Happened to just see this.
Very worrying for Australia’s industry facing a historic glut and continuing blockades from China.
Is there any potential for significant growth or did the ooze monster era cause irreparable harm??
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Jeez Kent, I would never have guessed this in a million years. Very surprised indeed.
I wonder what varieties other than Sav Blanc are making inroads into the US market?
Brodie
SB and PN - NZ for the win.
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That said, there are lots of incredibly delicious Australian wines, but Cabernet and Shiraz are not exactly on the Gen Z hit list.
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I spent 4.5 years living in Australia and over time got to discover some wonderful Pinots from the colder climates of Adelaide Hills, Mornington Peninsula, Yarra Valley etc. Some really passionate winemakers, but also small scale. I
A large portion of what gets exported is not that.
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How much of this glut is from premium wine vs the sea of bulk wine that comes from the river lands?
There absolutely is a market for good Aussie wine in the US. I think people here will focus on the ooze monsters and claim that as an issue when the critter wines are more likely the root cause of the success and drop off.
I’d have to look at more data to be sure of that. I’m also quite certain this right here is an MW paper waiting to happen
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That really is quite brutal:
- from a starting point of Australia being well ahead and with already strong growth in the UK
- through rapid growth, not just aligned to Parker, but in the discovery of the value that existed in Aussie wines
- Then it overheats (no pun intended)
- The downturn may be part the waning of Parker’s influence (and that of the Grateful palate), but also as Kent mentions, a drive from Australia to go big into China, diverting wines where they couldn’t sell at the desired price elsewhere.
I suspect we had a similar shape in the UK, but perhaps not as extreme.
As for NZ, the SB bubble may burst, but they’ve got Pinot Noir as well, plus more for those that seek it out, The growth clearly more controlled, but the concept that they might sell more to a big market than Australia would have felt laughable in the late 1990s
Australia will come back again, indeed it’s often brilliantly agile at reinventing itself, and that process is already well underway. Overseas markets will take longer to catch up, and the AWB would I’m sure to have someone like Hazel Murphy around to bring the energy she brought to the early years (and before) of that chart.
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I suspect that the drop-off was BOTH at the top-end AND at the bottom end. The former tied to Parker’s waning influence (and handing off to others / palate preference becoming extreme), the latter tied to the push into China and other markets, where high volume bulk wine was needed (alongside Grange and it’s recent fantasy stablemates). So the top and bottom fell out of the exports to the US.
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Grange fantasy stablemates?
There have been a string of recent releases by Penfolds, trading more on prestige/rarity, than what’s in the bottle, often with embarrassing buzzword names e.g. ‘quantum’. The latest is a multi vintage bottling of their Yattarna chardonnay, at a truly crazy price (Yattarna itself isn’t attractively priced, but this bottling takes that to the extreme, and well beyond).
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I can only say that I get dozens of wine related emails every week, and none of them are pushing Australian wines. I don’t make it in to very many wine shops these days, but when I do, I don’t see much australia on display. Times have changed from 20 years ago.
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This is quite telling:-
“In 2022, Australian wine exports to North America increased by 2 per cent to $580 million. Exports to the US declined by 3 per cent in value to $390 million and increased in volume by 13 per cent to 140 million litres. As volume growth outpaced value, the average value dropped by 14 per cent to $2.78 per litre”
So the growth is in the bottom end.
@brodie_thomson Brodie, NZ has a very clear brand image and perhaps outside of the Loire, the only country that is SB specialist.
Good Point @David_Bu3ker re Shiraz and CS, although it was Shiraz that got us there. Suspect there is still upside with Shiraz. Need to tell a new story.
@Ian_Sutton , the challenge for Oz wine in UK that much of its sales were driven by the supermarkets selling value and sunshine in the bottle. The challenge in the UK was to sell wines over 10 quid and crack in to the on trade.
@Dinesh_Goyal so true. Need to work hard on the restaurant listings.
I think this refers to the crazy small parcel Penfolds wines priced in the stratosphere appealing to the Chinese gazillionaires eg the $100,000 ampules that the winemaker will come and open for you.
Or for $3K you can have a blend of 3 Grange vintages all in one bottle.
Have you tasted it, or do you just dislike the marketing?
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I’ll admit up front this is just a gut feeling of mine, but for the last decade or so, it’s almost felt like a boast or even a taunt when Australians say “there are all these great balanced, classical and ageworthy wines made in Australia but we keep those for ourselves and just send all the flabby overcooked ones to the USA.”
Like it’s the fault of the American market more than Australian wine industry that we get crap wines that fewer and fewer people want to buy.
And it’s true, wines like Mount Mary, Wendouree and Sami Odi are barely available in the US. I get that, they’re tiny production wines that have a devoted waiting lists domestically and all.
But I kind of feel like, if Australia wants me to go back to buying and drinking their wines, start making more good ones and sending them over here. I don’t have any power to signal my interest back to the Australian wine industry; they need to break back through here.
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This is a very fair point.
Cults will always be cults.
It’s very difficult to procure Sami-Odi and Wendouree here.
There is a halo effect from these wines too.
My follow up question then is where are the opportunities? Variety and price points??
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I honestly think that Parker had a major impact on the “peak & valley” nature of that graph. That was probably the height of his influence as a wine critic, and when people (like myself) who used to buy a Parker recommendation with confidence actually started trying some of these wines and realized that something had definitely changed with respect to RMP’s palate, it caused some purchasers to just look elsewhere. I believe the last time I looked at CT, I now own 2 bottles of Australian wine, both from the 2003 vintage, and as Alan already mentioned, I can’t recall the last time I was solicited to buy a wine from Australia.
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@Bob_Hughes look at drinking those '03s - very hot and ripe year!
Mount Mary was very good. Again I was always looking for high quality Pinots. Some others that I really liked were Bass Philips, Farrside, Timo Mayer (very hard to find), Ashton Hill Reserve, Tolpuddle etc.
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And this is where there maybe an opportunity.
I just received an offer on Ceritas Pinots and Chardonnays. I am sure they are exemplary wines but in our market they are 2 to 4 times the price of the wines you mentioned.
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