Worldwide, per capita wine consumption has been decreasing in the major producing countries for several years, whereas it is increasing in consumer countries that previously drank little wine. Germany is a country with a high level of domestic production, amounting to almost 40% of the market, but which also has large imports. No other country imports as much wine as Germany, which has annual imports of more than 15m hl, although some of these imports are re-exported to other European countries, from German bottlers. While no exact data is available, the real size of the market is estimated to be around 20m hl. This makes Germany one of the five largest wine markets in the world.
Food retail sector
The Society for Consumer Research (GfK) discovered that sales and turnover in Germany’s wine market both declined by 1% in 2015. The food retail sector’s share of wine sales, however, is continuing to rise and now accounts for three- quarters of household purchases of wine sold (excluding the restaurant trade), as measured by the GfK. The average price in the food retail sector has risen slightly at €2.97 ($3.37) per litre. When making direct purchases, consumers spent an average of €6.23 per litre. The GfK Household Panel puts German wines in first place in terms of sales at 45%, followed by Italian (16%), French (13%) and Spanish (8%) wines. Some experts dispute the data collected by household surveys and calculate a lower market share for the food retail trade.
The German import statistics, which contain the full figures, but also include processing wines and re-exports, show different shares for the importing countries. Here, Italy, with 37% of all imports – corresponding to a market share of approximately 22% - is way ahead of Spain (23% of the import volume), France (17%), South Africa (5%), Chile (3%) and the US (3%). The shares by value are significantly different, as Spain (€100.00 per hL) and South Africa (€103.00) have very low average prices, especially compared to France (€288.00) and the US (€189.00). Overall, imports cost an average of €163.00 per hl.
The specialist wine trade, restaurant trade and online retail trade sell far smaller quantities of wine than the food retail trade, but they dominate in terms of the higher-quality wines and current wine trends, so their influence should not be underestimated.
Very good statistical data is available about the largest food retailers, specialist retailers and distributors in Germany. It is more difficult to assess the importance of individuals, such as sommeliers, buyers or journalists, mainly because the highly atomised German wine market, with its many small- and medium-sized companies and a rather decentralised population structure with local centres such as Berlin, Munich, Rhine-Main, the Ruhr and Hamburg, hinders the emergence of dominant ‘national stars’. It is therefore sometimes necessary to mention several people or companies.
Largest food retailer
It’s not particularly difficult to find the winner in the food retail trade. The Edeka Group (including the discounter Netto) has the largest share of total food retail trade, with sales of €51.85bn in around 13,700 branches. The Edeka Group is a cooperative group of companies, which includes Zentrale AG & Co. KG, seven regional companies (wholesale) and their local operations (branches). Edeka Zentrale has a majority control of the discount chain Netto. In addition, Edeka Zentrale also operates: Edeka Fruchtkontor, its own procurement organisation that’s primarily for fruit and vegetable imports; a winery for wine and sparkling wine; and various service companies such as Edekabank AG and the publishing company Edeka Verlagsgesellschaft mbH.
Other significant companies include the Rewe Group, and the Schwarz Gruppe, a privately owned retail group that owns and operates Lidl and Kaufland. The discount chain Aldi – consisting of Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd – prices wines aggressively and is able to dictate market prices for certain generic origins.
The largest distributors
The distributors in Germany tend to specialise in particular channels; however, the largest of these groups also own subsidiaries that operate in different distribution channels. This is especially true of the largest group, Hawesko Holding. In 2015, it achieved a group turnover of €477m, with sales of 73m bottles. The Group includes specialist companies such as Wein Wolf, CWD and Ariane Abayan, which serve the specialist retail sector, the restaurant trade and the food retail trade. It also includes the online retailers Hawesko and Wein & Vinos and the retail chain Jacques’ Wein-Depot. In terms of online sales and specialist retail, the Group is the market leader by a wide margin.
In second place is WIV Wein International AG, a direct seller, with an almost equally high turnover of €466m. However, only 35% of its sales are generated in Germany, with the rest coming from sales in Europe and abroad. The third largest distributor is the Mack & Schühle Group, which generated 90% of its €264m turnover from imported wine for the food retail trade. It also operates Weinwelt, one of the largest suppliers of specialist retailers.
Largest specialist retailer
The over-the-counter wine retail trade in Germany is characterised by a large number of independent specialist shops, although in some cases they also take on import and wholesale functions within their own limited region. This complexity and atomisation poses significant problems for many foreign producers trading on the German market, because their business activity has to be analysed separately in each individual case.
