Brandy Sales Bomb

Alarm bells must be ringing off the wall at the Brandy Foundation following the bombshell from Sawis “in the article Liquor Consumption Patterns in SA 2012 which appeared at the end of 2012, it was estimated that the brandy market would decline from 37 200 000 litres (2011/12) to 34 500 000 litres (2012/13); a decrease of 7.3%.  The brandy market has subsequently weakened further with an expected 12.1% decrease to 32 700 000 litres (2012/13).  This loss will move over to Whisky, Vodka and to a lesser extent Rum.”

Brandy clearly had a disastrous Christmas, selling 1.8 million litres less than was forecast in December.  Meanwhile SA brandies continue to be hailed as “best brandy in the world” for Oude Molen VOV (14 YO) in Hong Kong in October and Van Ryn 12 YO at the International Wine Challenge in London in November.  Clearly, show medals are not doing the business – so what next for SA brandy marketing?