Little Aussie Bottler Puts Us In The Red
The Age
Saturday April 29, 2000
America's wine critics enjoyed the latest offerings from Australia, a 1996 Coonawarra cabernet-merlot and a 1998 Yarra Valley chardonnay.
They described the red's aromas of fresh cherry and cassis, its notes of blueberry, plum and oak and it various hints of herb, mint, underbrush and even tobacco leaf.
Harvey Steinman, doyen of the influential magazine Wine Spectator, noted the white's profuse pear, floral and apricot flavors while another critic remarked on its character of peach and melon with hints of grapefruit and lemon.
Mr Steinman gave the red 91 points out of 100 and the white 88, but it did not really matter what any critic thought. The labels carried golfer Greg Norman's name and his shark logo. For that reason alone, American wine drinkers could not get their hands on enough.
Mildara Blass, Australia's fourth-largest producer, had planned to ship 25,000 cases of the wines for their United States debut but repeat orders, especially for the red, boosted sales to 120,000 cases and cleared the cellars.
For most American customers, the Greg Norman Estates bottling was their first taste of Australian wine, even a revelation that Australia was a wine-producing country.
For Mildara Blass it was a marketing coup that has doubled its US sales of premium quality wines in less than a year.
``It gave us an entree to five-star hotels and quality restaurants - the Michael Jordan restaurants included - that have never considered Australian wine," said corporate affairs director Rell Hannah.
``It was particularly successful in New York."
Mildara Blass and its parent, Foster's Brewing, hope Norman will do the same in other markets where golfing crowds idolise him.
The Greg Norman Estates label has already been introduced to Japan and plans are afoot for Britain.
A "98 cabernet-merlot and a "99 chardonnay have been bottled, labelled and packed for the new season. A third wine, a "98 shiraz from South Australia's Limestone Coast, is ready for its launch at a US wine and spirit merchants' conference in Boston next week.
Across Australia the leaves on the vines are turning gold and red and the 2000 grape harvest is entering its final stages.
It has been a year of mixed blessings. The vineyards at Margaret River in Western Australia, the Hunter Valley and southern Victoria have had a good season.
Yarra Valley wine makers describe it as brilliant with good yields, high sugar content and naturally low acids.
Michael Zitzlaff, wine maker at the family-owned Oakridge Estate at Coldstream, gives it 8.5 to nine out of 10 and even dares to consider the possibility of declaring it a reserve year.
In most other wine-growing regions, a poor fruit set and summer rain at the wrong moments has caught growers unexpectedly.
Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation analyst Lawrie Stanford expects the nation's 1200 wineries to crush 1.1 million tonnes of grapes, marginally down on last year and significantly lower than the 1.3 million tonnes anticipated last November.
There will be considerably less white wine this year but slightly more red due to first-time crops from new red-bearing vineyards.
Mr Stanford said this would help overcome a previously unmet demand for red wine, especially overseas.
The one constant in the wine industry is the steady thirst of Australians, who last year bought 348.3 million litres, a drop or so more than 19 litres per head.
Their demands are easily met on current production levels and provide a firm platform for the ever-growing industry to move farther afield.
The job on hand is to grow the local market to 22 litres a head and to expand exports exponentially.
The industry is working to a $5billion 30-year growth strategy that it developed five years ago.
Strategy 2025 is a bold vision that does not seek to make Australia the biggest wine producer but the best. In its own words, it wants to be the world's most influential and profitable supplier of branded wines.
The plan seeks to attain $2.5billion sales a year, a modest 6.5 per cent of worldwide production by value. It says Australia should by 2025 supply 120 million litres a year to Britain, 88 million to the USA, 80 million to Germany and 50 million to Japan.
At the time the strategy was devised, the industry was achieving 2 per cent of world production and exporting more than 27 per cent of its produce - 10 per cent better than France and Italy, the world's two major producers.
Production had peaked in 1996 at 850,000 tonnes and Strategy 2025 called for a doubling to 1.65 million tonnes a year.
Within five years, Australian growers had already planted enough vines to achieve the 30-year target and last year's crush of 1.1 million tonnes marked the half-way stage, with more than 20 years to go
Wine exports have since grown 12 per cent to last year's record 216 million litres, which was worth $1.068 billion.
Exports now account for 38 per cent of production, but Australian wines supply no more than small niche markets. Even Jacob's Creek, successfully marketed as ``Australia's Top Drop", amounts to little more than a drop in the bucket.
Its producer, Orlando Wyndham, is in the final throes of a $66 million four-year expansion that aims to boost export of Jacob's Creek to four million cases next year. Last year it edged towards the target, exporting 80 per cent of three million cases produced.
According to the wine and brandy corporation, Britain remains Australia's biggest market, taking 44 per cent of exports worth $553 million last year. The US and New Zealand jointly accounted for 33 per cent, worth $386 million.
Corporation chairman Sam Tolley says Australia sells everything it plants and doubts it will ever produce enough wine to satisfy demand.
He said the 30-year plan had galvanised the industry.
``It allocated responsibilities," he says. ``Everyone in the industry got an understanding of what was required of them. Some of the forecasts seemed audacious at the time, but not so now.
``Wine production is an ideal industry for Australia. The industry is technology-based and rural-based, with product transformation carried out in Australia.
``We are world leaders in the application of technology, we have young employees and years of expertise."
Michael Zitzlaff at Oakridge Estate exports 40 per cent of his wines, about 6000 cases, to the US, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, Malaysia, Singapore and Britain.
He said the only way to succeed overseas was to get over there as often as possible. He tries to visit the US four times a year.
``I do reasonably well in the US, not the main markets but the mid-west and central areas which are not so well serviced," he said. ``For me it is still a big market." But the main market places of New York, Florida and California are fiercely competitive, requiring well-honed marketing skills and the occasional brilliant idea. So far nothing has pointed the way more clearly than the Greg Norman endorsement.
Mildara Blass had worked long and hard to break into its overseas markets. It is pushing into Britain, Japan and Germany with its wine clubs, Cellarmaster, Pallhuber and Winebuzz, and is direct marketing Wolf Blass wines in Hong Kong.
Its Black Opal range had made steady, if unspectacular, progress in the US, but the Greg Norman Estates label has blown the door wide open.
Norman has signed a long-term contract for an unspecified figure and takes a hand in the wine selection with chief wine maker Chris Hatcher.
Chief operating officer in charge of global retail trade, Mike Pelly, said Norman, who lives in Florida, was in tune with American tastes and could contribute more than his personal endorsement.
``Americans love merlot," he said. ``It is their favorite wine and Greg Norman has been able to come here and taste the wines, appraise them and suggest changes.
``He has given us the taste of America."
© 2000 The Age