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“Wines from Macedonia” on air worldwide
 Although it is a small country, Republic of Macedonia is beginning to make ‘noise’ about its wines, just like Darrel Joseph wrote in his article for Macedonian wines in the UK’s “Harpers” wine magazine, “When it comes to quality, size doesn’t matter”.
For years, Macedonian wineries have been exporting significant small quantities of wine primarily in bulk that created bad image and low appreciation for Macedonian wines. In the last decade that trend is changing. Wineries are striving to improve the wine production and shift from bulk to bottle. Many of the newly established smaller wineries are fully focused on production of quality bottled wines. This requires changes in the approach of identifying new markets and developing awareness for Macedonian high quality wines. The vast majority of Macedonian bottled wine is being exported to Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, the Russian Federation, and recently some quantities have been sold to Sweden, Poland, the Nederlands, Japan and the U.S.A.
In their efforts to enter and sustain these markets, Macedonian wineries faced the need of developing marketing and promotional activities to present their high quality wines and become visible on foreign markets.
AgBiz Program through its marketing and capacity enhancement activities supported many wineries in achieving this goal and expand their access to the regional and world markets.
USAID Mission in Macedonia and its AgBiz Program, in cooperation with the Macedonian National TV station, were proud to launch marketing activity “Wines from Macedonia” promotional video aimed to raise international awareness of Macedonian bottled wines. The series of ten promotional videos were filmed in period of less than two months, during the grapes harvesting season, capturing the best wine snapshots throughout the country.
Two of the individual videos were broadcasted on MTV’s Satellite Program while the rest are currently under production and will be aired in February next year. At the end, the “best shoots” from all ten videos will be compiled into one pomotional video summary. These videos will promote individual brands as well enhance the positive recognition of Macedonian wines all over the world, and hopefully will initiate the process of creating a joint brand “Wines from Macedonia”.
“Not only will these videos promote individual brands of wine, they will enhance the positive impression of Macedonian wines all over the world, and hopefully initiate the process of creating a joint “Wines from Macedonia” brand” said Michael Fritz, USAID Mission Director at the launching event.
Media, wineries, partners of both USAID and the Macedonian TV station attended the event that featured wine tasting of participating wineries.
The AgBiz Program helps enhance marketing capacities needed for successful export growth.
“Wines from Macedonia” Promotional Video is the very FIRST of this kind to promote Macedonian wines.
The video materials are very relevant promotional tools for the individual wineries, and will be available for their use at AgBiz supported trade fairs as well as for the wineries’ own
promotional events.
The ten participating wineries are:
Dalvina; Vizba Valandovo;Tikves;
Bovin; Pivka; Popova Kula; Elenov;
Grkov; Skovin and Ezimit
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