Sales bubbling up for top Czech sparkling wine producer
With New Year’s Eve approaching fast, the producers of the Czech Republic’s most popular sparkling wine, Bohemia Sekt, are doing well, with a one-quarter increase in turnover in the last four years, the newspaper E15 reported.
Executives at the Prague-based firm also have plenty of reasons to pop a few corks. According to the business daily E15, the company has seen its revenues jump by a healthy one-quarter since 2012, when the country’s drinks industry was left reeling by a spate of around 40 deaths caused by illegally produced spirits.
Last year Czechs spent some CZK 1.11 billion on Bohemia sekt and other brands of bubbly in chain stores and large outlets alone.
According to market analysts Nielsen that represented a 4 percent year-on-year upswing on the previous year.
The reason is simple, says E15: The economy is growing, average salaries are on the rise and unemployment is low.
Bohemia Sekt’s CEO Ondřej Beránek suggests the firm’s product is a “barometer of consumer mood”. Czech consumers are growing in confidence and this is reflected in higher sales, he says.
Bohemia Sekt, whose biggest selling line is demi-sec, accounts for just over two-thirds of local sparkling wine sales. It reports sales of almost 10 million bottles a year.
The best-selling bubbly has an interesting history. Its makers were originally brewers based in Starý Plzenec, not far from the West Bohemian lager mecca Plzeň.
The company merged with another brewery in the late 1920s and it was not until 1945 that the first batch of sparking (red) wine was produced. It was known as Black Widow.
According to the Bohemia sekt website, the first bottles of Black Widow were opened by US troops celebrating the liberation of Starý Plzenec. The soldiers reportedly drank almost 40,000 bottles of the stuff
Not long afterwards, another sparkling wine first saw the light of day. Called Chateau Radyně, it is today the oldest continuously produced sparkling wine in the Czech Republic, Bohemia Sekt boasts.
Interestingly, a Frenchman named Louis Girardot, who was from the Champagne region, played a key role in the development of Bohemia Sekt.
The oenologist realised his dream of establishing a “Champagne de Bohéme” by imparting his bubbly knowhow to locals.
