Painting By Regions

06 November 2005 By db staff writer

“standfirst”>Branded success in the off-trade is hampering top-end Aussie wines in the on-trade. We asked a ‘bunch’ of sommeliers for their input. Robyn Lewis reports

A few weeks ago, on a Wednesday lunchtime, anyone passing by the Capital Hotel in Knightsbridge would have been treated to the sight of some of London’s best sommeliers and on-trade buyers (along with a rather windswept female hack) waxing lyrical about Australia’s attempt to reach the on-trade. Perhaps at first mention it might not seem like the most scintillating of lunchtime topics – reenacting the last episode of Little Britain usually goes down better with my crowd – but the casual passer-by would nonetheless have been able to detect more than a few furrowed brows and passionately voiced opinions.

The panel (see box above) had been assembled to discuss, in particular, Australia’s attempt to push its regionality as a way of getting a foot-hold in the ontrade sector, the working title of the afternoon being, Australian Wines: Painting a Regional Picture.

Paul Henry, of Wine Australia was asked to kick off proceedings. “The on-trade is a challenge to every category,” he began. “It is a far more complex route to market than retail and it is a sector that is changing. Branded multiple chains are emerging and food is becoming more important in bars and pubs across the board, but it is at the top-end of things, the end that is sitting here, that represents the real challenge for Australia. Because we have developed a populist reputation there is a leap of faith that has to be made in order for us to have a place here. The work we do at the generic office shows that Australia is a Monday to Thursday wine but isn’t a Friday or Saturday drink. That’s what we have to change, and regionality is a way of signposting consumers around a wine list and is certainly a way forward for us. Promoting wines from somewhere rather than wines from anywhere.”

However, the question of pushing regions in a country where no AC system as such exists had to be raised. What was the point of talking about regionality, if any producer could make any wine they wanted within a region and market it, even if the quality of the wine was not good, the panel wanted to know? “We are a non-prescriptive body, as are Australians by definition,” countered Henry. “That notwithstanding, we do have Geographic Indicators (GI) which designate areas but don’t prescribe viticultural or vinification practices. We obviously encourage winemakers to make the best wine they can within that. It might not be regionality as we currently know it but I don’t think this approach should change.”

Chablis is short-hand

One of the points that emerged from the discussion was that well-known regional terms, such as Chablis, give consumers an indication of what to expect from a wine – for some it’s aspirational, for others a style of wine – and it was then that the concept of organising wine lists by style was mooted, the question being whether a shake-up in the way traditional wine lists are laid-out would help producers like Australia in the on-trade or not?

“I am investigating ways of doing my list by style and it’s thrown up something rather unexpected,” said Christine Parkinson, buyer for the Hakkasan Group. “We’ve all spent years thinking that the nomenclature of Australian wines has been a huge asset in developing their sales in this country because you know the names are easy to remember and easy to pronounce. They use English words, there are memorable images but therein lies the problem if you want to focus on regionality.

Too much information

“If you buy a Chianti, for example, its name is Chianti, it will say Chianti up front,” she continued. “Now, if you start looking at an on-trade wine list, you only have a certain amount of space, and I think I’m not the only person here for whom the precise details of the region often appear under the bold print of the wine title. But if you look at Australian wine names, that region is always going to appear in the smaller print underneath or to the right or whatever. We don’t have the equivalent in Australia of words like Sancerre or Chablis or Rioja and so on, which appear in the big typeface. So, unless I change the layout of my list, regionality isn’t going to show up because usually with Australia you get the name of the producer and the name of the vineyard and perhaps some other name, which has been hung onto that wine as well. So then if you want to say what the grape variety or the region is, that information has been pushed to the bottom.”

Another heavily debated point came to be termed at the lunch as Australia’s “success shadow”. This term refers to the stellar work done by Australian brands in the off-trade in the past, through strong branding and a clear offering, where consumers have bought and drunk by grape variety, but which is now affecting the ability of the category to persuade consumers to pay more in the on-trade. “It’s a glass ceiling it seems to me in this sector,” commented Tim Wildman of Cachet Wine. “Consumers are confused about what differentiates the £20 Aussie Chardonnay on the list from the £60 Aussie Chardonnay.”

