Challenging The Orthodoxy – A Quiet Evolution
If there is a new, post-GFC realisation, it is that people will continue to pay for quality, but will no longer tolerate being sold short. There’s a gap that needs to be filled and great quality and great value are now top-of-mind for the consumer – in all aspects of life.

In the middle of the financial crisis, and just as everyone was predicting the end of opulence, Chris Cannon and Michael White opened the very opulent Marea on Central Park. The food was excellent and expensive – well deserving of its four stars. But what was really interesting was the wine list – it was reasonably priced, or rather it was focused on lesser-known, moderately priced regional fare as opposed to the usual blue-chip, pedigreed stars.

At around the same time New York-based chef, David Chang, wrote an article in Esquire, suggesting that a new way forward was to refocus our palate and use meat and bone as flavour agents, as opposed to them being ‘main events’ and that centuries of Mediterranean culinary orthodoxy would begin to change. The suggestion was that in hard times, we need to embrace change and become a little leaner, a little healthier, a little more sustainable, a little less formal and a lot more interesting!

Today, food is quietly assuming the soft power status among youth culture once associated with music – individual, fierce and even intensely political.

Enter A+ Australian Wine. We’re not starting a revolution and tearing down everything ‘old and established’. It’s a quiet evolution or movement - a subtle but persistent challenge to the orthodoxy of ‘fine wine’ expectation. It will be a great fragmentation, just like what has happened in the music business, the broadcast business and the print media. It is a chance for Australia to restart – or even begin – in a way that hasn’t been presented before. Not to chase a European-framed tilt at ‘fine wine’ status, but rather, and above all, to seek to be ‘interesting’ and ‘engaging’. A+ Australia Wine: not Old World; not New World; but Our World.

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2010/2011 Wine Australia Market Programs
Response to the 2010/2011 Wine Australia Market Programs has so far been extremely positive, with memberships across all markets from wineries big and small.

This year’s programs have been developed with the new A+ Australian Wine brand top-of-mind, and aim to prompt a significant shift in the way the category is positioned. The focus is about improving the current image of Australian wine; the price people are prepared to pay; and the range of wines available in restaurants and retail.

With the Australian wine community recognising that A+ Australian Wine invites a clear connection with excellence and high achievement, while also reflecting that there’s always more to discover about Australian wine, we continue to see wineries embrace the new marketing direction and enter their stories online at www.australiaplus.com.

To find out more about Wine Australia Market Programs or A+ Australian Wine please visit our website or email market.programs@wineaustralia.com

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Conference Inspires Confidence
Around 1300 delegates attended this year’s Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference (AWITC) and Rae Blair, Communications Manager for the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI), passed on the following comments about the conference.

International and Australian winery members enjoyed a feast of activities including workshops, conference sessions, a trade show, posters and more.

The conference program was again of the highest quality, with 43 Australian and 15 international speakers all challenging attendees to “take bold moves” with the information presented. 

Positive out-takes from the conference included a presentation from economist Phil Ruthven from IbisWorld, who encouraged the industry with his prediction - based on more than 100 years of data - that there were good prospects ahead in the next five years and even better in the five after that. 

The sessions about innovation were also well-received, particularly the topic of climate change, which gave delegates a good understanding of the environmental challenges facing the industry and the technical responses being developed.

Another intriguing session was presented by Simon Tam from Hong Kong, who gave delegates an understanding of consumer behaviour in China, and tips on how to best communicate with this emerging audience. 

The sessions were only part of the event, and delegates also attended WineTech 2010, which featured 170 international and national wine industry suppliers. 

In his closing summary, Conference Chairman, Professor Sakkie Pretorius told delegates a story about a boy who held the fate of a butterfly in his hands. He said that these events equipped the industry with crucial information needed to make their businesses sustainable into the future. “What you now do with it, is in your hands.”

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Cheers To Gourmet Traveller Award Winners
After 34,000 online votes over a month-long period, the winners in the Gourmet Traveller 2010 Travel Awards were recently been announced. The awards pay tribute to the finest tourism operators in Australia and it was great to see two fantastic wine tourism experiences rewarded.

Voyager Estate in Margaret River won the Readers’ Choice Award for the Best Tourism Experience, with Yering Station in the Yarra Valley the runner-up in this category.

Voyager Estate has been described as a “champion” of the Margaret River and with its extravagant gardens, the grounds have become a tourist attraction in themselves.

Yering Station in the Yarra Valley is already a member of the National Tourism Awards’ ‘Hall of Fame’, after being inducted in 2005 in the category of Best Tourism Winery.

Set in a stunning location with breathtaking views, beautiful gardens and dramatic architecture, Yering Station offers a holistic food and wine experience. It will also be the host winery for this year’s Landmark Australia Tutorial in September.

