Ep. 1121 The Kazakhstan Wine Market | wine2wine Business Forum 2021

Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. This episode has been brought to you by the wine to wine business forum twenty twenty two. This year, we'll mark the ninth edition of the forum to be held on November seventh and eighth of twenty twenty two in Verona Italy. This year will be an exclusively in person edition. The main theme of the event will be all around wine communication. Tickets are on sale now. So for more information, please visit us at wine to wine dot net. Italian wine podcast, a wine to wine business forum twenty twenty one media partner, is proud to present a series of sessions highlighting the key themes and ideas from the two day event held on October the eighteenth and nineteenth twenty twenty one. This hybrid edition of the business forum was jam packed with the most informed speakers discussing some of the hottest topics in the wine industry today. For more information, please visit wine to wine dot net and tune in every Thursday at two pm central European time for more episodes recorded during this latest edition of wine to wine business forum. For Mr. Altered. Altered was born in, San Pittenberg, and then he moved to, Europe for work for a couple of years. And then he settled down in, I think Almaty, in Pakistan. And he's the Vineetree Italian, international academy, wine and bus. There is the president also of the Kazakhstan Summit Association and the CEO of the annual contest of the best Somilia in Kazakhstan, which I believe was last week. Yeah. And you were busy doing the Crazy. Crazy busy. And also is a co owner and male lecturer of the Sommelier School in, Alma team. So today, the session will be about how to enter the Kazakhstan wine market. It is a market with not many Italian producer are in. So we want to know a little bit more of how the market is, how the trend is, and how we can enter this market. Thank you again for the introduction, and, would good day ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I would like to say sorry for my English because it's not very good, and I will, I will sometimes miss something. And thank you for, coming here. For me, it's very important. And, I hope for, those of you who are working with wine, it will be also in future, maybe important. So my my topic, how to enter Kazakhstan market, but it's only to it's nothing. The main question is why should we, or should you, enter the Kazakhstan market? And I will explain in my presentation a bit. Yeah. The, like, my photo with some some words about, but, you have already heard about it. So we can, skip to, to the next one, and, start speaking about Kazakhstan. So when people, heard about Kazakhstan, especially in Italy, they also, sometimes, mess, where is it? What is it? And I know that in Italy, everybody told, Kazakhstan. So that the right pronunciation is Kazakhstan, to to to to make it everything crystal clear. And when people think about Kazakhstan, they think about, this, this kind of stuff. And it's more or less So so it's the huge step without nothing, without life, without anything. And, there are some big cities, which can, be very beautiful, but mainly it's the step. So where is, Kazakhstan situated? This is a republic of Kazakhstan. It's situated in the middle of central Asia. And it's, bordered by, other huge countries from the north from the east, like Russia and Mongolia, almost murdered. And the in, Kazakhstan, there are eighteen million people. So how many is in Italy? How many are each state? Is it sixty around sixty million? But, imagine how big is Italy and how huge is, Kazakhstan. So eighteen million people on this territory, the Kazakhstan has number nine or number ten, number nine territory in the world in terms of, in terms of size. So you have less than six people on the square kilometer. And, the bad thing that, from it's not the bad thing. It's a bad thing for vine culture that almost half of these people are Muslim. So they don't officially drink elkakal. Of course, they drink. I think all fifty percent drink, but officially not. Of course. So, and Kazakhstan have a lot of, deposits, a lot of natural resources, So, there are a lot of very, very, very rich people who basically can buy everything, and they love to come to Sardinia to spend their time with their yachts. So, more or less, it's reminiscent of, Russia. So this is the capital of, their is it good to see? So this is the capital, new capital of Kazakhstan. It's, the Astana or Nusultan, Nor Sultan is the name of the first president. So it's beautiful. It's a lot of light, and it's not, like, from the first picture with the state. So, of course, all divine consumption, focused on, these kinds of cities. And all the wines are very good selling there, and also the spirits, of course. And if we speak, if we focus more on, on the