Michael Fridjhon: February 2007
Author:
Michael Fridjhon
Published: 08 Mar 07
Our problem is not (only) selling wine, but getting people to drink it.Australia's towering achievement as a wine producer and exporter - from the
subject of a Monty Python parody in the 1970s to the m
ost important supplier
in the UK market and the fastest growing (and nearly most important) supplier
to the United States - has been well documented. There is no shortage of Luddites
and King Canutes whose resentment of Australia, Australian wine and Australia's
focus on wine technology has led them into bigotry. Using Crocodile Dundee as
a cultural benchmark, they inveigh against the perceived "yobbo-ness"
of the Antipodes. Not even George Bush attracts the same invective.
There's little point in explaining that on any given day more Australians attend classical music recitals than pay to go to a sporting event. It may thus come as a bit of a surprise - even to the less prejudiced - that Australia is a net importer of fine wine.
Brian Croser - founder of Petaluma, Deputy Chancellor of the University of Adelaide, partner with Champagne Bollinger and Jean Michel Cazes in Tapanappa - recently exposed the relevant statistics. Unlike the kind of knee-jerk reaction expected from the South African wine industry, Croser's response to the news that Australia imports about 50% more fine wine than it exports was completely unxenophobic. Instead of calling on the authorities to halt the flow of great wine from the Old World, he urged Australia to make more of an effort to get its top wines into international markets. With less than 20m litres of Australia's near 800m litre export priced at R60 or more per bottle, he observed, it is inevitable that the image of the country as a wine producer will be tarnished with 'cheap-and-cheerfulness'.
I could be unpatriotic and say that I cannot imagine anyone involved in the administration of the hopelessly beleaguered Cape wine industry that would treat comparable news with anything like the same equanimity. Our problem is not that we import more fine wine than we sell (we don't), but merely that we don't sell nearly enough wine to sustain the industry as it is presently established.
It is difficult to extract similar statistics for South Africa. Our so-called fine wine imports are certainly less than 50 000 cases annually while our exports in the same price bracket are probably about five times that number. To the UK alone we despatch almost 500 000 cases of wine selling for more than £5 per bottle (R70). This category has grown from 154 000 cases in 2002 when the Rand was at its weakest - thanks to a focused effort by WOSA, responsible for South Africa's generic export promotion.
If Croser's conclusion is that Australia must do more to persuade sophisticated drinkers around the world that its best wines are worthy of their attention, it follows that South Africa's difficulties are significantly more complex. Our exports are tapering off, and sales of bottled wine to the UK - our biggest market - are down 18% year on year. WOSA - has less money than ever before to perform a task that is becoming more difficult (and more expensive) with each passing day. WOSA is funded by a levy on exports - so as volumes and Rand amounts decline, so does its income. It also used to receive a significant subvention from the South African Wine Industry Trust - before the last bunch of trustees squandered more or less the entire fund on an ill-considered, opaque and indefensible BEE purchase of KWV shares.
So now we have no money to persuade the world we make wines worth drinking just when our biggest New World competitor has identified a weakness in its armour - and has the means to do something about it. And (and this is very much by-the-way) we don't even know what we should be doing to improve our game. We've had so much protection for so long that our biggest market - the domestic consumer - has no sense of the world-class benchmarks. No wonder they believe we play a world-class game and no wonder we've fallen for our own PR.
There's little point in explaining that on any given day more Australians attend classical music recitals than pay to go to a sporting event. It may thus come as a bit of a surprise - even to the less prejudiced - that Australia is a net importer of fine wine.
Brian Croser - founder of Petaluma, Deputy Chancellor of the University of Adelaide, partner with Champagne Bollinger and Jean Michel Cazes in Tapanappa - recently exposed the relevant statistics. Unlike the kind of knee-jerk reaction expected from the South African wine industry, Croser's response to the news that Australia imports about 50% more fine wine than it exports was completely unxenophobic. Instead of calling on the authorities to halt the flow of great wine from the Old World, he urged Australia to make more of an effort to get its top wines into international markets. With less than 20m litres of Australia's near 800m litre export priced at R60 or more per bottle, he observed, it is inevitable that the image of the country as a wine producer will be tarnished with 'cheap-and-cheerfulness'.
I could be unpatriotic and say that I cannot imagine anyone involved in the administration of the hopelessly beleaguered Cape wine industry that would treat comparable news with anything like the same equanimity. Our problem is not that we import more fine wine than we sell (we don't), but merely that we don't sell nearly enough wine to sustain the industry as it is presently established.
It is difficult to extract similar statistics for South Africa. Our so-called fine wine imports are certainly less than 50 000 cases annually while our exports in the same price bracket are probably about five times that number. To the UK alone we despatch almost 500 000 cases of wine selling for more than £5 per bottle (R70). This category has grown from 154 000 cases in 2002 when the Rand was at its weakest - thanks to a focused effort by WOSA, responsible for South Africa's generic export promotion.
If Croser's conclusion is that Australia must do more to persuade sophisticated drinkers around the world that its best wines are worthy of their attention, it follows that South Africa's difficulties are significantly more complex. Our exports are tapering off, and sales of bottled wine to the UK - our biggest market - are down 18% year on year. WOSA - has less money than ever before to perform a task that is becoming more difficult (and more expensive) with each passing day. WOSA is funded by a levy on exports - so as volumes and Rand amounts decline, so does its income. It also used to receive a significant subvention from the South African Wine Industry Trust - before the last bunch of trustees squandered more or less the entire fund on an ill-considered, opaque and indefensible BEE purchase of KWV shares.
So now we have no money to persuade the world we make wines worth drinking just when our biggest New World competitor has identified a weakness in its armour - and has the means to do something about it. And (and this is very much by-the-way) we don't even know what we should be doing to improve our game. We've had so much protection for so long that our biggest market - the domestic consumer - has no sense of the world-class benchmarks. No wonder they believe we play a world-class game and no wonder we've fallen for our own PR.
