A toast to adversity
Someone once said, ‘Life is like a waterbed … when it
goes down here, it goes up over there’. Well, the
winemakers of Western Australia must have taken that
observation to heart. For, it seems, as hard times cause
traditional wine markets in Britain and the US to dry up
somewhat, the canny Sandgropers are finding emerging
markets in Taiwan, Nepal and South Korea. This will not
only help the industry through the global economic
crisis, it lays some pretty good marketing foundations
for the future.
Major wine importers from Japan, Nepal, South Korea, Sri
Lanka, Taiwan and Thailand recently toured WA wine
regions in search of ‘a good drop’.
The value of Asian markets is rising rapidly, with China
and Taiwan buying 54% and 23% respectively more of
Australian wine over the past year, while the volume of
exports to Nepal is up 97 per cent.
Taiwanese wine importers Shelly Wu and Winston Lin say
there’s a strong market for Australian fine wine in
Taiwan, overwhelmingly for red varieties. Ms Wu said:
“The market for fine wine has been developed over the
last 20 years but they mostly used to drink French
wines. Now there is stronger interest in new world
wines,” she said.
“There is strong interest in Shiraz from Australia and
the cabernet sauvignon is beautiful compared to the
European style. We are adding to our portfolio of WA
wines because the wine style is very elegant and very
approachable to the Taiwanese palate.”
Despite these Asian breakthroughs, for now, Britain and
the US remain by far the biggest wine export markets
even though their value has fallen 20% and 12%
respectively.
They do say every problem conceals a solution, and
Australian winegrowers surely are onto a good thing … in
Asia, there many millions of potential connoisseurs
poised to discover our wonderful wines! In some ways,
recession is just another word for
opportunity.
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