vine, exactly, on the mine, vine market, We have, the history traced back to the six, seven, century AD, but then, they lost everything. I say they because I'm originally from Russia. So I came to live in Kazakhstan for seven years and do my business now there. So they miss everything. So you have the, cradle of wine in Georgia, and the traces of wine go into the north, to the west, to the east, and Palestine is very close to, to Georgia, to the cradle of wine. So we have fine culture. There from from the seventh century minimum. And, only one country which gives something new to Kazakhstan in terms of, development of fine culture was the USSR. Soviet union. And, of course, as you know, Soviet union only give the bad things to agriculture because it's, quantities, quantities, quantities, no quality at all. And, one more thing, it's that, Soviet union focus on strange style. Soviet Union decided that Kazakhstan should be, producer of a sparkling wine and, of spirits, like, Kazakhstan, cognac, of course, it's Brandy. But anyway, so the people used to drink this kind of stuff cheap, semi sweet, mainly or sparkling or spirits. So if, you produce one of these styles, you will be more than successful because the population, which is old, they drink this kind of stuff. So the most strong countries in terms of, vine inside the Kazakhstan market, moldavia, Georgia, Ukraine. It's like the, maybe, top top three, also the local. And if we speak about the modern vine countries, it's, of course, Italy. So you told that, there are not too much Italian producers. It is truth. But, if we speak about the whole market, Italian, Italians have a like very huge presence on the market. And, all the people who think that they understand what is fine, all of them drink Italy. Try to guess which Italy. What do you think? Which? Gaya, Delaya. Yeah. Definitely. We will have a big gap between the cheap wines and a very high end wines. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Correct. Due to this reason that there are natural resources, in Kazakhstan, we have suspicious consumption. So people, even if they don't have money to buy expensive fines, they want to buy expensive, lines to show off. So it's very easy to sell cheap wines, for both for those of you who who produce fine, If if you're if you have wine, like, one to five year range, you will be and if the wine is tasty, of course, you will be successful on the market. You just need to enter it. If you produce the wine, which costs more than, sixty eighty one hundred euro, you will be successful because contributions consumption working in, Kazakhstan. Fantastic. We have the summer years who go to their, consumers and, told them, like, hey, man, take this wine, and you will be happy. Sold out. That's okay. So you need to to make connection with them, you know, with the so many years. Is there a reason why, as, the most in in French wines in Kazakhstan are Italian and not maybe French or Spanish? You know, for me, it's also the good question for me, of course, Kazakhstan is a part of not part of Russia because I I sounds like a bad guy in this term, like, putting but in in terms of Soviet Union, it's a part of, Soviet Union. So we have Russian speaking community, a lot of people. And for Russian speaking community, Italy is the, is is a heaven, basically, because even in a bridge or sounds like, something fantastic. And if we speak a lot of, Italian culture in Russian speaking words, people people love Italy. It's it's really so. So you come to if you come here, have you ever been in, Almati or Nusoltan, some of you, somebody of you, when you come, you can see that there are local restaurants, Italian restaurant, local restaurant, Georgia restaurant, Italian restaurant, Italian restaurant, and that's all. So it's very easy to Italians to come to the market because, you know, the base the fund demand is also there, already there. The problem, we speak that, more than half of population are Muslim, more of, more than half of population lives outside of the big cities. And also the problem, with taxation. Like in Russia, if you send the divine, accelerate for five euro in Kazakhstan, it will be fifteen or twenty. In if we speak about restaurants, it could be easily thirty or forty euro per bottle. And it's crazy. So people have no money, normal people, and the wine is very expensive. So when Italians come to, to Alma, they don't drink, Italian wine because it's not possible. It's very expensive. But in terms of building the image of your wineries, it's good. Because, you sold the vine for a very high price there, and you feel like, wow, could I do this, inside Italy, please? Again, so this is the, like, the cons, the minuses. And now let's start speaking about something good. This is it's it's, it's also not good. This is a traditional style, partying in, Kazakhstan. It's, everything about