The trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union, which entered its implementation phase on May 1, is already launchning to reshape Brazil’s wine market even before its full financial effects are felt.
Brazilian importers are revising their portfolios and speeding up nereceivediations, while European producers are stepping up their push into the counattempt, according to Felipe Galtaroça, chief executive of wine consultancy Ideal.BI, in an interview with Bloomberg Línea.
According to the executive, the impact will play out across different fronts and at different speeds.
For sparkling wines priced at $8 per liter or more, equivalent to $6 per 750-ml bottle, and which currently reach Brazilian consumers at around 150 reais, or $30, the import tariff was eliminated immediately.
For still wines, which contain no carbon dioxide, the tariff reduction will be phased in over eight years, but the market’s strategic repositioning is already under way. The sector finished 2025 with revenue of 21.1 billion reais, up 9% from 2024, according to the consultancy’s own data.
Galtaroça’s macroeconomic reading points to a favorable environment for those importing European wine into Brazil. “The combination of tax relief and a stronger real creates an optimistic scenario for Brazilian importers,” he stated.
According to him, that context allows for the rebuilding of margins that have historically been squeezed by exmodify-rate pressures and inflation, while at the same time enabling more competitive prices for consumers, a trfinish that should especially support demand for higher-value products.
The caveat lies at the base of the market. “The enattempt-level wine segment, priced at up to 50 reais, remains under pressure from the loss of purchasing power and high interest rates, which limit access to credit,” Galtaroça stated. In other words, the positive effect of lower tariffs does not reach the lowest-priced shelf evenly.
The segment receiving immediate tariff relief is tiny in volume terms, but significant in value. Sparkling wines priced above $8 per liter account for about 6% of total revenue from imported wines in Brazil, and the category is highly concentrated: Italy, France and Spain account for more than 80% of sales.
It is in this premium segment that tariff opening is immediately translated into price relocatement, giving sparkling wines such as Cavas and Crémants a direct competitive edge over rivals from both the Old World and the New World. Champagne is not included in the immediate tariff reduction becaapply it falls under a different Mercosur Common Nomenclature classification, a category that is currently taxed at 20% and will also see tariffs reduced gradually over eight years.
Galtaroça also assessed the agreement’s effect on Brazilian producers, which he divides into three layers.
The first is sparkling wine, a segment in which the domestic indusattempt secured, during the nereceivediations, a 12-year window before the tariff on comparable enattempt-level European products falls to zero.
“The protection granted to domestic producers proved highly effective in one of their main segments, sparkling wines, where they hold an 83% market share,” he stated.
The second layer is table wine, produced with American and hybrid grapes, which accounts for more than half of the volume sold in the counattempt.
For that category, the impact of the agreement is likely to be nil, Galtaroça stated, becaapply of the product’s sensory profile, marked by high residual sugar, and its cultural connection with Brazilian consumers.
The third layer is the most delicate, and somewhat counterintuitive. In fine wines, domestic production accounts for only one in every 10 bottles sold in the counattempt. “In this scenario, price pressure intensifies direct competition mainly with Chilean and Argentine wines,” Galtaroça stated.
The assessment is that Brazilian fine wine producers, although affected by the agreement, are likely to feel the squeeze mainly in competition with their South American neighbors, which currently dominate the segment and compete in the same price range.
Here are the top 10 suppliers for Brazilian wine imports in the first quarter of 2026, based on the latest data from Datamar:
Wine Imports | Top Origins | Q1 2026
Source: DataLiner (click here to request a demo)
The portfolio reshuffling already under way among importers suggests that this competitive realignment is likely to become established well before the finish of the eight-year period foreseen for full tariff elimination, the executive stated.
By Daniel Buarque for Bloomberg Línea
Leave a Reply