Strong surge in Alentejo wine exports
The first ten months of this year saw non-EU wine exports from the Alentejo rise by over a third ?demonstrating the health of Portuguese wines, and especially the Alentejo?s, increasingly well represented in world markets?, said Tiago Caravana, Marketing Director of the region?s wine board.
Angola led the way in gains on 2010 and importing 82.5 percent more wine from the Alentejo over this period with China (including Macau and Hong Kong) surging 44 percent while exports to Brazil and Canada rose by 14.9 percent and 10.2 percent, respectively.“Thankfully for Alentejo wines, our main export markets, with the exception of the United States, are the countries turning in the highest economic growth rates worldwide”, added Caravana.
The marketing director identified Angola, Brazil, the United States, China and Canada as the largest non-EU markets in descending order of size.
While Brazil had been expected to grow faster, Caravana said the wine region had still managed to grow in the United States despite the ongoing economic difficulties.
Indeed, while recording smaller gross market sizes than the big five, the wine representative emphasised the growth in exports to Russia and Norway, with the latter importing five times the amount of Alentejo wines in the first ten months of 2011 than in all of 2010.
