© Kushnirov Avraham / stockadobe.com
T
he past two years have felt like a watershed for Portuguese
wine. Commercially speaking, a
country that was bubbling under for years, without ever quite joining the European establishment, has consistently posted sales figures that put the rest of the
continent’s wine producers to shame.
According to data released by Wines of
Portugal on the eve of the organisation’s
London tasting in March, the country grew
its exports by 8.2% in value in 2021, taking the total figure to just shy of a billion euros (€926m).
Importantly, this isn’t just a sign of a
return to normality after the market-
distorting effects of Covid in 2020. The country has been growing slowly but
steadily at a little over 3% per year in value for the past decade, but even in 2020 itself Portuguese wines added some 4.5% in value.
Crucially, as generic body Wines of
Portugal is happy to point out, this has
made Portugal the only European country
to have grown in both value and volume in the past year.
A wine country on the up Booming UK sales, a healthy 2021 harvest, rave reviews from indies and now even a consumer show in London all testify to Portugal’s continuing ascendancy, as David Williams reports
What’s more, Portugal’s performance in
the UK has been particularly impressive:
despite the teething problems of Brexit and other supply-side issues, exports to the UK
grew by more than 12% in value in the first six months of 2021, consolidating the UK
as the third biggest market for Portuguese wine after the US and France.
More pertinently for readers of this
magazine, independent retailers have
played a significant role in Portugal’s UK rise.
The sector’s enthusiasm was particularly
evident in this year’s Wine Merchant reader
survey, in which Portugal was way out
THE WINE MERCHANT may 2022 50
