If you are a globe trotter or a connoisseur of wine, then you sure would have heard of Tokaj or how the Hungarians pronounce ‘toe-kay’. It is the signature wine of Hungary and one of the most important wines of the world. Tokaj has a rich historical tradition and has had royal connections with noblemen, Ferenc Rákóczi II, Peter the Great, King Louis XIV, Catherine the Great, and many others cherishing it.

Now, Hungarian wine producers and the Hungarian government want to take it to the world more than ever before, the way the French, the Italians and the Australians have done it. And India, an emerging market, is very much on their list.

Aggressive Marketing Plans

Independent Hungarian wine producers and the Hungarian government have been participating in various wine related events in India and understand that they need to go ‘aggressive’ in their efforts. Speaking to Ambrosia, the Consul General of Hungary in Mumbai, Ferenc Jari; and wine producers Nicholas Jelasity, Export Manager of Grand Tokaj Ltd and Tamas Duzsi of Duzsi Family Winery highlighted the wines of Hungary, coming from 22 regions, and the challenges of entering the Indian market. In the recent past, they have had two small shipments entering India and find they could do better with communication, education, wine tasting sessions and ‘aggressive’ marketing.

Awaiting FTA to Boost Trade

The Consul General mentioned that the Hungarian government was keen on promoting various industries, including winery, to the world. Most of the wineries in Hungary are small and medium enterprises and have challenges entering the Indian market as the duty rates are high, he said and hoped that the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and Europe would materialise such that it would give a boost to trade, part of that beneficiary would be Hungarian wines. Within the European Union there is free trade and that has helped majorly the wine producers, he averred.

Nicholas said that after protracted negotiations, he has had the first of the two small shipments into India. “It has been crazy, but in a positive way. There is a lot of curiosity about Hungarian wines. There are two kinds of customers for Tokaj, one who has heard about it and happy to get hold of a bottle in India and other is the curious customer who is excited once he or she has tasted it. The challenge is about communication and we are addressing that.”

Tamas who is in India for the third time and has been part of the delegation chalking out finer details of the FTA, said ‘education was the key’. Mentioning how one Indian student by name Kaushal came to Europe, studied about European wine making came back to India and promoted European wines. We need more people like him to explain the process of wine making and the benefits of wine drinking. The Hungarian tourism promotion agency has to invite people from India and that is a good platform to begin with, he said and mentioned how tourists from the USA came to Hungary and few of them established importing companies, thus making Hungarian wine available. “We need to do that in India.”

Pricing Strategy

Agreeing to the suggestion that Hungary needs to make substantial investments in the price sensitive Indian market, they said, ‘We fully agree. If we want to be aggressive with prices in India, we should have better pricing than in Hungary itself. We understand the duty structure here.”

Nicholas said his company has a capacity of 8 million cases and is presently doing 6 million cases. “We have the elasticity, the capacity and the rotation to produce good quality wines for the world. We will be competitive. We are competing with the likes of South Africa, Australia and others who have large-scale vineyards and mechanised operations. We will be aggressive in pricing.”

The company exports between 60 and 70% of its wines in about 150 countries, he said and mentioned that it does not mean they sell large quantities. “However, we want to continue to grow exports.”

Explaining how local Hungarian companies had to compete in the export market with Spanish, French and British who owned Hungarian wineries, Nicholas said, “A Spanish company which bought a Tokaj company in Hungary does everything to export Tokaj in Spain, so do the French and the British, focussing on their markets.” After the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) disintegrated in the 1990s, a lot of investment came into Hungary and many of them invested in wineries.

3 Million Hectolitres From Hungary

Hungary now produces about 3 million hectolitres of wine and had 22 wine regions in the country, the Consul General said but added that after the two World Wars and Hungary losing territory, the area under wine cultivation had come down from about 200,000 hectares to about 50,000 to 60,000 hectares. “Hungary is like little France. We have all kinds of wines, except fortified wines which are not allowed. We have a big company producing sparkling wines.”

Presently, Hungarians are also consuming wines from other countries, unlike the Portuguese who consume 98% of their own produce. “Earlier, we were protective of our wines.”

When it was pointed out that Rose and Red wines were growing in India, Tamas said, “Rose is our main product. We use high quality grapes. Of course, we have Red wines. Grapes that we use for Rose, we can use it for Red wine. Our Rose is bone dry, having higher alcohol content, gives a bit of sweetness, but not from sugar.”

Further, he said his company’s main export market is the US. “We started with two cases, now we sell in containers. We started by organising wine tasting. Recently I did 15 wine tastings in six days. We can boost sales with such strategies.” Tamas in the last event in Delhi presented Rose and this time in Mumbai offered red wine at the event.

They concurred that Hungary with a population of about 10 million had to but look at export markets. “Consumption is on the decrease and we need to make efforts to get to world markets. We need story-telling that Tokaj is one of the oldest wines in the world.” In 1737, Tokaj was declared an appellation, a delimited wine region with borders. This was the foundation for the first protection of origin in the world. Tokaj was the very first in the world to introduce a whole system of appellations controlled, 120 years before Bordeaux classification which took place in 1885 only.

French king Louis XIV said of Aszú Tokaj wine he received from Francis II Rákóczi: “C’est le roi des vins, et le vin des rois” – “The king of wines, the wine of kings”.