Florian Ceschi from bulk broker Ciatti says that he still has to explain bulk wine basics to wine students, 20 years after he first joined the industry.
“Most of the time they come to the wine industry because they like the top icon wines,“ he says. Ceschi tells them it’s great they’re working with a product they’re passionate about, but that bulk wine is the reality for most of the wine industry. “It’s not coming from the vine as a finished bottle. When you visit a cellar, you see bulk wine most of the time, and only a few cases of good wines.”
But although most of the students don’t think they will ever end up at the bulk end of the business, Ceschi says it’s coming back into fashion. “Many people are rediscovering bulk,“ because they want to be sustainable, as shipping in bulk can lower the carbon footprint.
Ceschi, the Director of Ciatti Europe, was speaking at the World Bulk Wine Exhibition in Amsterdam, held in late November 2023. And, indeed, there were fine wine buyers from Britain present at the fair, keen to understand how to ship wine in bulk in order to be more sustainable.
At the moment, says Ceschi, bulk wine — meaning wine that’s shipped in flexitank or other such containers — makes up around 70% of the total global wine market. This wine is generally commodity wine, though it can be branded wine destined to be bottled at source.