How War Affected the Georgian Wine Market - Schuchmann Wine Georgia

Exports of natural grape wines from Georgia have increased by 43% this year.

Nutsa Abramishvili, CEO of Schuchmann Wine Georgia, spoke to Business Press News about how the war will affect and whether Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has already affected the Georgian wine market.

"From the very first years, the priority for the company is the European Union, the USA, and other international markets, as well as less traditional CIS markets and post-Soviet space. This means the harder the job, the more competition we need to go through. However, it must be said that the price is also higher. In the post-Soviet space, however, the demand is mainly for low-priced wine, so even before this tragic war, we had little focus on traditional markets. It is clear that exports to Ukraine are suspended. Before the war in Russia, we had exported only 5% of our production. As of now, we have a policy that only our partners will deliver the wine, and that too, with a very strict payment schedule.

Schuchmann spends a lot of money in this direction every year and it is due to this that we manage to diversify the markets from year to year. We expect to export a large part of the production this year. We plan to export about 1.5 million bottles out of the country. This is if external factors do not prevent us, which is always important and in some cases crucial," Abramishvili said.

According to her, it is too early to talk about whether the demand for wine has been reduced amid war.

"At this stage, it is impossible to talk about how the war affected wine demand, both within the country and in Europe, which is at the heart of the war. It will be possible to assess this by the end of the year, when all the data will be counted," Nutsa Abramishvili told Business Press News.