A small producer in Victoria who spends a lot of time in trade selling wine, has an idea to take control of the Australian wine narrative. We have respected their wish to remain anonymous.
I feel like the first big driver reducing our competitiveness is the ability for guests to quickly check our website price when they’re in a restaurant.
It doesn’t take much time on Google to figure out that something that costs $40 on our website costs $125 on the wine list in front of them.
For lots of people, me included, this can erode the experience (whether it’s warranted or not).
So, it makes sense for the venue to stack their list with a selection of imported wines; it’s much trickier to check the pricing and therefore you as a customer avoid that icky feeling that they might be on the wrong end of a 300 percent markup.
This can be taken one step further where the restaurant imports directly, setting the price completely; or even further again, where the wine imported is made and branded specifically for them and therefore exists nowhere else (also likely attracting some nice volume discounts).
There is an additional benefit with direct imports beyond the pricing; it allows more tasting stock to be used to train staff, which makes their job of selling it easier.
Other than inflating our RRP price (which would likely reduce our web sales), we have no real ability to compete with this activity.
On top of this we also have noticed the widespread discounting of imported wine (anecdotally, this is happening a lot) as importers try to recoup their initial outlay for the container.
If a distributor has a mix of local and imported wine, the motivation to sell the imported gear is way higher because they need to get their money back, versus local wine, which is typically post-paid.
Secondly, I think the bigger picture and the more important point is the woeful state of wine education in this country.
WSET is really the only pathway for new entrants to the professional wine world and this course has a very significant focus on classic Europe and comparatively little on the New World.
It is a great course but I believe this has led to an industry standard, where for the last 20 or so years, the majority of wine professionals are required to do a course which actively cultivates a perception that European wine is the oldest and the best, and everything else is tucked in around the edges, mostly being compared to, rather than considered separate to.
The fact that MWs are the educators gives this standard ultimate credibility.
And similarly, it’s not lost on me that winemakers themselves are well known to be indoctrinated into this paradigm also.
Then lay this over the Australian culture of wine, which isn’t great at self-promoting – and arguably does have a little insecurity about itself – and what we have is a vacuum.
Wine Australia could fill this vacuum.
Imagine if Wine Australia decided to create the Australian version of WSET.
Try this: pay a group of diverse, eminent wine people to write it, then incentivise a selection of wineries to provide the wine for the tastings.
Then pay expert educators to run the course and fund it for as long it takes to build momentum and pay for itself.
Make it a great course.
Make it hard to get in.
Make it a must-do for every wine professional in the country and even make it available internationally.
Set the standard, set the tone and by doing this, take control of the Australian wine narrative.
And maybe in a decade, we’ll find that our local wine lists are more balanced and our wine professionals are able to represent us with more clarity, enthusiasm and insight as to what makes our wines worthy.
Dining and Cooking