In an interview, João Mota Barroso, the president of the Adega Cooperativa de Borba, highlighted that the last two years have seen above-average production volumes for the cooperative.
Typically, the cooperative receives 15 or 16 million kilograms of grapes and produces 12 or 13 million liters of wine in an average year, Barroso stated.
However, during the 2024 campaign, the Adega de Borba received 19 million kilograms of grapes from its members, producing 16 to 17 million liters of wine, continuing a trend from the previous year.
“It was an exceptional year, just like 2023,” he emphasized, also noting that quality has never been in question.
“In a landscape with many producers and parcels, there are always different qualities, but cooperatives manage to maintain a high average quality [of the wine],” he explained.
With a turnover of approximately 15 to 16 million euros last year, the cooperative sells about 80% of its production to the domestic market and exports “the remaining 20-something percent.”
“Abroad, we sell to a wide range of markets, about 30, with the main ones being Brazil, the United States, and France,” Barroso indicated.
Barroso spoke during a conference hosted by the Adega Cooperativa de Borba in its auditorium, aimed at examining the specifics of the cooperative organization in the industry and the challenges facing the Alentejo region in promoting its Denomination of Origin as a collective brand.
The event, featuring wine industry experts, representatives from various regional cooperatives, and other sector leaders, was part of the celebrations for the 70th anniversary of the Adega de Borba.
Barroso reminded that the cooperative, founded in 1955, was established, like others across the country, encouraged by the Estado Novo regime in the mid-20th century to address the organization of the wine sector.
“Primarily to solve issues around production aggregation, transforming that production under good conditions, and marketing it properly because the existing structure was based on trading intermediaries that did not offer a fair distribution of value to the winegrower,” he explained.
During the first “30 or 40 years, the cooperatives each followed their paths, some more successfully than others, but all aimed to address this issue,” Barroso noted. However, today “wine is a different product.”
“It is now linked to value aspects that have less to do with technical issues and more to do with intangibles like origin, production methods, the stories told, and the characters and actors behind them. A variety of other attributes for which cooperatives were not initially designed,” he argued.
Therefore, Barroso believes that the future challenge for cooperative wineries, which already have a good technical product performance, is to adopt a communication strategy and become more efficient in capturing consumer interest, especially compared to private producers.
“Consumers still do not assign the right value to cooperative products and believe that their origin is not as noble as that of private producers. They are mistaken; often, what’s inside the bottle is the same as what was at the cooperative, but they do not perceive it that way, and it is up to the cooperatives to resolve this issue,” he defended.
Currently, the cooperative consists of 230 associated winegrowers cultivating approximately 2,200 hectares of vineyards, with 75% red grape varieties and 25% white grape varieties.