conspicious consumption. So when somebody married, birthday, any celebration. You gather all the people who you know and who you don't know. And, you make, that toy. Toy is a beautiful celebration. So you spend all your money to make your guests happy. And, if you come, to the right place, to the right so many who work on these toys, you can sell your wine easily all of your wine because, it could be one thousand people, and they drink a lot. They drink whole day from the morning to the evening. Of course, this, looks not not very premium, but when we speak about rich people, it looks like this. So this is a Rixes. It's, event which we organize and, We sell a lot of wine there. Basically, the old, old importers who sell their wine to this toy, they are out of stock with the with their wines. So it's it's beautiful. It could be like that. And this is the examples of wine to give you an, an overview of the market, which is very easy to sell. So we have a four or five year old. We have a Georgian wine for ten year old, semi sweet, Spanish wine, For three hundred Tiara, we have Seshikaya, and three hundred Tiara is very cheap for Kazakhstan. Then we have California, and then for, for the persons from the government, they drink this kind of wine. So, Kazakhstan is ready for all your products. And all the price ranges. We have also the speaking about Italy, we have the man who produced the wine. It's a prime, financial minister of Kazakhstan. Zenolaka Kim Jong. He has his own binary. And the guest, who is the winemaker and who is consulting, in terms of line growing. It's Donat al Anati and Mario Frigoni, so Italians. So the style of the wine is, more or less. They're trying to be Italian. So Again, the market is ready for Italy. And we have, developing vine culture. So this is the Vine festival. It looks more or less European. So if you'd thought about Kazakhstan like a rural country, yes, but we are developing. So, this, this was the slide about Kazakhstan. And now why you need to enter the Kazakhstan market? I told you a lot of bad things about Kazakhstan in terms of business. So not too much people, not too much money. There are a lot of different minuses. But what is the plus? Why I switch from Russia, from Saint Petersburg to Almaty? Because Almaty and Kazakhstan is, at center, a heart of the great step. Great step is a huge plateau, which starts almost from, from, Pacific Ocean and goes to Austria. To Lataberg mountain in, Oregonland. So historically, this place was the, boiling code for different culture, for trade, for everything. And, if you can enter the Kazakhstan market, you are neighboring countries like Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and, western China, eastern, Russia, Azerbaijan, and all of these countries are not developed yet in terms of wine. So if I ask you a question, which part of the world is the most undeveloped in terms of agriculture? Because if we speak about Northern or southern, America, it's developed. If we speak about, oceania, it's developed. Eastern Asia and western Asia developed. Maybe northern northern part of or central part of Africa is not developed. But again, that central Asia is one of the exactly places, which You can focus now and receive some, some profits, later. So one week ago, we organized the Sonya competition, and our partners our friends, not partners, our friends from Uzbekistan came. And if we speak about Uzbekistan, it's not, Muslim country. It's, they drink wine. And the main city is Ashcan, and one Ashcan is five million people. So when people from Tashkent come to Almaty, they see what we drink, and they think, then we need also to take the vine to our country. So for me, while I'm standing here, I want to give you an idea that, maybe in terms of money, the market of Kazakhstan is not good. But in terms of, promotion and in terms of growing together, it could be very interesting because, yeah, again, the neighboring countries are bigger in terms of population than than Kazakhstan, then Almaty. Italian wine podcast brought to you by mama jumbo shrimp. Now we have in Kazakhstan more or less ten, good importers who impert also Italian wine. And, I'm, like, a president of, as a constant media association, can, help you to to find the correct one. Also what we do, how to enter the Xxton market. There are three words to to answer, write me message. I I have my contacts, and I can help you with this And also, I have my own import company, small, and how it works. So for instance, you can contact me. You can send a small amount of wine. We will buy it. It's not not for free. We will buy it. And if we will be happy with, vine, then we will state, I will I will leave it for myself. If I'm not happy with the vine or you're not happy with me, then I will help you with some contacts. Yeah. We do it, quite often. Now, if if you know, we do it with, panty, Natola, for