MOLDOVAN WINEMAKING INDUSTRY REGAINS LOST POSITIONS

The basic branch of Moldovan agriculture - the winegrowing and winemaking is coming out of the crisis, provoked by bans and the March 2006 embargo on supplying Moldovan wines to the Russian market.

The development of this sector after the embargo demonstrates that due to the public-private partnership, within which a National Vine and Wine Office (NVWO) was created with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), winemakers are rehabilitating previous volumes of production and quality wine selling.

Due to the Moldova Agriculture Competitiveness Project (MAC-P), supported by the Swedish Government and the USAID, the NVWO jointly with winemakers is promoting the country's single brand - Wine of Moldova. Under this brand, country winemakers participate with single stand in different international exhibitions, achieving impressive results.

MAC-P Project Director Diana Lazar said at the Wednesday evening's meeting with journalists that only in 2017 Moldovan wines were awarded with 232 medals at different international wine exhibitions, in particular, such prestigious events as decanter, Mondus Vini, International Wine Challenge.

"It is worth noticing that 37 of medals were awarded to Moldovan wine combines, whose brands have for the first time participated in exhibitions with the support of the NVWO and the USAID", Lazar said.

According to her, this is an incontestable proof that work on raising the quality of wines already gives results winegrowers and winemakers deserve.

Over recent time, the exports of Moldovan wines to the East has considerably fallen due to the Russian market closure, as well as the decline of sales in CIS countries. However, the 2016 export results show a considerable growth of wine sales in European Union countries, as well as on markets, nontraditional for Moldovan wines.

For example the exports of wines to Romania grew 250% against 2014, to the Czech Republic - by 30%, Lithuania - 77%, the Great Britain - 97%, Estonia - 86%. As for the wine selling on nontraditional markets, in China these grew 240%, in Japan - 40%.

Infotag's dossier: Before the first embargoes on wine exports to Russia (March 2016), their volume exceeded US$300 million. Over 90% of Moldovan wine selling accounted for the Russian market. In 2016, the exports accounted for US$102 million. Over the period of crisis, more than 80 winemaking enterprises went bankrupt. This branch was left by 1.2 high quality specialists, many of whom found professional job abroad. In the difficult period after embargo, the areas of vineyards fell by more than 80 thousand ha, which is 40%. Currently, vineyards occupy over 100 thousand ha.