“That isn’t just a problem for Australia,” countered Henry. “In fact, I think many of the problems the on-trade presents are not particularly category-specific. But in terms of Australia I think it is relevant because we’ve got this unapologetically strong consumer franchise in retail up to a point, which is typically around £5 and is heavily branded and not geographically specific. We are seen as being accessible and reliable and value for money and that’s a great thing because it is democratising, but none of that particularly sets my pulse racing. And that’s why, when I go into one of the Hakkasan restaurants, for example, I want some inspiration and some aspiration and it’s being able to persuade consumers that Australia can offer that. We have to work out how to bridge that gap.”

Old World advantage

“There is the idea in most people’s minds that France, Italy and possibly Spain are up there and produce the best wines in the world and people will pay top dollar for them and that Australia, Chile, etc, come slightly behind,” said Alain Morice, general manager of the Great Eastern Hotel. “I think that consumers who shop in supermarkets and then see the same bottle of wine on a list in a restaurant for a significantly increased price are resistant. But if they see the same price for a bottle of, say, French wine they haven’t seen in the supermarket they have the preconceived idea that it is worth what they might consider to be quite a bit of money because it is French.”

“So what do I do about that?” asked Henry. “People buy Coca-Cola and the same branded water, even Champagne in the off-trade as they do in the on-trade and that resistance doesn’t exist there.”

It was then that some jumped to the defence of brands, and Penfold’s in particular came in for much praise. “Penfold’s actually did us all a big favour in that they opened the door for Australia slightly,” said Morice. “People come to the restaurant, they aren’t big wine buffs, and let’s say you decide you want to sell them a bottle of Australian or they’ve said they’d like Australian. They are used to seeing on the supermarket shelf the Penfold’s £10 range and let’s say you have Penfold’s Grange or another of their top-end wines and they say, ‘Oh I know that’. Then you can take that opportunity to offer them another Australian wine, perhaps. But, let’s face it, if it weren’t for those names like Penfold’s or Brown Brothers they probably wouldn’t have even stopped at the Australian page in the first place.”

Robertson (of Chez Bruce), an Australian himself, highlighted the knowledge that UK consumers have of Australian wines, which he says he sees being translated into knowledge of more boutique producers. “I’ve definitely been surprised by the level of knowledge of Australian wine here,” he told the table. “I think that branding has done a good job for the sector. That level of knowledge I see in the restaurant doesn’t often exist even in Australia.” At Chez Bruce the Australian section of the list is divided by price and the question of how this helps or hinders the category was raised.

“We’ve found that our customers have a general idea of how much they want to spend when they come in,” explains Robertson. “So, while the French section of the list is done by region because there are so many of them and they need to be broken down, there just aren’t enough Aussie wines to warrant that at this stage. So we went for the price-band approach.”

At the Oxo Tower restaurant the wine list is arranged by region and then varietal, a structure that appears to have paid off, for Australia at least, as sales in this category are up, confirmed Susan Arensmann, head sommelier at the restaurant. “Over the last two years there has been a noticeable increase in sales of Aussie wine,” she said. “People are used to and do buy Australian wines by varietal and that’s where a sommelier can help. We can come in and find a good region for the varietal they like and educate them a little as well. You do definitely need a sommelier with the way our wine list is designed.”

Perhaps what this tells us is that the regional approach can work only at a certain level of the market – as even frequenters of top-end restaurants are in need of a helping hand, it seems. “And I think that is something we have to accept from the start,” said Parkinson. “Regionality really only works at the top end. Perhaps Australia should be looking less to Bordeaux or Burgundy and more to the Port and Champagne approach because there’s an understanding here of vintages and of producers and vineyards at the top end and an understanding of brands at the bottom.”

That does seem rather good advice for a category that, by its own admission, needs now to bridge the gap from the mainstream market to the more high-end on-trade sector where, as we all know, the real value lies.

THE PANEL

Invited to discuss the subject by Cachet Wines and the drinks business over lunch were Alain Morice, GM, Great Eastern Hotel (Conran Group); Christine Parkinson, buyer for Hakkasan Group; Susan Arensmann, head sommelier, Oxo Tower Restaurant, Harvey Nichols Group; Tim McLaughlin Green, Sommeliers Choice (who also buys for the Fishworks Group among others); Douglas Wregg, sales director, Les Caves de Pyrene; Luke Robertson, assistant sommelier, Chez Bruce (Larkbrace Group); Stuart George, the World of Fine Wine; and John Charles Townend, chairman, The House of Townend. Also in attendance were Paul Henry, director, Wine Australia and Tim Wildman, Cachet Wine