instance, from, from, with some wineries in Spain and in France, we we work with La Grange de France from France, So if you are interested in, you can, easily contact me. I'm always, answer very, very, very long. But finally, I I do. And this is, this is the almaty. And, this is the beautiful destination for those who are, skiing or snowboarding because alps are beautiful, but alps, I think only three thousand five hundred or more or less. Yeah? Four thousand. And this mountains are almost six thousand meters. So there are few, ski and mountain resorts, and people come, from India to, to ski from, all out. Basically from all over the Asian part, of the world. And, they drink the wine, of course, and they can see your wine. And the people from China also, and people from China comes basically everywhere but, also, also twelve months. It's a scheme. This is our similar competition. Also, what we do, if you are interested, you can send the vine to, to Kazakhstan, and we, make, like, Italian wine weeks. So in the morning, we teach so many years what is Italian finds? Because for me, I'm a professional educator. And for me, it's the easiest way to sell something is to teach about it. So when we first time, speak about I don't know. Maybe, Sardinia, about Vermont, people like it. Now we speak about anything else and people start asking, importers are there on the market. And if not, importers are thinking, okay, somebody has asked, then we need to, to, to take it from Italy. It's, more or less. So and there you can see that, it's beautiful. We also love Italian water. And they are partnering us. And, this is the photo from the last, Sonya competition. So it looks quite nice. And, if you frankly speaking, frankly speaking, I I I remember Frankly speaking, if you choose the correct person, in terms of Kazakhstan, you will, you will be more than happy. Don't expect a huge sales, but expect the promotion, promotion, and promotion. So we do competition every year. We do Italian wine weeks. Every year, we do different academies, of different grape varieties, etcetera, etcetera. And then if you have a previous, bad experience with some, importers from Kazakhstan time, forget about it because, now there are companies who are really good. And the EACHA, helps us a lot and, connect with, those impetus who are more interesting. So we have, like, Montebiyanka company, which is, very dynamic, and you you can write it down. It's like Montblanc. And we also have, echo trade company, which is also focused on good Italian wine selection. And we have a AlmaVin company. Alma, it's an Apple you know, and ALmaty is the birthplace of apples and of probably of cider. We we hope so. So this, three companies, very active in terms of, sales of Italian and wines. So, yeah, highlighting everything for me. What is Kazakhstan? I told you, why do you need to enter? Not only because of Kazakhstan, but because of the huge territory of slavery. Kazakhstan And, if you need any promotion, you can, write me, a message, and we can discuss how it's possible to do. Of course, it's, it will not be for free, but, you know, it it it it will work definitely. If you if you start and if the vine is good. So are there any questions? I don't know. Thank you very much of them for the very interesting presentation. Does anybody have any question? No. I just didn't want to, you know, to speak a lot of information very slowly because, everybody's sleeping. So I just want to wanted to give you an overview. What is it and how is it? And in in terms of technical details, the Kazakhstan is the same way Russia. So if you work with Russia, the documentations is the same, everything is the same. Kazakhstan and Russia are the same, customs union. And also, also the, Uzbekistan. So if your vine come to to Almati, it's easier to send it to Uzbekistan to try. So you can think that, Kazakhstan could be, like, your hub in terms of in terms of further promotion. I have a question. How is the on trade and off trade market perceiving, because, actually, do you find, high end labels in the off trade. Yeah. Thank you. It's a very good question. I forget to put the slide in in in the presentation. So, in terms of, supermarket sales and, un unspecialized shocks, it's only possible to sell the line with beautiful labels and very cheap. And, it's better if it will be semi sweet. So the primitivos, goes very well. Negramara and Susomeniello know, in terms of, Veneta, like, all the repassor, all of the cemento goes very well. A brusa with residual sugar goes very well. People, who buy the wine in supermarket, they don't like acidity at all. If your wine is acidic, forget about supermarket. If your wine has residual sugar, if your wine is very aromatic That's okay. That's good. For me, it's a disaster that we still didn't have on the market, LaKrima, or this kind of stuff. Different aromatic