A winery selling poorly abroad: how to build a solid export plan

Yet, when analyzing commercial results, foreign sales often remain limited, inconsistent, or unprofitable.

The problem isn't necessarily the wine itself. Often, a real international business development plan is lacking.

For a winery, exports must become a structural component of the business, not an occasional activity tied to current opportunities.

1. Why do many Italian wineries struggle to sell abroad?

One of the most frequent difficulties is confusing an international presence with an export strategy.

Attending Vinitaly, ProWein, or other events, meeting with importers, and sending samples are useful activities. But they alone don't constitute a business plan.

The most common critical issues concern:

• Markets chosen without prior analysis: the attempt is made to sell where there is a contact, rather than where the product has a real chance of success.
• Prices not aligned with distribution channels: the starting price may not leave sufficient margins for importers, distributors, and retailers.
• Insufficiently qualified distributors: an importer may purchase an initial supply without truly developing the brand.
• Poorly differentiated products: quality alone is not enough when consumers have to choose from hundreds of labels.
• Lack of business continuity: after the first order, there is a lack of promotion, assistance, training, and results monitoring.

The result is predictable: commercial investments that fail to produce stable growth and corporate resources tied up without adequate returns.

2. Before choosing a country, you need to know your winery

Not all markets are suitable for all wineries.

A winery producing 80,000 bottles annually has different needs than a company selling two million bottles.

Likewise, a premium wine producer, a winery specializing in Prosecco, and a company oriented towards large-scale distribution must adopt different strategies.

Before starting an export project, you need to know five fundamental elements.

Element	Strategic question
Production capacity	How many bottles can we permanently ship abroad?
Product portfolio	Which wines have a competitive positioning?
Profitability	What is the real margin per bottle and per channel?
Organization	Who manages customers, orders and business relationships?
Financial resources	How much can we invest before achieving sustainable results?

This analysis helps avoid a common mistake: acquiring customers who generate revenue but not profitability.

3. How to choose truly interesting foreign markets

There's no single best market. There's a market that's best suited to a specific winery.

The United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Japan, and other established markets may offer opportunities, but they also present different competition, costs, and distribution methods.

Other countries can represent development opportunities, provided there is demand, reliable operators, and sustainable economic conditions.

The selection must consider:

• actual demand for the type of wine;
• price range and consumer behavior;
• competition from Italian and international producers;
• duties, taxation, regulations and labelling;
• distribution structure and commercial accessibility;
• logistics costs and payment terms;
• investments needed to develop the market.

It's better to build a solid presence in two select markets than to disperse resources across ten countries without a strategy.

4. The export price: selling more does not mean earning more

One of the most delicate aspects of international development is the construction of the price.

The price charged by the winery must allow for a fair remuneration of the company, but also support the subsequent stages of distribution.

Illustrative example of the formation of the price of a bottle

Cellar selling price

€5.00

Import and distribution

€8.50

Final price to the consumer

€14.50

These figures are purely hypothetical and do not relate to a specific market. Shipping, taxes, margins, promotions, and contractual conditions can significantly affect the final price.

A winery must know its industrial costs, commercial costs, any discounts and the contribution margin for each market.

Only in this way can it be established which operations are actually worth developing.

5. Finding an importer is not enough: you need to build a sales network

A good importer is not simply someone who buys wine.

It is an operator who knows the market, has a sales network consistent with the product positioning and is interested in developing the brand over time.

For this reason, partner selection must be accompanied by commercial and financial checks, clear agreements, and measurable objectives.

It's important to define territories, channels, any exclusives, expected quantities, promotional activities, and payment methods from the outset.

An effective sales network also requires ongoing relationships: wine training, communication materials, customer meetings, order analysis, and corrective actions.

A distributor's value is measured not only by the first order, but by its ability to generate repeat orders and develop the market.

6. The export plan must have numbers, times and responsibilities

A sustainable international project requires concrete planning.

Example of operational path in the first 12 months

1. Months 1–2 | Business Analysis

Evaluation of products, costs, production capacity and profitability.

1. Months 3–4 | Market Selection

Identification of priority countries, definition of prices and search for distributors.

1. Months 5–8 | Business Development

Qualified contacts, meetings, sampling, negotiations, and initial agreements.

1. Months 9–12 | Consolidation

Review orders, margins, reorders, and growth prospects.

Indicative timing, to be adapted to the winery, markets and purchasing cycles.

The indicators to monitor shouldn't be limited to turnover. It's also important to measure the number of active customers, reorder frequency, market margin, business acquisition costs, and collection times.

Sales growth accompanied by insufficient margins or difficult-to-collect receivables does not necessarily represent success.

7. FORBUS: a commercial direction to develop foreign markets

Not all wineries have the size and resources to organize a complete export structure internally.

In some cases, hiring sales staff without first defining markets, products, and objectives can generate fixed costs that are difficult to sustain.

It is precisely in these situations that external sales management can be useful, capable of supporting the entrepreneur in decision-making and project implementation.

Through FORBUS , our multidisciplinary team supports wineries and winemaking companies with an approach that integrates economic analysis, commercial strategy, and operational activities.

The intervention may include product portfolio analysis, definition of priority markets, creation of export price lists, identification of importers and distributors, negotiation support, and performance monitoring.

The goal is not simply to increase the number of sales contacts, but to help build a sales organization capable of generating sustainable revenue, margins, and business value.

A winery with diversified markets, reliable customers, recurring revenue, and controlled margins can become even more attractive to a future investor or buyer.

Conclusion: exports cannot be improvised, they are built

Italian wine boasts quality, history, territories, and recognized brands. But international competitiveness requires something more: the ability to interpret demand, sales organization, and continuity in execution.

For many wineries, the real change is not about producing more bottles, but about being able to better sell the ones they already produce.

Export success doesn't depend on how many countries a winery reaches, but on how many markets it manages to develop consistently and profitably.

FORBUS | BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND INTERNATIONALIZATION

Let's analyze your markets together

Does your winery produce quality wines but struggle to grow its sales abroad?

FORBUS can assist you in analyzing your business situation and developing an export plan consistent with your company's true capabilities.

We start with the numbers, identify opportunities, and build a concrete growth path.

Discover FORBUS services at https://www.forbus.it/?utm_source=chatgpt.com