Where the bloody hell are you?
It’s a line taken from a famous Australian tourism campaign. And at Vinexpo, I was wondering where the bloody hell all the Kiwis and Aussies were. Presumably they’ve vowed not to come within 100 miles of the Bordeaux fair after the 2003 debacle when the air conditioning broke down and the 2007 edition when South African exhibitors were left with no wine to pour after a shipment was stopped on the French-Belgian border..Conspiracy theories abound.
Their absence meant that they missed a fact-filled presentation from John Gillespie of the Wine Market Council and Danny Brager of analysts Nielsen on the state of play Stateside.
And things are looking good for New Zealand despite the continued strength of the New Zealand dollar against the Greenback.
In the year to May 25, 2013, imported wine sales were up just 1.3 percent by volume and 3.5 percent by value in the United States but sales of Kiwi wine in the U.S. were up 20 percent in volume and 18.5 percent in value. Argentina was the only country that came close to New Zealand’s impressive growth, Nielsen figures show.
In addition, New Zealand has the highest average price per bottle at $10.80 compared to an average of $6.89.
Poor old Australia saw volume and value fall in the last year and could only manage a miserly average price of $4.94.
I know which side of the Tasman Sea I’d rather be on as a wine producer.
The Wine Council also showed that New Zealand is sitting pretty with core wine drinkers: those who drink wine at least once a week and represent 93 percent of the wine consumed in the U.S.. 27 percent of core drinkers say they have bought New Zealand wine in the past three months. But there’s still room for growth: 86 percent said they had purchased Californian wine in the last three months, 57 percent had consumed Italian wine, 47 percent French and 42 percent Australian.
Interestingly, millennials and Gen Xers are more likely to purchase New Zealand wine so perhaps that’s a useful bit of info for marketing departments – don’t target the oldies!
While everyone’s talking about China being the golden ticket into Willy Wonka’s Wine Factory, the U.S. spends 14 billion on wine a year and is still the world’s largest consumer of wine.
Yes, there are a lot of non-drinkers in the United States but of the 228m adults in the U.S., there are still 100 million potential wine drinkers – that’s 25 times the New Zealand population! The message is clear: don’t forget the west in the rush to the east. They like New Zealand wine and they’re willing to splash out on a Kiwi cuvee.
