Bulgarian wine makers report 20% decline in Q1 exports

Bulgarian wine exports have posted a sharp decline in the first three months in 2008, which would be hard to make up in the remainder of the year, industry representatives said.

Local wine makers shipped roughly 20 million litres of wine in January-March, versus 25 million litres a year ago.

In terms of value, wine exports in the first quarter were 13 million euro below the year-ago mark of 32.9 million euro, data of Bulgaria's national statistics board .

Wine exports topped 113 million litres in 2007, with the bulk, 81 million litres, shipped to Russia.

Bulgarian wines remain stuck in the low-price segment despite the attempts of the producers to market up their brands. Currently, Bulgarian wines retail at 0.75-0.9 euro in Russia but face stiff competition from similarly priced Portuguese, Italian and Spanish vintages.

The outlook for the grape harvest is good, but average yields are seen at 5000-7000 kg a ha, down from 8000-9000 kg a ha harvested on average in the past two years.