Hungarian Winemakers Unable to Keep Concerns About New Marketing Agency Bottled
Many Hungarian winemakers are concerned that the Ft 1.3 billion (€4.8 million) collected over the past two years for a common marketing fund will not be spent wisely, index.hu reports. Following the collapse of the winemaker-created Magyar Bormarketing Nonprofit Kft (MBM) late last year, many winemakers have raised their objections to IDMC Kereskedelmi és Szolgáltató Kft, who won the tender to replace MBM in January this year. IDMC, according to the Opten company database, functions primarily as an events organizer, is listed as a construction company, and does not even possess its own website.
Mária Erdősi of the winemarketer's committee said that neither IDMC or the other group that responded to the tender submitted an adequate application. The Agrármarketing Centrum (AMC), who gave the tender to IDMC, has defended the decision, saying that everything was done by the book.
A winemaker, speaking anonymously to index.hu, added that while IDMC may turn out to be a good marketing partner, it has not revealed any of its plans, hence the apprehension.
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No, just face up to the fact - the money is gone. Ft 1.3 billion (€4.8 million)- that much money sitting around Hungary? It is already gone.
I've been to Budapest a few times and have tasted really good wine, to my initial surprise.
In my home country, Sweden, there's not a lot of Hungarian wine available. Mostly Tokaj, a few bulk wines by Chapel Hill and Dunavar, some sparkling like Törley and a few by Tibor Gál.
Bormarketing organised several good tasting events around Europe and invited international press to Hungary last year. Unfortunately they do not get the local people in the export countries involved (importers, agents, restaurants etc...), which shows a lack of long term strategy. When they leave, who takes care of the follow-up. Guess this happens in more countries.
Furthermore it is a shame to see how the money "disappeared". I think I read they spend 17.000 euro on the winesofhungary.com website. Crazy amounts.
Hopefully the winemakers wake up and realise that they need to hire professionals to help them with their export, sales and marketing instead of paying "government officials".
Ah, Hungary. Same old same old. Forintman's right.
The money is by now long disappeared to an offshore
account. 17k Eur for that winesofhungary.com - jeez
what a rip off - apparently little more than a
lightweight static site - here's a nice example of
the great Hungarian wine marketing
http://www.winesofhungary.com/events/hungary.aspx
It's telling that the Dutch site linked to by Erwin
(http://www.wijnuithongarije.nl/) appears much more
useful than Hungary's own site, e.g. lots of fresh
news articles.
@Minnie: thx for the compliment. Guess the Dutch part was the only bad thing ;-)
Would love to make the whole site in English, but are simply lacking the time. Have tried to get some money from one of the agencies, but I guess you know the outcome...
Anybody here ideas how to go forward? There must be some way to push Hungary and its wonderful wines (@chew: and food!)
@Elwin and Minnie, the Dutch website is great. What a nice design and a great organization of information. If there is any money left in the till they should send it your way.