Echo Falls is launching a Prosecco — here’s why

Prosecco might be on a downward trajectory in the UK, but this will pave the way for brands like Echo Falls to make an impact with consumers, according to Euromonitor’s drinks analyst.

ProsEcho Falls will be released next month.

Echo Falls, the second largest brand within Accolade group, will launch ProsEcho Falls (11% ABV) at £10 RRP (75cl) in UK supermarkets, alongside a 20cl bottle format next month October to meet consumer demands throughout the festive period.

It is the latest in a series of new launched from the brand over the past year, which included its first venture into the spirits market with a summer berries-flavoured vodka, and more recently, a new advertising partnership with ITV2’s reality TV show, Love Island.

Laurence Hinton, Echo Falls’ brand manager, said the new Prosecco would allow the label to benefit from the Italian sparkler’s continued growth in the UK retail market.

“The Prosecco market is now worth £617m annually to the UK off-trade, with 4.5% growth year-on-year and 81.6% of this growth has been incremental to the wine category.”

Although Hinton said that there is “still room for growth,” farmers in Italy say that exports to the UK will begin to fall over the coming months.

According to analysis from Italian agricultural association Coldiretti, the UK – the Italian fizz’s top market – has experienced a 7% dip in Prosecco exports in the first half of this year. It blamed “the effects of Brexit” and “nationalistic fake news designed to discredit the Italian drink” for the reduction.

However, this figure contradicts predictions from IWSR, which suggest that Prosecco’s growth worldwide will outstrip other sparkling wines such as Champagne and Cava over the course of this year, with Vinexpo CEO, Guillaume Deglise adding that the UK will play “a very important role in the growth of this category.”

The conzorzio for DOC Prosecco announced earlier this month that it is on course to produce almost 600 million bottles of fizz from the 2018 harvest, making the region nearly two times the scale of Champagne.

Commenting on the state of the market, Euromonitor drinks analyst Spiros Malandrakis told the drinks business that, while the UK’s Prosecco boom has already started to fizz out, drinks giants like Accolade have little to fear.

Malandrakis said there are many reasons why Prosecco producers “will be pessimistic about importing to the UK at the moment,” with everything from the UK’s own improving domestic sparkling wine market to “increasingly acrimonious” negotiations as the UK prepares to leave the European Union at the start of next year.

But this, he said, paves the way for labels like Echo Falls to carve their own niche within a market that still largely made up of small producers and few major brands.

“I wouldn’t share effervescent optimism Prosecco producers used to feel about the UK,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean its over yet.”

Between the rising demand for premium-pitched products and trustworthy labels, Malandrakis said the brands which make their presence known in the market now will gain dividends down the line.

“That said, we have started to plateau, and we are entering the downturn.”