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Wines of Argentina to target millennials through music festivals in 2014

Published:  30 January, 2014

Wines of Argentina plans to build on 2013's growth - it is up 19% by value and 17% by volume - by continuing to target millennial consumers and build awareness through partnerships with larger retailers.

Speaking to harpers.co.uk Wines of Argentina's European director Andrew Maidment said: "Things are starting to move in the right direction. It's been a long time coming."

He said the "concerted effort" on the part of producers and retailers to go down the same route was starting to pay off, and partnerships with major retailers Majestic and Tesco was paying off.

According to to Nielsen data for the 12 weeks to November 11, 2013, Argentinian wines in the off-trade are up 19% by value and 17% by volume.

CambalacheCambalacheWines of Argentina is planning to host another Cambalache event in 2014, following the success of the 2013 event in targeting Millennial consumers.

"The majority of Argentinian producers focus on independents, smaller retailers and the on-trade. But you do need to have relationships with the larger retailers as it helps build awareness. There's been a shift in market share from when we started to have closer relationships with them."

He said the fact that Argentinian producers had not dropped their prices to match other countries, but with exchange rate changes and prices of other countries' wines creeping up, suddenly Argentinian wine is finding itself in the 'sweet spot'.

Its current average price is £5.45, putting it in third position after New Zealand at £7 and France at £6.04.

Maidment said it was encouraging that the volume increase was not related to heavy discounting or lower-priced wines. "That's not the case. If anything there is upward pressure on prices. If that's the case and we're still growing, that's a good sign."

Malbec is still Argentina's flagship varietal, and accounts for 40% of imports to the UK. Chardonnay is the bestselling white variety, while Torrontes accounts for just 4% of imports to this market. But Maidment said other varieties are available in the market and selling through.

Last year it carried out research with Kantar World Panel and found its customer base to be younger than average - with 18% of buyers aged between 24 and 35, compared to 10% for the wine category as a whole. "It does match up with the way we're going with our marketing," he said. Research also showed that while strong in London, Malbec was very popular outside the capital, with Scotland and the north east of England performing very well.

In 2013 it hosted Cambalache, a wine tasting with strong tango influences, with music, street art, food and cocktails on offer in order to "get outside of the mainstream" and target the younger demographic. WoA plans to re-do it this year. It also hosted a bar at Jamie Oliver's Feastival and is planning more summer music and art festivals this year. Malbec Day will have a music theme. It has been building on that in 2013 as it offered a soundcast from top Argentinian DJs via its Facebook page on Thursday afternoons last year - which helped build its Facebook following. "Most of our posts are not about wine, but enjoying yourself or matching wine with dance music for example."

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