red malaysias, we still don't have. We have, but only a few, quite a few. But, people like it. People drink it one time and ask, to, like, today by the bottle. And if we're speaking about the restaurants, there are, huge chains of Italian restaurants. They sell their wines, kind of like County. And, ST. It's also very, very famous. And, this kind of price category and style. And if we speak about specialized shops and, restaurants, Yeah. I'm, like, a president of Kazakhstan's family recitation. I'm trying to teach some arrears to sell the good wines. So for instance, you don't, you do not need to, to have anything to, to sell the Seshikaya because Seshikaya sells them, it itself. But, we try to give people some new products. Unfortunately, for me, I'm very big fan of Barul and Barbara and Taurazi, very big fan. And, in Kazakhstan, it's very difficult products because it's acidic, it's, has a lot of, on the nose, non fruit character more, more focused on, like, on spices and, and other things. So it's very easy to sell. But, Amarona goes very well. Brunoos and Supertas County goes very well. Market become more popular, more and more popular. And, Okay. You can be happy. In terms of percents, expensive wines sells only in specialized shops and in restaurants, and in terms of cheap shrines only on supermarkets. And supermarkets are very bad working. So don't think about the supermarkets in Kazakhstan. Now they start doing something, but for instance, you know Metro. So the Metro close their wine, imports, their own wine import because they import only disgusting clients and, could not sell it and tell that people are not ready. But some some chains, are successful. Thank you very much. Does anybody have another? Yes. We have a question. I have two questions. One of them is about the is there a trend about sparking wise in Kazakhstan? And the second question, is there some sensibility regarding, let's say, sustainable wines as a as a whole category. So including organic, biodynamic, natural wines, etcetera. Very good question. Thank you. I will, say that, you know, when you throw the stone to the water, the rings very slowly goes different directions. So when some, Someli or some Vine trader throw the stone in the water in London, it goes to France, then it goes to Eastern Europe, then it goes to Moscow, and finally it goes to Almati. So here, organic, sustainable, biodynamic, I think is booming more or less. Yeah. Am I correct? In Russia, definitely, because I was in Moscow one month ago, it's crazy. They have a fine trading companies who work only with natural wines. Only with natural wines. In Kazakhstan, we now in, in the direction that people searching for green label. It's it's not very trendy, but they're searching. If you have two bottles, of course, organic wine will be more successful. But natural wine, biodynamic wine, it's not yet there. I'm drinking. Some somebody is drinking, but normal consumer, afraid of it, and we'll not buy a bottle. And if the bottle are slightly funky, forget about the sales. One time, especially if I I have a lot of clients from, like, top fifty Forbes of Kazakhstan. If I, for one time, sold them the bottle with some funkiness, there will not be more more friendship between us. And, speaking about the trends, yes, sparkling wine is a trend. Low alchical wine is a trend. Now more and more often, people start to ask zero alchical wine. And also Casher wine. For me, it's very strange why Casher in Kazakhstan, but, okay, why not? So, yeah, sparkling, sparkling wine growing. And, beer growing, and the spirits are going down. Why? Because the people from Soviet Union, like, the age of, my, my parents and grandparents, they become unfortunately older, and they can drink as much as they used to of spirits. And they switched to the, to the lower Alcatel beverage and to wine, of course. So this vine is trending. When I first time came to Kazakhstan, I told to local people that, we will see in few years that Vinitex, wine shops, and restaurants will opening soon. And now it's booming, and especially we have normal situation with COVID now and everything working more or less normally. And, I see, like, one once a month somebody opens some wine place. It's good. Boom me now. There yes. We have one question. So, ma'am, I have a question. The e commerce is, has restrictions in, Casachano is, open. And the one more, how is the consumption has changed, after the COVID time? I mean, is are there any changes in the one consumption at this period? Let let's start from from from, from the consumption after COVID time. As my friends, all of my friends, and me personally like a trader, we sell more during the COVID times than before. It was, it was strange because, before COVID, we spend all the efforts to sell and it was difficult. In during the COVID, people have nothing to do and they're drinking