Tour de France partnership continues to drive growth for Concha y Toro

By Jo Gilbert

Published: 13 June, 2016

Chilean wine brand Cono Sur is continuing to make huge gains in the UK market thanks to its official partnership with the Tour de France.

The company has released a limited edition bottle for this year's competition featuring artwork from Eliza Southwood.

Cono Sur is a familiar face on UK supermarket shelves, and according to sales data, is the number one producer of Pinot Noir in the UK and in the world by volume.

Adolfo Hurtado, Cono Sur's chief winemaker and general manager, said they are one of the few countries seeing growth against a backdrop of declining global sales.

He said: "Wine consumption in the UK isn't growing. What we're seeing is a concentration of bigger brands so it's important to have a point of difference. For us, not many people associate Chile with Pinot Noir, where we are leaders in the UK market, so it's intriguing to consumers."

According to the latest IRI data for the off-trade, Cono Sur took £20.6m in value sales of the £420m Chilean wine market in the 52 w/e to 23 May, 2015, with a market share of 4.9.

It is fifth out of Concha y Toro's brands including its top earning flagship brand Casillero Del Diablo, which posted sales of £89.3m and market share of 21.3 in the same period.

The Chilean wine market was worth £420m out of the global still wine market which took sales of £5,105.3m for the year to 23 May, 2015.

Founded in Chile in 1993, Cono Sur lost 11% volume in the El Nino storm earlier this year, although the last 30% of the harvest was affected as 70% had already been picked.

Ben Smith, head of communications at Concha y Toro UK, said the brand is now focusing on pushing its premium wine ranges including 20 Barrels, which retails for approximately £19.99.

"Along with Australia, New Zealand and Argentina, Chile is one of only four countries currently in growth. The challenge for us now is getting consumers to trade up to premium. Consumers can get quite easily confused when they see a wall of wine in the supermarket. Now we need to get them to notice 20 Barrels at the higher end of our range."

The Bicicleta range at Cono Sur for the Tour de France is available in Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrisons.

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