The FINANCIAL — Six leading Georgian wine companies: Badagoni, Tbilvino, Kvanchkara LTD, Kindzmareulis Marani, Teliani Valley and Kakheti Traditional Wine Making are offering famous Georgian wine to the millions of passengers visiting Istanbul Ataturk International Airport.
The six-month negotiations regarding this have been successfully completed.
As a result of cooperation between the Ministry of Agriculture and TAV Holding, a ‘Georgian Wine Corner’ was opened in the Duty Free in Istanbul Ataturk International Airport on August 15, 2011. “This will help not only the popularization of Georgian wine, but will also raise awareness of the national wine production and international market position to expand,” announced the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia.
In 10 days 36,000 bottles of wine have already been sold.
“On the first day, 120 bottles of wine were sold in one hour. Among them 50 were bought by Georgian customers,” said Tamer Cigeroglu, the manager of ATU Georgia. “Mainly Russian, Japanese and Chinese people buy Georgian Wine. The most popular Georgian Wines are dry red and white wines. The cheapest wine costs 4 EUR and the most expensive is priced at 35 EUR. The most delicious and pleasant drinking among all represented wines in Duty Free is a Georgian wine.” added Cigeroglu.
In the Duty Free area only one flag can be seen: the Georgian one. The Georgian corner takes up 4 square metres and has 4 shelves. Georgian wine is currently competing with Spanish, Italian and French wines also represented in Ataturk International Airport. Among them are the most expensive wines costing 1400 EUR. The companies which want to sell their products in Istanbul Ataturk International Airport are expected to pay between 1 and 15 million EUR per year.
From September 5, 2011 Georgian wine will be sold in Ankara and Izmir International Airports as well. As well as this, Georgian wine will be represented in Tbilisi and Batumi International Airports from September 25, 2011. As for the budget of this project, the reconstruction of a new Duty Free shop in Tbilisi International Airport will 230,000 EUR. A minimum of 70,000 EUR worth of products will be placed in the shop.
With Tbilisi and Batumi International Airports an annual agreement will be made. But in the case of Turkish airports the term isn’t restricted. “The agreement is perpetual. There will be a Georgian corner in the Duty Free zone as long as we require it,” said Cigeroglu.
As Tea Zakaradze, Administration Manager of TAV Airports Holding said, the new Duty Free shop is being built, where 10 Georgian wine companies can sell their wines.
“Beforehand, we cooperated with only Teliani Valley. But as our goal is to popularize Georgian wine the network expansion was necessary. Over 823,000 passengers were registered in Tbilisi International airport in 2010. This year, we are expecting about a million passengers. Now we are also negotiating with other airports operated by us. By the end of December we’ll know in which airports Georgian wines will be sold,” said Zakaradze.
Besides Tbilisi, Batumi and Istanbul Ataturk International Airport, TAV Airports Holding operates another 9 airports all over the world. Among them are Ankara, Izmir and Antalya airports in Turkey, 2 international airports in Tunisia and 2 in Macedonia. Also, TAV Holding has airports in Riga and Arabia. Approximately 300 airline companies of TAV Airports Holding completed 416,000 flights and served about 48 million passengers in 2010.
“Those companies, who will make an agreement with Tbilisi International Airport, would sell their products in our other operating airports as well. By this time, only 6 wine companies have been willing to cooperate with us. TAV Holding and the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia offered to all Georgian wine companies their cooperation,” added Zakaradze.
“This is good advertisement for Badagoni Wine and for Georgian Wine. The wines of Badagoni were awarded several medals and honourable diplomas by various national and international companies, so we’ll be representing Georgia properly,” said Liza Bagrationi, PR Manager of Badagoni.
Those companies, who don’t participate in this project, have refrained from making any comments. Some of them say financial problems were the reason and some of them say they weren’t offered the chance to sell their wines in the Duty Free zone.
Discussion about this post