates sales in the country. According to Dirceu Scottá, President of Ibravin, 80% of the local consumption of sparkling wines is fueled by the national wineries. In fine wine, with stronger competition from Argentina and Chile''s product, the situation is reversed: the Brazilian product only accounts for 20% of total consumption.
Despite the recent high taxes for the sector, the wineries expect the uptrend of the dollar strengthen even more the price advantage of the Brazilian product. In the winery, that invoice R$ 150 million a year, the job of Executive Director Danilo Cavagni, who came to the company two years ago, after 38 years in Chandon, is to deploy the sparkling culture, whose market is showing far more resilience to the crisis.
To increase the production of the product type muscatel-taste sweeter, which grew 22.6% until November 2015-, the company opened a factory in the city of Juazeiro in Bahia, which is on the second largest wine producer in the country, behind the Rio Grande do Sul. "The advantage of the Northeast is there I can produce Muscat sparkling wine all year, while here in Rio Grande do Sul, I''m stuck with one crop per year," explains Cavagni.
The reputation of the national product has been processed in different ways. In addition to international awards won by labels such as Jerome''s Basement, Sun and River House Valduga, companies also invest in marketing activities geared toward celebrations (such as graduations and weddings). Another point of support of building reputation is wine tourism. In Rio Grande do Sul, the wineries crumb and Valduga received over 200 1000 tourists, each, in 2015.
Businesses that bet on strength of sparkling wine had good result last year. In the House, that Valduga produces about 2 million bottles, the expansion of the recipe was on the order of 20%, says the President of Grupo Famiglia Valduga, Juarez Valduga. Last year, in addition to launching an operation of e-commerce, the company separated the products of Nero in a division of its own. In 2016, the company is considering testing a model for the sale of wine door to door, according to the Executive.
From the point of view of distribution, the companies are in different ways. While the Casa Valduga is available in restaurants, pubs, wine shops and only in some supermarkets, brands such as Kernel and Perini engaged in large-scale retail. As if consumption in the country, sophisticated companies shed product lines for different pockets: the Kernels have the second line Almadén (acquired in 2009 the French Pernod Ricard), the Perini House Perini and the Valduga, the. Nero.