Argentina's cheap tier is bottling abroad. Cristo Redentor ate July
WofA's Pesce: entry-level houses ship bulk and bottle in-market. INV Jan–Jul: bulk +46.1%, bottled −4.4%, FOB −3.5%. July bottled −33.9% after the pass closed 34 days.
The cheap shelf is leaving the country as a tank, not as a bottle.
Magdalena Pesce of Wines of Argentina told Ámbito that entry-level houses are shipping bulk and bottling in the destination market, to cut logistics and still hit a price. Bodegas de Argentina, the same day, tabled a five-front competitiveness agenda: logistics and trade, finance, tax and service costs, talent, infrastructure and enotourism.
INV figures to July, provisional: bulk +46.1% to 350,592 hl. Bottled −4.4% to 803,255 hl. Total volume +6.8% to 1.15 million hl. FOB value −3.5% to $361.8 million. Average export price $3.14 a litre (−9.7%). Bulk averages $0.79. Bottled averages $4.16.
July was the punch. Total wine exports −28.7% year on year. Bottled −33.9%. Bulk almost flat (−1.2%). Ramiro Barrios of Clos de los Siete: a large part of that bottled drop is Paso Cristo Redentor, closed about 34 days from mid-July into mid-August, snow. Reopened 18 August. Mendoza and San Juan fruit that leaves through Chilean ports sat. First-half bottled had been +2.4%. Some of July will still show in August. September should start to look normal.
Sebastián Barboza of Lagarde, running competitiveness at BdA: turn each problem into a management item. The pass is one of those items.
Mini-concept: bulk can dodge a mountain. A finished bottle cannot, if the pass is shut.
A flavoured can never needed Cristo Redentor. These cheap bottles now get filled on the other side of the water.
Remember: July bottled −33.9%, and the pass was closed 34 days.
Source: Ámbito