Argentine wines, a global market on the rise

Two subsequent crises, namely economic inflation and the Covid pandemic, have not changed a thing: the Argentine wine market is in the best shape of its life, with exports of bottles having reached their historical record last year at 817 million dollars. With an export rate of 75%, the national economic crisis has not had a significant impact on Argentine wine sales, with majority of exports going to the U.S. (40%) and Canadian (10%) markets, countries that are in great demand for Argentine wines. An additional and more recent obstacle that producers have to deal with is the war in Ukraine, which is currently depriving producers from exports to Russia, which represented up to 10% of Argentine wine exports until this year.

That said, at a local level as well, Argentine wine is doing wonderfully and seems to have benefited from the containment period, achieving unprecedented national sales - sales that already peaked to 20% aside from Covid.  Brand manager Marco Zunino, originally from Monaco and an expatriate in Argentina since 2008, says: "We sold a lot during the pandemic. People were at home, ordering, and drinking more than usual. So we have significantly increased our domestic sales despite inflation which has reached 90% this year. It must be said that at a local level, our prices are increasing in parallel with the rise in salaries, but the clientele is following this increase quite naturally; this happens implicitly and is taken for granted here". This flexibility, to which Argentines are accustomed in view of economic ups and downs, ensures the fluidity of the market at a national level, even though Argentine wines already strongly popular among local customers.