Argentine wines, a global market on the rise

The reputation of Argentine wine is well established. From the Andean Malbec to the award-winning Cabernet from the Piramide estate, its grape varieties are ranked among the best in the world and attract renowned oenologists, including Michel Rolland, who oversees the choice of wines for Mövenpick hotels. However, some preconceived notions have long persisted about wines of the "New World", and this has been a major marketing challenge for producers. Indeed, France, Italy and Spain still have a large share of the wine market. They produce 80% of European wines alone and account for 54% of world wine exports in volume and 61% in value, according to Statista. But today, Argentina is shaking things up, and offers wines that have become undeniably relevant.

Two subsequent crises, namely economic inflation and the Covid pandemic, have not changed a thing: the Argentine wine market is in the best shape of its life, with exports of bottles having reached their historical record last year at 817 million dollars. With an export rate of 75%, the national economic crisis has not had a significant impact on Argentine wine sales, with majority of exports going to the U.S. (40%) and Canadian (10%) markets, countries that are in great demand for Argentine wines. An additional and more recent obstacle that producers have to deal with is the war in Ukraine, which is currently depriving producers from exports to Russia, which represented up to 10% of Argentine wine exports until this year.

That said, at a local level as well, Argentine wine is doing wonderfully and seems to have benefited from the containment period, achieving unprecedented national sales - sales that already peaked to 20% aside from Covid.  Brand manager Marco Zunino, originally from Monaco and an expatriate in Argentina since 2008, says: "We sold a lot during the pandemic. People were at home, ordering, and drinking more than usual. So we have significantly increased our domestic sales despite inflation which has reached 90% this year. It must be said that at a local level, our prices are increasing in parallel with the rise in salaries, but the clientele is following this increase quite naturally; this happens implicitly and is taken for granted here". This flexibility, to which Argentines are accustomed in view of economic ups and downs, ensures the fluidity of the market at a national level, even though Argentine wines already strongly popular among local customers.