A Quarter of Australia’s Vineyards to Close?
Sorry to have been away from the blog, life’s been making me anxious so I had to take a tech holiday over Christmas. I promised myself I’d put up one tiny thing before bed and was trolling about when I found something to make my anxiety spike through the roof: Holy Cow! The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Australia’s wine glut is so severe that wine is now cheaper in that drought-prone country than bottled water, and a full quarter of Australian vineyards may no longer be economically viable? Read more deeply into the article and you’ll find that the big thinkers in Australian wine’s big plan is to get U.S. consumers to spend more on Australian wine:
“The consumer in the US has got to realise that Australian wine above $US5 a bottle is as outstanding value as those at $US5.
“We have not got anywhere near to cracking that premium, super premium, ultra premium wine market in the United States. Our marketing program is only just beginning in those areas.” [...]
“We have got to break that nexus. Is it going to take two years, or three years, or five years? No, it’s going to take much longer”.
Yeah. Not bloody likely, mate. Because once you get into the over $10 and over $20 segment of the market you’re competing against the U.S. West Coast, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany — and I don’t know if that’s a fight you can win. All in all, I feel bad for the many, many people who are about to experience economic pain, but I wonder if we’ll all look back at the Critter Wine Label Years (that is, cute Australian wine labels with cute animals on them, like the jumping wallabys of Yellow Tail or the koalas of Koala Blue, etc.) the same way we look back at trends like Zima or parachute pants: What a strange, unique moment that was.
Tags: critter labels, pain and suffering
