* "I am going to start with a couple of quotes: “Much red Burgundy remains of very insultingly low quality – raw, thin and inarticulate. It was admittedly worse in the past but this is still a wine that relies more on a wine dream to sell an often unlovely reality.”
*“Time and time again I have embarked on a Burgundy tasting looking for minute differences between sites and found only stark difference between growers’ winemaking abilities. Why not confine one’s search to the different wines of one talented grower? Differences between adjacent vineyards emerge in one vintage and another vintage can reverse them.
*"Of all the world’s great wine regions, Burgundy is widely seen as one of the most difficult to understand. This reflects the impression that it’s unpredictable. There is no certainty that a bottle of a given appellation will taste like any other and all too frequently price seems to bear no discernable relationship to quality.
*“Even seasoned wine lovers faced with a range of Burgundies on a shop shelf or a restaurant wine list might turn towards more predictable decisions rather than risk an expensive disappointment.
The first two quotes come from Andrew Jefford’s book ‘The New France’ and the next two from Remington Norman’s ‘The Great Domains of Burgundy’.
* They add dimension to the sackcloth and ashes of the Joseph and Reedman school of thought which made me feel thoroughly depressed. I thought enough of all this predictions of gloom. Let’s just take a step back.
* I was part of the group that in 1995 put together a 30-year vision for the Australian wine industry taking it through to 2025. That was presented at Wine Australia in 1996.
* When it was unrolled, behind the mission statement was a couple of key figures - A$2.5 billion of wine exports and A$2 billion of wine sold in the domestic market by the year 2025.
* In 1996 the deficiencies both in terms of quality and quantity of the 1995 vintage were apparent and we were lectured severely by the investment community because we had been foolish enough to come out with a vision that was ridiculous in the first place and now absolutely absurd.
* We were told not to do it again. Of course, the calendar year to the end of December has seen Australian exports hit the 2025 A$2.4 billion mark. About four years ago, we knew 2025 was hopelessly out of date and revised it to the year 2010.
*Those recast figures have already been superseded and there is a widespread school of thought that says by 2010 Australia’s wine export value will exceed the value of any other agricultural commodity from Australia.
§ Also in the course of that, we looked at both producing and importing countries and an inter-country comparison. One of the things we said to ourselves was that the rate of growth into the UK could not be sustained. We had to assume back then that those exports would level out and we would need to find new markets. That didn’t happen either.
* In 1979/1980 the old world traditional Europe had 96% of the world wine exports by value. About a year ago, which is the most recent figure I’ve got from Centre of International Economic Studies in Adelaide, that figure had fallen to 79%. And was falling fast.
* If you take out intra-EU sales and say they’re in a common market, Australia has 29% of the world export market second only to France.
*All of this makes me think that the absence of a recognition of Pinot Noir in the UK market is not a constraining weakness, but a most marvellous opportunity. You have got a new world that is progressively taking market share from the old and you have this massive gap to drive into.
* It is said Robert Mondavi used to get up every morning and kneel by his bed and say thank God for Gallo. I would suggest to the smaller Pinot Noir makers you should get up each morning and say thank God for Montana. You are going to need some big players out of the new world who are able to deliver Pinot Noir of the quality of a quality, volume and price that will attract the punters.
* That would be the base of the pyramid or the aircraft carrier with the little boats following on behind.
*This coming vintage Montana is going to produce 2000 tonnes of Pinot Noir for red wine and much more for sparkling, producing 135,000 cases – giving you a significant volumised producer of Pinot Noir in NZ.
* We keep on coming back to the proposition that Burgundy is over-priced and disappointing. Therefore you have got to break free of the shackles of the impression that Burgundy has given and work the brand creation similar to that which Australia did via Hazel Murphy in the UK.
* Much to Australia’s annoyance, NZ has the highest average retail price of any country on UK wine shelves. That does not seem to me be an embarrassment but cause for celebration because it tells you your wines are in fact better than those of your competitors in the eye of the consumer.
* It would seem to me that going into traditional markets with generic and multi-branded promotions and just hammering away on the Pinot Noir message is the way to go.
* Of course this raises the question about is there too much Pinot Noir being produced? Well NZ has about 3360 hectares. Australia has 4140 hectares.
* The world planting of Pinot Noir in comparison is 205,000 hectares and you can compare that with 568,000 hectares for Cabernet and 546,000 for Merlot.
* I don’t believe for one second that there are significant marketing problems which with the appropriate solutions will stand in way of Pinot Noir from Australasia and the new world.
* By 2014 the sleeping tiger of Asia will have started to leap. We don’t know how quickly distribution infrastructure, which is currently one of the main problems within Asia outside of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia, will be in place and we can start looking at Mainland China and a rapidly liberalising India.
*I really don’t have any doubt that by 2025, which is the end point of our 30-year vision in Australia, that Greater Asia will be our largest wine market and the long-term downward trend in wine consumption will have been reversed by that market.
* In the meantime for all the sackcloth and ashes, Brits will keep drinking more and more table wine.
*In the interim before the tiger gets out of its lair obviously UK and then more importantly for Australia but I would suggest also for NZ, North America has an enormous appetite for wine – it is in no way, shape or form a mature market.
*Yes it does require certain strategies to get around the aftermath of prohibition with the three-tiered structure and the separation of one state from the next which actually gives I think once again an advantage because it stops the Tesco's of this world vandalising and tearing to shreds people who are trying to produce very good wine at a very fair price.
* Within that market as a whole I think Pinot Noir is the jewel in the crown.
*In my experience you can do all of the climatic studies you like and soil analysis you like and you’re still not going to know until you’ve got Pinot Noir in the ground and producing whether you chosen the right spot or not. It has tricks up its sleeve that no other variety has.
*So be brave, be happy and go for it.