Posted on 11/04/2003 5:45:13 PM PST by kattracks
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - As vintners Down Under might tell their French rivals -- vive la difference, mate.In a battle pitting their upstart Yellow Tail brand against vintage Bordeaux, Australian wine makers are elbowing past the French as dominant exporters to a friendly U.S. market.
Analysts attribute that reversal of fortune to the U.S. consumer's growing view of Australian wines as unpretentious and affordable. They are, in short, very un-French.
The trend has been helped by patriotic Americans showing appreciation for Australia for backing the invasion of Iraq, while shying away from products from nations like France, which opposed the war.
In terms of volume, Australia already had bounced France from second place among foreign wine suppliers to the U.S. market in the first quarter of 2003.
Now Australian vintners are also on track over the next year or so to make more money from U.S. sales than their often haughty and higher-priced French rivals, trailing only California wines in popularity, said Rich Cartiere, publisher of the Wine Market Report.
"France is in second place now because its 2000 Bordeaux vintage has got rave reviews, so its value has surged through the roof, but it's an aberration," Cartiere said. "The Australians only have to continue with their normal growth to overtake the French by value."
AUSSIE ATTITUDE
Australia's Yellow Tail is playing a big part in that growth. The brand has soared to the top of wine import charts since its U.S. launch two years ago despite only small inroads in California, the top American wine market.
Cartiere estimates Yellow Tail's U.S. sales at nearly 4.5 million cases for 2003, making it the top-selling imported red wine in 750-mL bottles in U.S. stores.
Like many Australian wines, Yellow Tail targets Americans' preference for wines that do not need to age and may be uncorked right away, experts said.
"The big thing that stands out is the friendliness, the laid-back attitude," Rob McDonald, owner of Old Bridge Cellars wine imports in Napa, California, said of the appeal of Australian wines for U.S. consumers.
Southcorp Ltd., whose Penfolds, Rosemount Estates and Lindemans brands are among the top-selling Australian wines worldwide, attributes its success in the United States to a consistent and "approachable" fruity taste that is neither highly acidic nor highly tannic.
"More Americans are understanding the wines and buying them over and over," said Liz O'Connell, the company's California-based spokeswoman. "It's very important the style of wine carries over from vintage to vintage."
But it obviously helps that Australian wines go easier on the wallet than those from many other countries, including the United States, said Victor Ciulla, managing partner of the upscale Twin Palms restaurant in Pasadena, California.
Many of Southcorp's wines sell for less than $10 (six pounds) a bottle.
THE PRICE IS RIGHT
Including mark-ups of about 2 1/2 times a wine bottle's wholesale cost, restaurant-quality California wines were selling "for an arm and a leg" in recent years, Ciulla said.
"Then all of sudden we were looking at (Australian) wines that are equal to our best but at much greater value, which I can pass along to our customers," said Ciulla, who now includes Australian brands on his wine list.
Imported by American co-creator W.J. Deutsch & Sons Ltd. of White Plains, New York, Yellow Tail's red wines and Chardonnay in 750-mL bottles sell for about $7 in stores. That is below or on par with many top-selling U.S. wines and below the $7.50 average price of wines from Georges Duboeuf, the top-selling French brand in the United States.
For a few dollars above Yellow Tail's price, consumers can buy Australian wines from top grape-growing regions backed with credentials -- bargains seldom seen for wines from both top U.S. and French wine regions, according Anne Pickett, a wine buyer with K&L Wine Merchants in Redwood City, California.
Ross Estate Northridge Shiraz from Australia's Barossa Valley sells for $12.99 and has an "ultra-respectable 90 points from The Wine Spectator," Pickett said.
"There are similar values with French wines but not from their most famous wine regions," Pickett said. "A Chateau Cantemerle, a Bordeaux with 92 to 94 points from the Spectator, sells for $27.99, and a Chateau Poujeaux, a popular bargain Bordeaux, sells for $23.99."
OK, so a bottle of wine really costs $3-4. Substitute a plastic bottle for a glass one and subtract $0.50-0.75. Not bad.
My post #8 puts it in substance, if not style:):)
Bump.
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