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