July 17 (SeeNews) - Macedonian winery Elenov plans to invest some three million euro ($4.2 million) in a wine tourism complex by 2012-2013, targeting mostly foreign tourists, the company’s director said.
The investment is needed to complete the tourist facilities that will comprise a restaurant, a villa, apartments for some 50 tourists, a swimming pool and a spa center, the winery’s director Risto Elenov told SeeNews in a recent interview. The project, which was due to be launched last year, was postponed by the global economic crisis.
The Elenov winery is located in Demir Kapija, a small town in the central region of Tikves, Macedonia's biggest and most famous grape growing region which accounts for 85% of the country's wine output. The villa that will serve as a luxury guesthouse used to be a summer palace of former Serbian king Alexander Karadjordjevic, who bought the place in 1928 to build a winery. Today the building is on the country's Culture Ministry list of protected sites.
The wine-tasting hall has been equipped and a souvenir shop is about to open, Elenov said, adding that wine tours are already being organised.
He said he hopes to attract mainly foreign tourists on their way to the lakeside resort of Ohrid or to Greece, as the winery is located just beside the main motorway that links Serbia with Greece. In 2008, the winery was visited by some 1,000 Bulgarian tourists bound for Ohrid on a package tour that also included a visit to the nearby archeological site of Stobi, some 25 kilometres away from the Elenov winery.
The winery’s annual revenue this year will stay unchanged from 2008, Elenov said but did not quote figures.
"This year we expect to sell 2-3 million litres of wines of different varieties, of which 1.0-1.5 million litres of bulk wine will be exported," Elenov said. Most of the winery's exports go to Serbia, Austria, Germany, the U.S. and China.
Macedonia’s traditional markets for bottled wine are the former Yugoslav countries, as small quantities are being sold in the rest of Europe and the United States. Macedonian bulk wine sells more easily than bottled wine, according to Elenov.
"Unfortunately, annual wine consumption in Macedonia is some 5-6 litres per capita, while annual production is some 100-120 million litres," Elenov said.
The Elenov winery’s annual production capacity is six million litres of wine. Its most famous wine brand is Vila Marija. The winery has 39 employees.
To offset the effect of the global economic crisis which has hit hard all Macedonian wineries, Elenov will launch new products, such as “zolta rakija”, a local grape brandy variety, by the end of the year.
Between 2002 and 2009, the winery invested eight million euro in technological upgrades enabling the production of high-quality wine.
As of 2002, the winery is part of Agropin, a company also owned by Elenov that produces pesticides.
Macedonia has over 20 wineries, as Tikves, based in the town of Kavadarci in the region of Tikves, is the leading one.
($=0.7094 euro)