Rioja generic body plans €8m promotional spend

By Harpers Editorial

Published: 12 April, 2013

The generic body responsible for promoting wines from Rioja plans to spend €8 million on promoting the region this year.

The promotional budget is a 5.6% increase on DOCa Rioja's investment last year and was voted through by more than 80% of the Rioja wine industry members who sit on the control board. Most of the money will be spent in Spain, the UK, Germany, the US, Switzerland, Mexico and China.

Control board president Victor Pascual praised "the great effort made, in these difficult times, by everyone in the industry to ensure the continuity of our model of designation".

"Maintaining market activities through significant investments in promotion for the past few years has certainly been a successful strategy in the light of the results achieved in sales and positioning, particularly in foreign markets," he added.

Marketing activities in the UK will focus on the sixth Rioja Tapas Fantasticas festival in London on July 14 and 15 - an outdoor food and wine festival attended by 15,000 people. DOCa Rioja will also hold its first generic tasting and organise consumer events with independent retailers.

The UK is by far the largest Rioja importer, representing a third of sales outside Spain. Last year exports to the UK grew 6.8% to 32.7 million litres.

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