When new fine wine merchants, OenoTrade, is looking to work with a new premium on-trade customer it will ask them for their “wish list” of wines and then go out and try and source them. It’s a business model that is already enjoying breakthrough in what is already a fiercely competitive market place. Here head of wine for OenoTrade, Olivier Gasselin, explains the company’s strategy and also what we can expect at its inaugural trade tasting on February 26.
Ask Ronan Sayburn MS where the most interesting country for making wine is right now and his answer will be Australia. Sayburn is one of the most influential wine buyers in the world and, after a military-style two week tour of Australia’s wine-making regions, he came back with a long list of wines which will challenge most people’s preconceptions about what the country is capable of making. At a special tasting event he talked through the eight wines that inspired him the most. Spoiler alert: the list may include some very unexpected bottles…
Emerging Wine Writer of the year Malu Lambert hooks up with fellow South African Craig Hawkins, who has been dubbed the Natural Wine King of South Africa, although you won’t catch him saying that. Hawkins was showing the new 2019 vintage of his Testalonga range – wines that have become famed for their uber-cool labels and sense of fun as much as their quality, and ability to transfer Swartland’s unique terroir into bottle. Although there are a lot of wines on the El Bandito and Baby Bandito labels, there is one clear philosophy – single grape, single soil. Oh! and all the varietals just happen to be Mediterranean.
“We’ll bounce back. That’s what we do.” That was also the clear message driven home at an emotional press conference at today’s Wine Australia annual trade tasting in London as senior figures from the generic body, including marketing chief, Stuart Barclay, and head of the UK and Europe, Laura Jewell MW, explained the harsh reality of the devastating impact the wild bush fires have had on some areas of the Australian wine community. Thankfully the overall damage has been limited to some areas, mainly in the Adelaide Hills, but where the fires have struck the impact on wineries and the surrounding communities has been total. Richard Siddle reports.
It might be Italy’s most planted grape variety, and one that has now travelled to all parts of the world for its ability to stand up to climate change that winemakers are increasingly facing, but how well do you know and understand what true Sangiovese should taste like? It’s a question that Italian wine expert, Walter Speller, and wine consultant, Jane Hunt MW, hope to answer with their breakthrough Sangiovese RESET tasting and event in London on March 3.
Whatever sector of the drinks industry you work in, we all like a list to find out who or which company is performing better than others in their channel. If you enter a drinks competition then winning a Gold, Silver or Bronze certainly helps determine and define how well a particular product is viewed by its peers. Which is why the London Wine, Spirits, and Beer competitions have gone one step further by publishing Top 100 lists of the best performing products in each category. Find out here who came where in each Top 100 list and also details on how to enter the 2020 competition.
Even with a venue greatly reduced in size, the annual generic New Zealand tasting which took place in London last week had bags of new ideas, new wines and new angles served up with its customary chutzpah. David Kermode heard how exports to the UK, New Zealand’s top overseas market, were in rude health thanks largely to its premium offerings; saw how well its wines can age; and also how great strides are being made to broaden the grape varieties from largely Sauvignon Blanc into other exciting territory.
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At the end of 2019 we gave the floor to Joe Fattorini to set out why he believes marketing only to millennials is a waste of time and the dangers of basing any consumer research just on the thoughts and behaviours of one demographic group. It’s, therefore, only fair to balance things up and assess just what it is about millennials that some marketers and consultants think makes them so special. Like Polly Hammond, founder of 5Forests, a brand communications consultancy, who believes there is much for us all to learn about how millennials, in general, have grown up in what she argues has been the most fast changing and disruptive market place for consumers. Here Hammond, who is one of the partners and keynote speakers at the upcoming breakthrough One Step Beyond conference, part organised by The Buyer, gives her take on why millennials are not only special, but are worth listening to.
The interest and diversity in organic wines has arguably never been stronger, which makes next week’s Millesime Bio trade fair even more important than normal, as it expects to welcome buyers from all over the world, with a strong, and loyal delegation coming from the UK. Here Nicolas Richarme, president of SudVinBio, and a producer himself at Château de Bastet in France’s Occitanie, on what is in store for them in Montpellier.
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