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Portugal untapped resource for Forrest
Portuguese wines are not being exploited enough by UK retailers, and despite the country’s “world class wines” its “winemakers deserve better recognition”.
Moreover, other UK retailers seem to be “afraid” to list Portuguese wines, according to Anne Forrest, buyer for the UK’s largest Portuguese wine retailer, Laithwaites.
Speaking exclusively to the drinks business last week, Forrest, who has developed Laithwaite’s Portuguese range from (approximately) 0.5% of the share of listings three years ago, to 3.5% currently, observed that even though she has discovered a wealth of “quality wine at entry level price points” during her three years as Portuguese buyer, “We are the only people doing Portugal in volume.
“Portugal is not what other people are doing, and even though it offers fantastic value for money, people are afraid to list its wines. It has fantastic potential and its winemakers deserve more recognition as they’re making world class wines, and at entry level too.”
Forrest also commented that the enthusiasm shown by the trade for the country’s light wines is not reflected in off-trade listings.
“The trade is really keen on Portugal but unless the wines are brought to consumers through more big retailers, people still won’t have a perception of them. They won’t know what its wines are all about,” she said.
Wines from Alentejo and Ribatejo make up the majority of the Portuguese light wine listings at Laithwaites. “These southern styles go down well because they are international in style,” Forrest added, “most of them are sold on the people, the stories and the discovery theme. For example, if we tell them a lot of the wines’ grapes have been trodden.”
Forrest concluded that Portuguese wines are proving extremely popular in Direct Wines’ international operations and highlighted the US, Germany and Switzerland as currently being particularly enthusiastic about Portuguese light wines.
Jane Parkinson, 02.08.2010
As one of the country’s leading import agents for Portuguese wines I could not agree more with what Anne is saying. She has done a fantastic job in bring pretty spectacular quantities into the UK, and I take my hat off to her. I like her point about foot-treading. There is a perception that the foot-treading story is just a bit of folklore, to keep the tourists happy, but the public (and the trade!) need to know that it really does happen. I represent eight producers in Portugal, and ALL of them foot-tread to one degree or another. In the Alentejo, Joao Ramos has four brand new marble lagars in his newly constructed winery extension.
Good points from the UK’s two main retailers of Portuguese wines. As one of the Co-Chairmen of the International Wine Challenge, it amazes me that, of the large retailers, only Waitrose and Laithwaites/Direct Wines see the sales potential of Portuguese wines in the UK. Every year, Portugal does incredibly well in our medals table, with between 70 and 75% of all Portuguese entries winning awards. UK wine retailers could make much more of the friendly flavours (and prices) of Portuguese wines.