Page 51 - Grapevine July-August 2015

International News
Mr. Oscar Quintero has Bodegas Pomar’s director
since 1996. He has stated that for 2014, revenues
reached a figure of $6 million, including $4 million
from its own home-grown labels, and a further $2
million in sales of the 24 imported brands Pomar
represents. While $6 million is a very small drop
compared to the $2.6 billion in sales generated last
year by parent company Polar, Bodegas Pomar has
been able to capture a 10% share of the Venezuelan
wine market, whose size is estimated at 750,000
cases, excluding contraband. Pomar now ranks as
the single best-selling wine in Venezuela.
A much more basic problem for Bodegas Pomar is
that unlike Argentina, Venezuela has never been a
country of big wine drinkers. Per-capita wine con-
sumption is just 0.28 litres per year. On the contrary
beer and whisky is more the drink of choice to the
point where Venezuelans are among the highest
per-capita consumers of whisky in the world.
Club Pomar was launched in 2013 where some
2,000 members pay an average 30,000 bolívares
(about $40) to participate in cocktails, tastings and
other gatherings that promote knowledge of wines
in general, and Pomar products in particular. With
the low prices in the market it is very difficult for
Pomar to be competitive. Almost half of the mar-
ket is made up of imported Chilean wines, and its
increasing all the time because of a free-trade agree- the country’s natural wealth. There are forty three
ment between the two countries where they don’t
pay any import taxes. The conditions at Bodegas
Pomar are suitable for winemaking because the
valley where the grapes grow becomes cooler at
night. The temperature variation gives the grapes
the right sugar content for winemaking, even though
the vines are only ten degrees north of the equator.
Pomar’s lowest tier bottle sells for the equivalent
of $5 in the liquor stores, about the same price as
you would pay for a bottle of aguardiente. Their
mid-range bottles of tasty, cherry-like petite verdot
cost $11. The company has been keeping in mind
Venezuelan tastes and has already started market-
ing petite verdot as being ‘great for accompanying
goat in coconut broth’, one of the specialties of the
region. All along the highway between Carora and
Barquisimeto, dozens of vendors have been setting
up identical stands hawking boxes of grapes har-
vested from the area.
877-892-5332 The Grapevine • July - August 2015
In 2015 the central bank of Venezuela reported
that foreign currency reserves which are essential
for retaining international trade and debt payments
were cited as being at their lowest level since 2003.
The current economic crisis has been compared to
the embezzlement experienced during the time of
the conquest and colonization when gold and sil-
ver were carted off by the ton. Today in 2015 an
importer can buy U.S. currency from the govern-
ment for as little as 6.3 bolívares to the U.S. dollar,
and then immediately profit from as much as 280
bolívares to the U.S. dollar on the black market.
Tens of billions of dollars have disappeared from
the country in recent years as a result of payments
for over-invoiced items, or what are also known as
phantom imports.
In February 2013 Venezuela’s’ currency was
devalued because of rising shortages of milk, flour
and other basic necessities. In 2014 Venezuela
entered an economic recession. Poverty and infla-
tion have also increased, and as of December 2014
the inflation rate was 68.5%. Economic problems
as well as crime and corruption were some of the
main causes of the 2014–15 Venezuelan protests.
Venezuela has endorsed fourteen international con-
ventions regarding environmental protection and
sustainable development, while also taking for-
ward-looking steps internally to protect and preserve
national parks and thirty six natural monuments
in Venezuela, and it is the one country in Latin
America with the largest proportion of protected
lands with over 55% of its total territory. Parks and
monuments are only 17% of that total, while the
remaining protected areas exist outside of those
parks and monuments.
While Venezuela is a struggling nation in many
ways and not a huge supplier of wine to the world-
wide market, it is one of the more unique and inter-
esting of the new world wine producing countries.
Whether or not this particular country will be able
to continue to grow and expand its viniculture prac-
tice and international trading as a matter of course
in the future remains to be seen.
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