Winemakers’ year enjoying fruity finish thanks to lockdown- driven demand
The Covid- 19 pandemic has been no barrier to success for more traditional winemakers.
Climate conditions for sauvignon blanc in Marlborough resulted in the 2019- 20 season being dubbed “the vintage of a lifetime” and Villa Maria says sales from its harvest during the first lockdown this year have gone “from strength to strength” since March.
Villa Maria is shipping 13 per cent more wine than initially forecast, due to strong demand globally as a result of the favourable climatic conditions and increased consumption brought about by the pandemic.
Marlborough had its driest December to April in almost 80 years, combined with a season that was slightly cooler compared to the previous two years, creating almost perfect conditions for vineyards.
Nick Picone, Villa Maria group chief winemaker, says the shutdown of bars and hospitality venues globally to stop the spread of Covid19 has no doubt caused the sharp spike in grocery sales worldwide.
“We’re so far ahead of where we would normally be in terms of our bottling schedule, and a lot of that demand is driven from the UK market. We’ve been bottling like crazy this year.”
Exports to the UK are almost double what they usually would be for this time of the year, he says.
In the year to June, New Zealand exported about $ 1.9 billion worth of wine, an increase on the previous record of $ 1.4b.
Picone says Villa Maria is not alone in its surging sales. “No one could foresee the demand that would come from lockdown.”
Even with lockdown restrictions easing globally in recent months, the large rise in sales has been sustained, he says.
“Clearly there’s been a slowdown for the on- premise market, restaurants and bars with all the closures, there’s been a decline in sales for our highermargin wines, but the huge demand in the supermarket channel, and particularly export market, has seen us so far ahead on normal.”
Picone says it is too soon to know if the increased volumes will be sustained long term, and Villa Maria is having to closely monitor its production planning. It is basing next year’s demand on what it is experiencing now.
“We’re actually looking at putting our prices up in the UK, which we were going to do anyway in the early new year, which we’re almost hoping will slow things down a little bit.”