Chateau Chizay winemaking company LLC (Berehove, Zakarpattia region) in 2019 would boost wine sales by 15% compared with 2018, to 1.38 million bottles.
“In 2019, we intend to sell about 1.38 million bottles, despite the fact that the plans for 2018 are to sell about 1.2 million bottles,” Director of the company Anatoliy Poloskov told Interfax-Ukraine.
In 2017, the wine company grew and processed 1,500 tonnes of grapes, in 2018 it reached almost 2,000 tonnes. Due to the good yield, the company plans to sell some wine materials this year.
“Earlier, we didn’t have our own vineyards. We bought grapes in Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, and Crimea, and produced and bottled 7-10 million bottles a year. Now we make wine exclusively from our own grapes, therefore, we have enough capacity,” Poloskov said.
At the same time, he said that Chateau Chizay faces with logistical difficulties due to the fact that the company’s two plants are located 25 km far from each other.
According to him, Chateau Chizay has 272 hectares under vineyards in three districts of Zakarpattia region.
He said that now the wine company is working on obtaining a land parcel.
Poloskov said that the company is mulling the possibility of resuming production of sparkling wine.
He said that 15% of wine is exported. The key markets are the United States, Canada, Australia and Israel.
“Today we are present on many continents. We also sent wine to Nigeria, but we don’t cooperate with the EU. Nobody is waiting for us there. I am talking about Ukrainian wines in general. Nobody wants us to bite off from their wine-making pie. And yet we now hope for Poland, we are actively working with it. We are mastering Asia, but so far there have not yet been supplies there. Also Sweden has become interested in our wine,” Poloskov said.
The share of Artwinery, a large producer of sparkling wine in Eastern Europe, of the Ukrainian sparkling wine market totaled 20.6% compared with 19.4% in 2016, the company has reported. “The volume of production of sparkling Artvineri over the past year amounted to 10.26 million bottles against 12.3 million bottles in 2016. The average annual volume of export sales of sparkling wines of the company is about 15% of the total figure,” Marketing Director of Artwinery Yevhenia Stadnyk told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to her, EU countries (in particular Germany), the CIS countries (Russia, Azerbaijan) and the countries of Asia are promising directions for the company’s export development.
The marketing director pointed out that the wine materials for the production of sparkling wines come to the enterprise from the wine-growing enterprises of the Odesa, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions. In addition, there are wine materials of the Crimean peninsula of the 2012-2013 harvest in the reserves of the enterprise.
“The entire production cycle is located at a depth of more than 72 meters in underground gypsum tunnels, which keep the temperature and humidity constant all year round. The total area of the underground galleries used by Artwinery is over 25 hectares,” Stadnyk said.
She said that until now, there is no need to count on restoration of the sparkling wine market in Ukraine to the indicators of 2013, when the volume was 69 million bottles. Artwinery seeks to strengthen its positions on the Ukrainian market and further expand export geography.