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Strategy Versus Tactics
Businesses from all disciplines have long recognised the need for both a strategic and a tactical response to marketing, usually framing the difference by describing the former as anticipating the market over a medium to long term, and the latter about responding to the market in the short term. Ideally, a balance of both allows you to ‘stay in the game’ while you seek to effect positive change around your business, your brand or indeed the general state of the market opportunity.

Market promotion for wine is often visible in tactical, short-term responses through the presentation of master classes or retail promotions that provide some immediate sense of return on investment. But what about the long term? 

The challenges facing the wine industry in general and Australia in particular, are now both different and stark: global oversupply, maturing profiles in traditional markets; retail platforms driven increasingly by price, volume and own-label development and an increased threat of regulation.

Australian wineries need to take a more courageous position on a medium to long term vision regarding where they want to be and how they are going to get there. It is no longer enough to assume that having the word “Australia” on our wine labels will entice consumers to purchase our offering.

Collaboration will always be an effective way of bringing scale and momentum to your business, but it can never replace the responsibility of having clear, delineated areas of individual contribution and responsibility. Similarly, concepts such as ‘big-picture’, ‘succession planning’ and, above all, ‘long-term strategy’ are not only the preserve of large companies – they must be the very fundamentals of your business and the smaller you are, the more profound the consequences of not having these issues covered.

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Tasmania Goes Global
Tasmania has been announced as the next host of the International Cool Climate Wine Symposium in 2012.

The announcement was made at the 2010 conference in Seattle, with the event providing Tasmania an outstanding opportunity to reinforce its cool climate winemaking credentials to the world.

The centrepiece of the conference will be the results of a major national research project into Pinot Noir and Sparkling wines. This research and development project is a three-year, $1.8 million project funded by a Tasmanian-based consortium of industry businesses and AusIndustry’s Cooperative Innovation Program.

World-renowned wine authority and Master of Wine, Jancis Robinson, has been confirmed as the keynote speaker, while the event has already attracted a group of European viticultural researchers, who will also convene in Hobart.

The conference is also an opportunity for Tasmania to showcase its rich and diverse wine, food, arts and natural culture, with a series of regional events also being presented.

The 2012 International Cool Climate Wine Symposium will be held in Hobart on February 1-4, 2010.

To find out more: http://www.winetasmania.com.au

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August	Tasmanian Tasting with Maggy Smith at Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival	Edinburgh, United Kingdom
8 – 16 August	2010 Young Guns of Wine Festival	Melbourne, Australia
12 – 16 August	The Tasmanian Wine Centre’s Wine Fair	Strahan, Launceston & Hobart, Australia
16 – 25 August	Coonawarra Wine Tasting Roadshow	Various, Australia
16 – 18 August	Hunter Valley Wine Show	Singleton, Australia
17 August	Consumer Tasting at Harrods	London, United Kingdom
26 – 27 August	Wine Focus Australia	Sydney, Australia
26 – 28 August	Victorian Wine Promotion Shanghai Hilton, Beijing China World Hotel and Beijing Les Millesimes Wine Club	Shanghai and Beijing, China
27 August	Australia Food and Wine industry allies networking dinner at Australian pavilion, Shanghai World Expo 2010	Shanghai, China
27 August	Young Winemaker of the Year Awards 2010	NSW, Australia
30 August	Wine Australia Tasting Importer Briefing and Mini Seminar	Tokyo, Japan
31 August	A+ Australian Wine Regional Heroes Masterclass Osaka	Osaka, Japan
31 August	A+ Australian Wine Regional Heroes Seminar for students of Academie du Vin Osaka	Osaka, Japan
September	International Wine Law Association (Australasia) Annual Conference	New Zealand
1 September	Wine Australia Tasting	Tokyo, Japan
1 September	A+ Australian Wine Regional Heroes Masterclass Tokyo	Tokyo, Japan
2 September	A+ Australian Wine Regional Heroes Seminar for students of Academie du Vin Tokyo	Tokyo, Japan
5 – 10 September	2010 Perth Royal Wine Show	Perth, Australia
7 September	IWC Dinner	London, United Kingdom
20 – 21 September	NSW Wine Awards	Sydney, Australia
15 September	WSTA Conference	London, United Kingdom
20 – 24 September	Landmark Australia Tutorial 2010	Yarra Valley, Australia
23 September	Vancouver Media Event	Vancouver, Canada
27 – 30 September	Adelaide 2010 Royal Adelaide Wine Show	Adelaide, Australia
27 September – 1 October	Australian Cool Climate Wine Show	Murrumbateman (Canberra Region), Australia
28 September	Times Plus Event	London, United Kingdom

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