The situation is very ambiguous. On the one hand, in January-February last year the export of grapes from Moldova, according to the data of specialized associations, amounted to slightly more than 6 thousand tons. In total, 10.2 thousand tons of grapes from the 2025 calendar year were exported in 2024. This means that in 2026, the final external volume of supplies of grapes from the previous year’s harvest may double the corresponding figure for 2025.
On the other hand, in 2022 winter-spring grape exports were even higher – more than 25 thousand tons.
But the question is not about volumes, but another – is large-scale export of grapes in this period justified in principle?
Experts say that the practice of viticulture in Western Europe shows that this sector of fruit growing in its natural state works quite differently. For example, an average Italian winegrower sells almost all his goods in the “high season” – the period of optimal maturity of the product: in the morning he picks the bunches, no later than lunchtime they are already on the store shelves. The grapes are chilled immediately after picking, but they are not stored for weeks, let alone months.
Exceptions are rare. Fruit business operators note that in Italy and Spain there are several varieties of table grapes similar to the “Moldova” variety (with high storability, in particular). But it is also sold no later than November.
Questionable business strategy
As experts noted (not without irony) five or ten years ago, “Moldovan traders have learned to sell grapes like apples before the eyes of the whole surprised fruit sector of Europe”. In the sense of storing them in fruit storages and selling them during winter holidays and even in spring (like apples).
Obviously, two factors supported this strategy. The first is the presence in Moldova of extensive plantations of late-ripening table grapes “Moldova”, which, under certain conditions, can withstand long-term storage. The second is the access to the CIS market (Russia, first of all), where “Moldova” grapes are well known to mass consumers and are perceived as a variant of the norm (in contrast to the majority of EU countries, where consumers are focused mainly on seedless varieties of table grapes).
In addition, the surge of interest to the “Moldova” grape as a specific niche product was noted at the end of the last – beginning of this decade also in the fruit markets of some EU countries and the Middle East.
Probably, the experts made a correction for such “market anomalies”. In some seasons, especially successful in terms of weather conditions, in their opinion, it makes sense to put in storage for sale in the first months of the new calendar year about 10-12 thousand tons of grapes. No more. Moreover, not so much in the expectation of a significant price increase during this period, but for the sake of relieving the pressure on prices from the excessive supply of grapes in the fall.
At the same time, it is in the “high season”, when it is in the state of optimal maturity and best quality (freshness) experts recommend to sell the largest share of production.
Free fall prices and quality
In 2025, as Logos Press wrote earlier, the market conditions are not the best: relatively high yield of table grapes, low quality and relatively low prices. In such a situation, as some industry experts noted with concern, a significant number of winegrowers decided to take a risk – to put in storage a lot of products, the quality of which did not favor it.
From this point of view, the high sales of grapes in winter-spring 2026 do not look surprising. What is partly surprising is the geography and price of sales. In particular, in January-February of this year Moldova exported a very significant amount of production – more than 3 thousand tons – to Iraq. This fact, as industry operators claim, alas, does not give a reason for pride.
Grapes for export – both to distant and near markets – have to be picked (sorted) manually, which increases the cost of production. While the “demand price” on the part of traders is often within the range of $0.5-1/kg. For comparison, in the 2024/25 season the price was one and a half times higher.
In March, there are cases when the “demand price” offered to large vineyards for products for export decreased from 5-6 to 3-4 lei/kg in a week. As one grape grower put it, “if at the beginning of the month the price covered the costs of storage, manual sorting and packaging, now it covers only the packaging and probably some other small things”.
At the moment, some wineries of Moldova accept table grapes for processing at 2 lei/kg (three-four years ago, at certain points of the season, the prices for such raw materials rose to 6-7 lei/kg). In this case, some winemakers are likely to accept such minimization of losses.