Without doubt, Jacques’ Wein-Depot is the largest among the many normally very small specialist retailers, who generally only have one shop. This franchise company, which was established in 1974 and has belonged to Hawesko Holding since 1998, generated a turnover of €141m in its 293 sales depots in 2015. It operates exclusively in retail sales. Typical features of Jacques’ are its warehouse style – “Wine sold as it is at the vintners” – and the simple presentation of wines in their original cases. There is the opportunity to taste many of the wines in the depot, and the location is always in a position accessible to vehicles, enabling cases to be loaded without having to be carried long distances. After Jacques’ come three over-the-counter retail companies of approximately the same size: WIV subsidiary Vino-Weine und Ideen; Mövenpick Wein; and the independent retailer Rindchen’s Weinkontor. They each had a turnover of approximately €17m in 2015.
Largest online retailer
Hawesko was the first company to pioneer and develop the postal delivery of wine in Germany. The company had become the largest German wine mail order company by the 1980s, and sent out its expensively produced catalogue to a list that was very large for the time. It was able to transfer its model seamlessly to the digital world, while still retaining its catalogue. The range is both German and international. Several years ago, Hawesko Holding acquired the largest direct retailer of Spanish wines, Wein & Vinos. The online retailer Carl Tesdorpf also belongs to Hawesko.
Most important sommeliers
In Germany, as in other countries, sommeliers are not only opinion leaders in the restaurant sector. After achieving a level of popularity in the restaurant trade, many trained sommeliers leave the restaurant business and link the title of ‘sommelier’ to roles in sales, marketing, advertising or journalism. The most famous and important sommeliers therefore no longer work in the restaurant trade. Two important opinion leaders are Hendrik Thoma and Romana Echensperger MW from Hamburg, who give lectures, write articles for trade journals and have an online presence.
Hendrik Thoma MS worked for 13 years as a sommelier at the prestigious Hotel Louis C. Jacob in Hamburg. As a columnist and author, he writes for various magazines, and has also appeared on many TV shows. He consults to both the restaurant and wine industry and, in 2012, he began broadcasting an online show called Wein am Limit (‘Wine at the limits’), which now also incorporates a wine business.
Romana Echensperger MW was head sommelier at the three-star restaurant Waldhotel Sonnora, but began working independently in 2011. She now works as a consultant and trainer for customers from home and abroad, and regularly writes for German and Dutch magazines; she has her own wine column that appears in daily newspapers published by M. DuMont Schauberg, one of Germany’s largest publishing houses. Sommelier Billy Wagner from Berlin is one of the ‘young guns’ of German gastronomy. He has his own restaurant, Nobelhart & Schmutzig, where he presents wines in an unconventional way, without any of the traditional ritual.
Important media
For language reasons, German-language journalism is less important internationally than that written in English. In the German-speaking countries, the following consumer magazines about wine help to shape opinion: Weinwelt (published by Meininger Verlag, the publisher of Meininger’s Wine Business International), Vinum (published by Intervinum AG) and Falstaff (published by Falstaff Verlag). The gourmet magazine Feinschmecker also includes wine content. Major wine blogs include wuertz-wein.de, wein-plus.de and captaincork.com. In addition, some newspapers have regular, usually weekly, wine columns that are normally written by specialist journalists. Examples include the Frankfurter Allgemeine, Die Welt, Die Rheinpfalz am Sonntag, Die Tageszeitung and Freie Presse.
As a trade magazine for wine professionals, Weinwirtschaft (also published by Meininger Verlag) clearly dominates. Its editor Dr Hermann Pilz is widely respected throughout the German industry.
When it comes to PR, Organize Communications (Karlsruhe), Integra Communication (Hamburg), ff.k Public Relations (Hamburg) and Wine & Partners (Vienna) are the best known specialists.
Most important buyers
At sector leader Edeka, many decisions are made locally by the regional companies. Chief buyers at the other trade giants, such as Antonio Ribeiro (central purchasing at Rewe) and Merle Rotondo (Aldi Süd) therefore deal in larger quantities of wine.
Most important person
Is there anyone who counts as the most important person in the German wine market? The strong segmentation of the German wine market makes it impossible to pick a clear winner. In the volume business in wines for the food retail trade, the heads of suppliers like Michael Willkomm (Kellerei Peter Mertes) and Christoph Mack (Mack & Schühle) and their partners, the buyers at the large retail giants Rewe, the Schwarz Gruppe (which includes Lidl and Kaufland), and Aldi all play leading roles. In the area of higher-value wines, Nikolas von Haugwitz is able to influence trends. He is the member of the board responsible for purchasing at Hawesko Holding.