all the time. And we just send the wines and the wine out of stock. Out of stock, it was very good. Now it's, becomes, back to to normality. So the sales going down. Unfortunately. So it's a strange situation, but, of course, it's good for for the people. And, the wine becomes more expensive, and the people switch from the categories down. So if they drink Brunllo, now they drink Costa China. If they drink a maroon, and now they will drink crevasseum, and etcetera. So they start drinking more, but cheaper. And, they start to drink, at home more. So the sales of, vine glasses also doubled during the COVID. It's it's also interesting. And what was the first question about about e commerce? It's prohibited, of course, but, anybody cares. You can go to the internet and, on Russian language, right, by the wine, like, Kupit Vino, Falmati, by the wine in Almati, and you will find the the internet, in how to say internet. Shops internet shops, which can sell you the wine, you can pay, and they will, deliver it to your home. So it's officially prohibited, but it works. And, also, I have my own mobile app. You can go to App Store and download it. It's disgastantly bad, but it's because I do it on my own money. And, now we're fixing it little bit. I hope I need the one, two years to, to, to make it work, good. But you can, you can download it. It's working. Very badly but working. So it's it's also prohibited, but you know that, because Akan is the place where everything is possible. I I hope they're not not listening to me. He was asking about the classical traditional method, wines in Kazakhstan, what is the price range, and what is the possibility implemented from here. In terms of traditional methods, it's very difficult. People don't understand it. So even Champagne is tricky category. So people, with great pleasure, spend a lot of money for prosecco, expensive prosecco. But, with the traditional method, it could be difficult. And, French Court is that on the market We only have one producer of French Corta. Antica Frata. It it it was Bella Vista also in the something else, but not now because it's the price range of champagne. Champagne is difficult. Other is also difficult. Ferari feels very good. Like, Trent the dock is a more more mild style, I would like to say. So it's it's possible. But Praseke is booming. And, some, like, from Emilia Romania, some mild sparklers are also Of course, historically Soviet Union, and after, after Soviet Union era drinks a lot of Lambusa. So it's also the Sharma method. So, yeah, traditional method difficult. It's only for the people of, from their height, from from the government, they like to drink traditional metal. So, all the imports, companies, they have minimum one brand of, plus second, their portfolio minimum. Somebody have three, four. Even me, I have a one and thinking about the second because, a second, like, everywhere in the world is, very, very famous. So we need to have a second primitivo and Pinabidro and maybe some young from somewhere, and then you UI life. You can sell the wine. And in Brazil, what is a trend? Who do people prefer something dry, brewed, extra dry? Classic, extra dry style. And Cartite is, Cartite is difficult to sell. And if you give the people, Proseca BRudes, you will not buy again. They will not buy again. So only extra dry. Maybe some dryer style of dry proseseca, maybe, but mainly extra dry. So I see that there are no more questions. So thank you for your time. Thank you again that you come. I I I will show you my my my contact. So not very good to see it's here, but you can find me on a social net networks and, Instagram on Facebook, like, Art Tom Swan. Like, not my name writes Artem, but, in some transcription, it's r two one, and swan is, like, lebedev. The swan is, on Russian language. It's lebed. So, like, it's r two one. And my email is r two one, dog gmail dot com. And, and I get I did not give my number. You can you can send the email or or write an Instagram maybe. I don't know how it's used more more useful for you. Okay. But you you can ask me after and, take my contacts and my WhatsApp number. Again, if you if if it don't be a how to say it. I hope you, I will not insult you because I will, make an answer for three, four days one week. But finally, I will answer definitely. That's it? Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And thank you. We hope you enjoy today's episode brought to you by the wine to wine business forum. Twenty twenty two. This year, we'll mark the ninth edition of the forum to be held on November seventh and eighth twenty twenty two in verona Italy. Remember tickets are on sale now. So for more information, please visit us at wine to wine dot net. Hi, guys. I'm Joy Livingston, and I am the producer of the Italian wine podcast. Thank you for listening. 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