Representatives of Hungarian wine will visit four locations in the United States and present the wines of a total of 31 wineries to market players – traders, importers, sommeliers, and trade writers. We talked about Hungarian wine, wine marketing, and the wine strategy completed in 2023 with Pál Rókusfalvy, the government commissioner responsible for national wine marketing.
This year’s Hungarian wine roadshow and campaign continues with a tour of America. A professional trip to Asia (China and South Korea) recently came to an end, bringing with it considerable success.
Photo: Pixabay
International wine campaigns are basically organized in two ways: on the one hand, foreign experts are invited to Hungary, and on the other hand, comprehensive campaigns are organized in target markets. Accordingly, the autumn period was clearly focused on supporting Hungarian wine exports.
In September, 150 of the most important traders, importers, sommeliers, Masters of Wine, journalists, and influencers from the international wine world were invited to Hungary for the Bor2025 Hungarian Wine Summit.
The week-long program series included a total of ten study tours offering the opportunity to visit Hungarian wine regions, while the conference days held at the Vigadó offered effective networking potential. In addition to the finest Hungarian winemakers, a Master Sommelier also gave lectures and led tastings, after which the focus shifted to specific business deals.
Photo: Pixabay
“We considered it a great success that, thanks to efficient organization and logistics, around 1,250 meetings took place between Hungarian winemakers and international traders on a day dedicated to this.
We are confident that this will provide a solid foundation for strengthening exports. Building on the event in Hungary, we are now going local in the following period, organizing comprehensive campaigns—including professional tastings, business meetings, and press appearances—in our primary target markets,”
said Government Commissioner Pál Rókusfalvy.
“This resulted in this year’s English wine campaign, during which we presented ourselves in London, Bristol, and Birmingham. This was followed by the Asian campaign in October, where we presented Hungarian wines here in China (in Chengdu and Shanghai) and South Korea (in Seoul and Daejeon),” added the government commissioner.
The American campaign is currently underway, with 31 wineries presenting themselves in New York, Los Angeles, Austin, and Chicago.
The campaigns closely follow the wine strategy that was completed in 2023. As the government commissioner told our newspaper, he has been given and has accepted a four-year mandate to put Hungarian wines on the international map.
(As Magyar Nemzet discussed earlier with the government commissioner, international wine production and the wine market are not in a very good position; at current consumption levels, there is overproduction, which requires fundamental changes in the business model in order to preserve vineyards.)
Photo: Facebook/Wines of Hungary
As he said, Hungary is in a fortunate position, as it has several varieties that are in high demand on the world market. These include wines made from grapes grown on volcanic soil and Tokaji, which is unique worldwide. However, a major problem is that 70% of domestic wine exports (2.7-3 million hectoliters of wine are produced in Hungary each year, of which 1.4 million are exported) were table wines (today, this has been smoothed out and currently less than 60% are exported in this form), with little added value. While Hungary has significant wine-making value, it is still not well known internationally. This is where international marketing activities can help.
The big question, of course, is whether these campaigns, if successful, will cause capacity problems at home. All international producers are bidding for Chinese or American demand, but they have very serious quantity expectations. Knowing the demands of the latter country, no domestic winery would be able to meet the quantity expectations.
In Rókusfalvy’s view, even if we were already at the point where this was the main problem, there is no need to worry about this. The fact is that the cellars are currently full of wine at home as well.
At the same time, he pointed out, it is not our job to think in terms of quantity. Hungarian wine must be sold on its merits, and the goal is for international markets to understand the value of domestic wineries.
As for quantity, I have long said that, based on numerous successful international examples, it would be worthwhile for domestic wineries to join forces at the producer level, which would result in significant cost savings on the one hand and solve the quantity issue on the other. It is worth thinking about a common business model,”
added the government commissioner.
Tokaj wine region. Photo: Wikipedia
In any case, there is a need for development in terms of thinking about business plans that take market demands into account. The health-conscious generation of today, declining alcohol consumption for various reasons, and the accelerated pace of life among young people call for new, traditional wines.
They want fruity, youthful, light products, and in some cases trendy and practical packaging. Hungarian spritzer culture, for example, fits perfectly into this mindset, as it is well suited to today’s demands.
“Let there be no misunderstanding, this is not about replacing traditional wines, quite the contrary: we are building on them, they typically need to be positioned at a premium level, new products are needed to broaden the market and attract new consumers, which is also one of the tasks of the government commissioner,” said Rókusfalvy.
In addition, the market needs to be educated: both consumers and producers. Through our research and our partner agencies with extremely valuable experience in our target markets, we have accumulated a huge information base which helps producers decide which direction to take, what product developments to consider, what consumer demand exists in a given country, what operational knowledge is necessary to enter the market, etc.
Via Magyar Nemzet; Featured image: Pixabay
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