AFTER more than 5,000 years of wine making, the Cypriot viticulture industry must drastically reinvent itself in order to survive in the European Union, officials said yesterday.
Despite the seven years of agricultural subsidies that come with EU membership, the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism has said that the Cypriot wine industry is not sufficiently prepared to meet the challenge of competing with duty free, higher quality European wines.
Annual wine exports from Cyprus – mostly to Western European countries – generate more than £10 million for the Cypriot economy, but the vast majority of it is cheap, bulk wine. This type of wines, along with wine produced by smaller winemakers who lack the funds necessary to upgrade their growing and manufacturing processes, are going to be the hardest hit by EU accession.
But officials at KEO, Ltd., the largest manufacturer of wine and spirits on the island, view the glass as half full. Anticipating the implications of EU membership, which also call for stricter regulations on origin and labeling of wine bottles, KEO began reinventing itself during the 1990s as a producer of high-quality indigenous wines.
“If we are going to survive in the European Union, Cypriot viticulture simply must become more professional,” said KEO managing director Akis Zampartas. “Vineyards will have to be managed in a very scientific way, to produce the best quality of grapes.”
With this goal in mind, KEO renovated its historic Mallia Vineyard on the western Troodos foothills six years ago, incorporating state of the art technology and planting 80 hectares of indigenous and foreign grape varieties.
With the proper cultivation and modernisation strategies, Zampartas said he is confident that the Cypriot varieties of mavro, maratheftiko and xynesteri can even compete with the Western European pinot noirs and chardonnays.
But first, the winemakers must ensure that domestic wines stay afloat amid the impending flood of wines from Bordeaux and Chianti. To this end, winemakers are banking that national loyalty and tourist curiosity will sustain the Cypriot wine industry until it is ready to take its place on Western European tables.
“It has been proven that in wine producing countries of the EU, the impact of imports on wine is minimal,” Zampartas said. “People prefer to drink local wines which go together the gastronomical habits of the country.”
KEO officials are also hedging their bets, however, by acquiring an import division that will cater to those who prefer foreign varieties.
“Our own wines will be competing with the foreign wines, but if we didn’t bring them in, somebody else would,” Zampartas said.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
