Denmark's Booming Fine Wine Market & the Largest Champagne List in the USA
🗞️ HEADLINES
Crémant is making a splash on UK retail shelves as cost-of-living pressures dampen Champagne sales. Sales of crémant have overtaken Cava at Waitrose, the retailer has reported and Ocado also reported a spike, with sales of its M&S Crémant de Bordeaux up 47% in a year. (The Drink’s Business)
The DOC Prosecco Consortium is planning to introduce a new Riserva category, for wines aged for at least one year, with at least six months of ageing on the lees.
The Europe non-alcoholic wine and beer market size reached €8.6bn in 2023 as consumers continued to buy into the category. The overall market is expected to hit €15.4bn by 2032, with a growth rate of 6.56% during the period from this year until then.
🌏 WORLD MARKET
Denmark’s booming fine wine market
Areni Global published a report on Denmark’s thriving fine wine market. In summary:
➡️ Danes represent one of the highest wine consumption rates in Europe.
➡️ Consumers are willing to pay more for wine here than the price-sensitive German market, meaning Germany’s fine wines have found a loyal customer base in Denmark.
➡️ Danish customers are extremely knowledgeable when it comes to wine. The profile of the fine wine consumer is also changing with a younger cohort entering the scene. However, the majority of fine wine drinkers and collectors are male.
➡️ Burgundy is “king”. French, Italian and Spanish wines are popular. Customers are also seeking out “new, small, up-and-coming stars from all over the world. Small production, low intervention”.
➡️ The future looks bright. Danish pension schemes hold large levels of Novo Nordisk stock (the company who produce the weight loss drug, Ozempic), pumping up the value of Danish retirement savings. This translates to more disposable income to spend on wine in the future.
[During Prowein, I shared a taxi with a Danish distributor who spends the majority of the year going to wine fairs, to satisfy the demand back home. I was curious by this and asked him what styles are trending. He mentioned Albarino, Grüner and German Sauvignon Blanc.]
🔦 SPOTLIGHT
🍗🍾 Fried chicken & Champagne
Victoria James (author of Wine Girl) has created the largest Champagne list in the U.S., for the new fried chicken and Champagne restaurant, Coqodaq.
After three years of searching for special bottles and cult favourites, the NYC joint has debuted with a 400-bottle Champagne library.
The list celebrates blue chip specials like Selosse and Salon, but they also have an 100 under $100 section, mainly Champagne, to cater to a broader range of customers.
This monumental task took James and her team three years to compile.
BUSINESS
🥇 How to become the No.1 World’s Best Vineyard
Despite Argentina's unstable economy, Catena Zapata in Mendoza has become one of the world's most esteemed wineries, distributing its flagship wines across the world. Laura Catena is responsible for much of the brand’s international success and she tells Meininger’s how she achieved it:
Diversify currency risk and raise prices when necessary: Catena warns against absorbing higher costs and emphasises the lesson learned from Argentina's inflation crisis: raising prices is necessary. Also, they invoice in different currencies to diversify risk.
Aim to be the Best: People will listen to you.
Communicate loudly and often: Take every opportunity to tell stories, both to consumers and to the media. Consumers buy into the stories.
Get broadband in the vineyards: Despite quality housing offers, attracting workers is tough, with internet access being crucial to attracting families. The single decision to pay for the best broadband, massively improved their recruitment success.
Use a good booking system: Catena stresses the need for a good online booking system to support wine tourism and recommends working with a tourism agency as these agencies represent the vast majority of winery bookings.
Remember, everything goes in cycles: Wine tastes evolve and change. At Catena, they are currently reviving old labels for wines that have come back into vogue. “I think this is a cyclical thing that’s been happening forever”, she says.
Thanks for reading!