China became „a must” for Jidvei

Romania will have 14 top winemakers at the ProWineChina, next month in Shanghai. Without an official policy to ”conquer” this huge market, China became quite unexpected the second foreign market for the Romanian producers. But even the Chineses expected the Romanians to be more active in exploiting its natural potential...

„Romanian wine hasn’t achieved great market exposure in China”, you can read on the exibit web page. ”Most wine professionals and consumers are not aware of this wine region. Therefore, it might come as a surprise to many people if I say that China has become Romania’s largest export market in 2012, and in 2013 and 2014 respectively the second and the third largest export market. And in 2014, China was Romania’s second largest market for wine export in terms of export values. As a strong wine production region, Romania’s limited marketing activities for its wine products in China were mainly organized by wine producers instead of by regional industry or official organizations”.As the Chinese wine market started to take off in the past decade, a great number of Chinese business people and capitals in connection with Romania have come to focus on Romanian wines with outstanding cost performance. Though in absence of promotional activities in China, Romanian wine still achieved great market performance in China due to its unique advantages. A total of 1.18 million liters, or 1.57 million bottles of Romanian wine has been exported to Mainland China in 2014. This equals to 2.8 million euro of export value, or 17% of its total exports. Chinese importers of Romanian wines mainly come from Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces, with several exporters from Wenzhou, Ningbo and Shenzhen gaining in scale.

What is in the family remains in the family.

Jidvei, the largest wine and champagne maker in Transylvania, produced at least 10 million liters of wine every year. And the vineyard is planted with a satellite-guided machine. Over 2000 hectares have been replanted and a new cellar has been built. A €60 million investment, half of which comes from European funds. This is also the largest nursery in the country. The cuttings produced here will be planted soon on 200 hectares. Claudiu Necșulescu,  the entrepreneur who developed all of this, has a strong view on the future: “ The only option I am considering is that my daughters take over the business. I have never thought of selling the business. The entire Jidvei construction has been envisaged as a long-term business, which represents the family,” explains the businessman. Besides, two of the wines launched by Jidvei in 2012 bear the names of Claudiu Necsulescu’s daughters, Ana and Maria. The elder sister is 25 years old and studied Mathematics and Management at UCL, so that she is already involved in the business, and the younger sister is 21 and she studies Marketing at City University London. “They divided fields of study to complement each other,” explains Claudiu Necsulescu.