Political changes, not WTO, to influence the wine market
10 December 2011, Moscow
From 15 to 85 thousand Russians has been claiming they don’t want to live under the Putin-Medvedev regime today during the organized manifestation of opposition forces at Bolotnaya square. Maybe these events will have even bigger impact on the wine market than Russia’s entering the WTO in 2012.
The overregulation of wine market in Russia is a common knowledge and the domination of vodka producers is so ridiculously obvious. For example, we still remember how the Kristal vodka producer Souyzplodimport has stopped Louis Roederer from selling its top Cuvee Prestige, Cristal, in the market. The official court ruling was that Cristal and Kristal brands were so close in the consumers’ minds that they could confuse consumers and ruin the Kristal’s brand identity.
It seems that only big political changes, including fair courts not dominated by big money, might modernize the market and bring quality wines closer to consumers. It also seems that the main hope of any wine importer is the retirement of the Chief Sanitary Inspector Mr. Gennady Onischenko, who was in charge of many wine import-damaging decisions, including the political ban of Moldovian and Georgian wines, new regulations and certifications of the wine market in 2006 and 2010, new licensing in 2010-11 when lots of wine importers were severely hit and many suffered big losses. Aside from him Mr. Igor Chuyan, the head of the alcohol regulating body RosAlcogolRegulirovanie, is in charge of many regulating decisions that influenced the business of many wine importers. With the understandable background in Rosspirtprom and Kristall, the major producers of many famous vodka brands, he and his deputies are the dark force behind the wine market regulations and the protégée of Dmitry Medvedev who put him in power on the 1st of January 2009.
Formally after entering the WTO alliance Russia is obliged to lower its wine import duties from the current 20% to 12.5% during the period of three years. It is unlikely that final consumers will feel any price reduction — wine pricing is still absolutely volatile and voluntary — russian restaurants tend to double, triple (at least) the prices for wines making even a cheap Chianti a luxury drink if one wants to consume it in the restaurant.
