A Breath Of Fresh Air

Austrian wine shipments to the UK are making tremendous headway in terms of value, says Sally Easton MW. The next stage is to promote Grüner Veltliner et al as the perfect food wines

That Austrian wines in the UK are a niche within a niche is indisputable, with just 9,500 cases imported in 2004. However, this represents a more than doubling of the previous year. In two short years the UK has jumped up four places in the value rankings of export destinations to number six. And in the first six months of 2005, UK imports are up a healthy 64% by value, even though volume is down 10%.

Much of the increase is attributable to the bevy of retailers and specialists who introduced Austrian wine ranges during 2004. Gerd Stepp, winemaker for Marks & Spencer says, “Performance was good but modest. The commercial side is still very tough with a lot of competition on the shelves. But what they deliver to the catalogue in terms of diversity, quality, style and difference is very good.” For Waitrose, buyer Nick Room says the store extended its three Austrian wines into more branches because of the excellent uptake.

Lance Foyster, managing director of FWW Wines, says the off-trade is picking up with new customers coming to Austrian wine, and the on-trade is doing well. “Austria is now an established feature of a decent restaurant list with 200-plus bins. The next stage is getting a restaurant with a 50-bin list interested,” he says. This is a pretty clear target.

The 2004 vintage was one that needed a lot of work in the vineyard and winery, with the best wines showing the mettle of producers, having classic dimensions of varietal expression and freshness of acidity. Over the course of this year the wines have had time to evolve, and Foyster has upgraded his views: “For the producers I represent, it is a really nice Grüner Veltliner vintage, more the style of 2001, i.e ripe, but crisp and fresh. You can find the white pepper note that people talk about, but that has been absent for the last couple of vintages. It was very interesting for Pinot Noir with crisp, fresh, pure raspberry fruit in 2004, and for Blaufränkisch with weight behind the fresher and crunchier flavours.”

On the subject of new oak and reds, Foyster says Austria is still at an evolutionary stage. “People are slowly becoming more sensitive to the right balance in the reds. 2004 should encourage them to reign back a bit on the use of oak.” Axel Stiegelmar of Weingut Juris says, “It is getting less important to have a lot of oak in the wines. Ten to 15 years ago, consumers were impressed by new things happening on the palate; they thought the more the better. Now they look for fine and balanced elements in wine. It was a question of time.” The style evolution, however, did not prevent the UK from nearly tripling imports of quality red Austrian wines in 2004.

For 2006, the generic campaign will focus on the ontrade, with by-the-glass offers. Susanne Staggl, PR and marketing manager for the Austrian Wine Marketing Board says, “We’re never quantitatively competitive, there is not enough volume produced. Our focus is to position Austrian wines as the perfect food wine.”