Powerful stuff…many good points, but, unfortunately many missed points as well
In January 2009 there is a perception that the American market for Australian wine is in serious jeopardy. In upscale wine shops, shelf space for premium Australia wines continues to shrink. On fine dining restaurant wine lists Australian wines have very little representation. Ask collector/connoisseurs what they are buying and the chances are overwhelming that they will not name Australian wines. Closeout offers from distributors and retailers abound (creating shopping opportunities for loyal fans of the wines but making it very difficult to maintain pricing or demand for new vintages). In my tastings for this report, many, if not most, of the importers with whom I sat down have trimmed their portfolios and/or begun to diversify into what they perceive as more fertile ground, particularly Spain and Argentina. In not much more than a decade the market has gone from boom to bust and to an unsettled future.
First, a look at the numbers and what they tell us. For the year to date through October 2008, total volume shipped to the USA by the top ten exporting countries has declined by 7.5% with France (-12.9%) and Australia (-11.7%) suffering the largest decreases. Breaking the numbers down further, through the end of November Australia had exported 22 million cases to the USA, 18.3 million under $10 a bottle, 2.1 million from $10-15, 640,000 cases from $15-20, and 386,000 cases over $20. The under $10 category represents double digit growth; the over $20 category close to a 50% decrease. The numbers seem to support the old retail adage that when times are tough people don’t drink less, they drink cheaper. However, the decline in the over $20 category predates our economic crisis by several years. There is no question that our economy has exacerbated the problem but is not the cause.
I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of readers of Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate are indifferent about the so-called “Critter” wines selling in the under $10 price category. Even though the category seems to be expanding, it has had an overall negative impact on the perception of Australian wine quality. Much of this insipid bulk wine has turned off aspiring fine wine drinkers to Brand Australia making it difficult to move them up the quality totem pole because they have already drunk from the tainted well. In contrast, imports of Argentina wine have been booming and I would assert that a principal reason is that the equivalent to “Critter” wines in Argentina are consumed internally while the entry level of imported Argentina wine is qualitatively far higher than that from Australia. It thus becomes a much easier task to convert new fine wine drinkers to upscale Argentina wines because their entry level experiences have generally been much more positive.
This still begs the question of why the over $20 category has taken such a hit. One prominent importer whose opinion I respect told me, “The market got bored – plain and simple. There was no excitement in the category and that which was there was artificial (designer brands with no real core values – no bricks and mortar, no faces and places behind them, no regional expressions) ¼ The cool regional expression of Australia along with its smorgasbord of styles and romantic stories became a surreal expression of corporate dominance and Frankenstein-like expressionism. When anything becomes predictable to the customer it becomes boring and they move on. ¼ Bring back the romance and tell new stories and they’ll come back.” Another importer told me, “This year quite a few mainstream publications [have been] predicting the implosion of the Aussie category, bemoaning that everything tasted the same, too alcoholic, too many cutesy labels hiding inferior wine, etc. Well, there was some truth there, as we’ve seen a lot of Johnny Come Latelys jumping on the success of the Aussie category over the last decade. And they come from all walks of life – quick buck Australian investment schemes encouraging the planting of vast vineyards in the wrong areas of Australia (and the wrong varieties for the region), Collins Street (the equivalent of Wall Street) “farmers” throwing mounds of cash at wineries trying to emulate the styles that The Wine Advocate championed in the early ‘00s, and US importers who decided that they should get into Australia because it seemed like the hot trend¼There will certainly be a purging of this type of behavior in the current economic climate.” He adds, “2008 will go down as one of those years that ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’” His solutions: 1) Continue to import and promote the best of Australia’s wine regions from coast to coast. 2) Continue to educate and show Australia’s regionality to retailers and sommeliers. 3) Importers need to stick to their guns and not dump brands because of tough times. Another respected importer states, “If the [wine] trade doesn’t know Southeast Australia from Margaret River, we will not be able to bring forward these excellent values. If the trade believes that Australia is made up of wines under $8 and over $50, we will never be able to build the quality/value pyramid.” He concludes, “The good news is that we know Australia produces great wine in spite of its lackluster representation in stores and restaurants. One day we will see stores setting their Australian wines by appellation as we do France.” One can only hope so.
There is no question that at the upper end of the market Shiraz has become the grape and Barossa and McLaren Vale the regions. If consumers know more than that, they qualify as experts. How many people know that in these regions Grenache, Cabernet, and Riesling excel? How many people are aware that superb Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grow in Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley? Or Shiraz in Heathcote? My eyes were opened when I visited in September 2008 and did some tasting. Yet it appears that a good many American importers stopped their searching at the borders of Barossa and McLaren Vale. In retrospect it appears that the Australian wine market over the past 10-12 years has had many of the characteristics of the bubble phenomena of high-tech stocks and real estate. When the category got hot (and for this Dan Philips of The Grateful Palate has to get much of the credit) other importers rushed to Australia (especially to Barossa and McLaren Vale) and bought indiscriminately, ultimately flooding the market with the kinds of high alcohol, no terroir, and manufactured wines that have turned consumers off. Now the bubble has burst and what’s left are those very wines that excited people in the first place. However, now they need to be reintroduced with much better marketing behind them. And consumers need to be educated to the fact that Australia is a diverse country with a huge variety of regions, wines, and styles. As the following notes should make clear, the wines of Australia are as good as they have ever been and are worthy of support.
—Jay Miller
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