A global survey into wine retailing trends has identified three key challenges – the rise of convenience purchasing, online sales and store consolidation. The survey, undertaken by Wine Intelligence, was commissioned by the organisers of the world’s largest wine and spirits trade fair – ProWein – which is taking place in Düsseldorf this week. The survey represents data from eight separate markets accounting for half of the wine consumed globally.
Critics of Australian wine need to “stand back” and prepare themselves for what Neil McGuigan of Australian Vintage believes could be the most “exciting period” in the country’s history driven by the best quality wines it has ever produced. The outspoken chief executive of Australian Vintage told Harpers.co.uk at ProWein this weekend that all the talk in the trade of the problems facing the Australian wine industry are so wide off the mark.
Coming soon to a supermarket near you: Beer and wine. Three decades after politicians first promised beer and wine in corner stores, the Liberal government now plans to go further — by liberalizing sales in hundreds of large supermarkets across the province. The government wants to significantly loosen the quasi-monopoly held by the foreign-owned chain ever since prohibition ended nine decades ago. Potentially hundreds of Ontario’s larger supermarkets — from among the roughly 1,500 located across the province — would initially be permitted to sell beer and wine.
New Zealand’s Yealands Family Wines has secured a new distribution agreement for its portfolio in the Northern Territory. NT Agencies has signed on as the distributor of Yealands in the top end, effective this week. Yealands Wine Group national sales manager in Australia, Andrew Thiele said the new agreement was another step in the right direction for the brand, which experienced significant growth in global markets during 2014.
Since the early 2000s, the amount of land planted in wine grapes throughout New Zealand has increased by a whopping 100 per cent. In the last 12 years, according to Statistics New Zealand, between the years 2002 and 2014, the area of land planted in grapes has leapt from 17,300 hectares to 34,130 hectares. Statistics have also been released for areas planted in apples, cherries, blackcurrants, avocados and kiwifruit over the same period.
The University of Adelaide’s School of Agriculture, Food and Wine is taking its wine education free to the world with its first open online course on wine. Offered under the banner AdelaideX, Wine101x is a free online course covering wine tasting, how grapes are grown and wine is made and how science benefits the wine industry. Although entirely online, participants will make their own ‘virtual wine’ and have their process judged – with medals awarded to the best of the bunch.
The real impact of fluctuating currencies on South Australia’s winegrape growers will be presented at the second annual SA Winegrape Growers Summit being held on July 17. The Wine Grape Council of South Australia (WGCSA) said while the falling dollar is a positive factor for the wine industry the level of benefit is still to be determined. Peter Hackworth, WGCSA executive officer, said new free trade agreements with countries like China and South Korea were good signs for Australia’s wine industry, but our competitors in other exporting countries like Chile and South Africa are also benefiting from similar rates of depreciation.
SAN MIGUEL Corp. (SMC) has expanded its packaging business in the Australasian region with the acquisition of an Australian supplier of wine bottle closures and customized bottles. In a statement, the country’s most diversified conglomerate said San Miguel Yamamura Packaging International Ltd. (SMYPIL) — through its new Australian unit, SMYV Pty. Ltd. — has completed the purchase of Vinocor Worldwide Direct Pty. Ltd. The Adelaide-based Vinocor makes cork, screw caps, customized glass bottles and champagne hoods and capsules.
With 39 producers from 30 regions, across six states, this year’s Australian wine contingent will be the largest and most diverse that ProWein has seen. The Wine Australia stand will also neighbour fellow Australian exhibitors to collectively showcase more than 60 wineries. The centrepiece for Wine Australia will be a masterclass hosted by Australian wine expert, Mark Davidson, which will explore the theme ‘History, Evolution, Revolution’.
Harvesting is in full swing in almost every vineyard across eastern Australia and this year, more than ever, it is a race to get ripened grapes picked in time. An early spring and erratic summer weather meant harvesting in some regions began a month earlier than usual. In most wine regions it is likely to be finished weeks earlier than normal. But in the inland wine producing regions some growers will not bother to harvest their grapes as Australia’s wine industry faces a period of rationalisation. Growers who do not have contracts to sell their harvest to wineries face the prospect of unwanted fruit — another year of financial loss.