Wine course: Auchan wants to restart its music libraries
The Russian wine trade market is attracting more and more new players. Auchan returned to the idea of creating its own network of wine shops, Izvestia learned. The retailer is registering trademarks and discussing the launch of the Enotech pilot project in the vacant areas of its hypermarkets. Today, the alcohol market continues to transform, and consumers are becoming more demanding and interested in quality and assortment. Therefore, food giants are increasingly betting on the development of wine expertise and specialized formats, experts say. How enotecs can become a new source of growth for retailers and alcohol producers — in the Izvestia article.
How the chain intends to delve into wine retail
At the end of August, Auchan LLC filed applications for registration of the Chateau Chanot and Chateau Chanot trademarks in the 32nd, 33rd and 35th classes of the International Classification of Goods and Services (ICTS). They cover alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, wines, as well as retail and wholesale services for such goods through online stores and wine boutiques, according to Rospatent data.
The retailer is discussing the possibility of launching a pilot project of Enotech, Auchan's partner and a top manager of a rival company familiar with the discussion told Izvestia. According to them, the details of the project are still unknown. The chain is considering the possibility of placing pharmacies in the vacant areas of its hypermarkets and launching the project without attracting borrowed funds, one of the interlocutors added. A representative of Auchan declined to comment.
Auchan Retail Russia has been operating in Russia since 2002 and is part of the French Auchan Retail, owned by the Mulier family. Since September 2025, the Russian division has been headed by Asya Balabai. According to the company's own data, the network unites 230 stores of large and small formats. At the end of last year, its revenue, according to Infoline, amounted to 269.7 billion rubles, a decrease of 2.9%. At the same time, the share in the turnover of food retail decreased from 1.3% in 2021 to 0.88% in 2025.
In 2010, the retailer already attempted to enter the alcohol retail segment. Then he launched an online store selling wine: the customer placed an order online, and then picked it up at a boutique on Rublyovskoe Highway. However, the project never reached payback, the then head of the Russian division, Jean-Pierre Germain, said in 2012. The company hoped, among other things, to liberalize online alcohol sales, but this did not happen, and the network did not develop the format.
How the alcohol market is changing
Olga Sumishevskaya, a partner at One Story, recalled that Auchan will have to return to the wine market against the background of the increasing consolidation of alcohol retail. According to Infoline, the share of the five largest alcohol sellers — Mercury Retail Group (Krasnoe & Beloe, Bristol), X5 (Pyaterochka, Perekrestok), Magnita, Vinlab and Lenta (Monetka, Wingaraj) — from 2020 to In 2024, it increased by 13.7 percentage points, to 52.5%.
In particular, SimpleWine (part of the Simple Group), WineStyle, Aromatic World, Theory of the AST group, Fort and Drinx, owned by the distributor Luding, work in specialized wine retail. VinLab, part of the Novabev Group, had more than 2,200 stores by mid-2026, and this summer it opened a flagship in Moscow with a separate wine library and tasting room. Veniamin Grabar's Ladoga is also developing its own network — now it has 55 stores in 22 cities of Russia. At the same time, the company uses it more as an assortment showcase than as an independent business, its representative said.
Alexander Stavtsev, vice president of the Russian Association of Retail Market Experts and head of the WineRetail information Center, believes that the new attempt may be related to both changes in consumer demand and the need to use large areas of hypermarkets more efficiently. In July, Asya Balabai spoke in an interview with an industry publication Retail.ru It is noted that the share of non—food products, which previously formed 18-20% of the company's turnover, decreased to about 15%, and in individual stores - to 13% due to the flow of customers to marketplaces.
In this regard, the retailer is considering reducing or repurposing part of the retail space, explained Alexander Stavtsev. According to him, the success of specialty stores is obvious today: for example, sales of Vinlab and SimpleWine increased year-on-year by 9.5% and 8%, respectively, in the first six months, according to the companies' reports.
Wine remains one of the key categories within Auchan itself, Asya Balabai previously noted. At the beginning of 2026, according to Roskachestvo, 421 names of Russian wine were presented in the Moscow hypermarkets of the network. A separate wine library would allow the retailer to identify premium and more complex product categories, as well as strengthen its expertise in this niche, Olga Sumishevskaya believes. In addition, the chain has long been considered a recognized expert in the wine segment in France, Alexander Stavtsev recalled.
Today, the Russian alcohol market continues to change structurally, said the representative of Ladoga. According to him, the buyer is increasingly choosing not the degree, but the taste and format of consumption. At the same time, one of the key trends of the last two years has been the growth of strong and cocktail categories.
In 2025, alcohol sales in Russia, including beer and low—alcohol beverages, totaled 3.2 trillion rubles, an increase of 8.3% compared to a year earlier, Infoline estimated. Sales of wine and spirits grew faster — by 14.7%, to 2 trillion rubles. By 2029, the entire alcohol market may increase by 41%, to 4.5 trillion rubles, and the sale of these categories of beverages — by 50%, to 3 trillion rubles, Infoline predicts.
*Excessive alcohol consumption is harmful to your health
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