Felicity Carter, Selling International Wines

Navigating appellations

Words Felicity Carter

The French were on top of the world. Until they weren’t.

In the late 1980s, their ever-reliable British customers were suddenly buying less. After centuries of loyalty, the Brits were choosing the uncomplicated, reliable wines from the New World over the difficult, unreliable wines of the Old. Leading the charge were the upstart Australians, whose technically perfect wines made from fully ripe grapes were an unbeatable offer.

It was an assault on centuries of tradition and one that forced European wineries to invest in technology, winemaking knowledge and better viticulture.

Now, they’re about to return the favour. Australians have been buying increasing amounts of imported wines in the past decade, sure, but that trickle is about to become a flood. And if retailers and educators understand how to sell them, it could be good news for everybody – including Australian producers.

WHY NOW?

The Europeans need new markets, urgently. Not only has Trump has slapped 25% tariffs on French and German wines, making the lucrative US market a more difficult place to do business, but the pandemic has had a catastrophic effect on the international on-trade. Up to 50% of the wine market has simply vanished.

And word has been going around that not only do Australian wine buyers know what they’re doing, but they also pay fair prices (which is rarer than you might think). Not only that, but consumers are actively looking for lower-alcohol, more refreshing wines, which Europe can produce at keen prices. For retailers looking for market share, the wines of the Loire Valley or Picpoul de Pinet are a major opportunity.

There’s only one small snag: the European appellation system is incredibly difficult for consumers to navigate. There is, fortunately, a way to deal with this – do what the British retailers do.

THE EUROPEAN APPROACH

Australians have a longstanding belief in the sophistication of Europeans, imagining that they are wine knowledgeable and able to navigate complexity with ease.

Nothing could be further from the truth. With rare exceptions, consumers across the continent drink by proximity. Those who

live in or near wine regions drink the local wines, while people from urban regions drink the wines of whoever is closest. Wine bars in Munich serve German wines, plus the wines of Northern Italy and Austria, their closest neighbours. In Poland, expect to see wines from Moldova. Vinous diversity only exists in big, international cities like Hamburg, Amsterdam and London. And even there, consumers stick to what they know.

“People get used to names slowly, whether they’re brands or appellations,” says British consultant Justin Howard-Sneyd MW, who has been a buyer for Safeway, Sainsburys, Waitrose and Direct Wines. He says it can take years to familiarise consumers with new knowledge –in 1997, he says consumers at tastings would stick out their glasses and ask for “red”; it was another ten years before they felt safe asking for specific varieties.

That doesn’t mean there’s not a place for exciting new wines. “If your goal is to impress the press and excite shoppers on the cutting edge who will tell their friends,” then it’s good to introduce obscure wines, he says. “It’s the kind of thing that journalists love, and it will burnish the image of the retailer. But if the goal is to sell lots of bottles, a different strategy is needed.

Grouping wines together by style and taste, where the light, unoaked reds are

all in one place, and the heavier reds are somewhere else, is one way to do it. Another is to yoke wines together by theme. Howard-Sneyd says the best experience he had was at Waitrose, which ran showcases. “They might have a Mediterranean showcase and put a bay of unfamiliar wine in there, accompanied by good point of sale material,” he says. “There might be a Greek and a Croatian wine, and it was tied together with food, like ‘you’re having a paella, so you must have a red like this’ and so on.” Howard-Sneyd says this gave people the confidence to try new wines. “Obviously price discounts help and so do nice labels.”

Howard-Sneyd says that appellations that tend to stick in the memory are those which have a consistent taste, like Rioja. “You’ve got a very limited opportunity to explain wine to people,” he says. “You have to do your communicating by display and shelf tickets.”

He says another problem is that because it’s hard to describe taste, consumers struggle to articulate what styles they like. “What happens is that people associate positive words with the words they see on the label, whether it’s a brand, grape or region. They learn by association. If they taste enough wines with the word ‘Shiraz’ on the label, they say they like Shiraz.” This makes it hard to present consumers with something new and expect them to love it, if they don’t have a reference point.

Howard-Sneyd says, however, he thinks it will be easier for Australian retailers to introduce new and unusual wines, because Australians are already sophisticated drinkers with a good grasp of varieties. “A simple route to get people to trial something is to link it to something they already know,” he says. “If you like classic Sauvignon Blanc, then try this Rueda or maybe this Colombard, which you put on the shelf below. Or if you like Grenache, try Rioja.”

Of course, many European labels don’t display the variety, a problem that Tanisha Townsend, an American wine educator working in Paris, knows all too well. The mostly American and Australian clients who go on her Girl Meets Glass wine tours are sophisticated travellers who are, nevertheless, intimidated by European wine labels. After plenty of trial and error, Townsend has learned to introduce a new wine by comparing it to something the group is already familiar with. “It has to be related to something they already know. If I say the wines of southwest France are like Bordeaux, that makes sense to them,” she says. If, on the other hand, she has to start from scratch, she talks about flavour, “whether it’s light and fruity, tannic or heavily oaked.” Townsend says if she ever starts her own shop, she will organise it by style, not by region.

HOW DO EUROPEANS SELL WINE?

While Townsend agrees that Europeans themselves are no more knowledgeable about wine than their New World counterparts – “even French wine professionals mostly know about French wine” – she says they generally prefer to be told about the region, not the grape.

European wine retailers know that some customers prefer region, while some prefer grapes or styles, and their websites reflect that, as a stroll through some of Europe’s biggest wine sites, including Systembolaget in Sweden, Hawesko in Germany and Wein & Co in Austria shows. In general, the first thing that consumers are asked to choose is style: red, white, rosé or sparkling. Next, they’re asked to choose a variety, region or country – it’s up to the consumer to decide whether they will navigate by style or region. Finally, they are asked to choose a price. The websites are simpler; while the offerings are complex, they make it simple.

Contrast this with many Australian sites, which are crowded and packed with options, from price range to brands to style to region. The European sites don’t assume prior knowledge, while the Australian sites do.

In the end, however, it doesn’t matter how much thought and preparation goes into selling wine, some wines will fly off the shelf and some won’t. “You never know why it’s not working,” says Howard-Sneyd. “It could be the label or the price, or some combination.” He says he would often see a wine that sold well on promotion, only for its sales to drop off afterwards. “People just didn’t like the taste.”

And then there are the wines that succeed beyond all expectation. “Picpoul de Pinet is a good example,” he says. “It was a random, reasonably inexpensive French wine in a tall green bottle that performed really well from the word go.”

In the end, selling wine is about taste, familiarity and price. Howard-Sneyd says he’s not surprised that international

wines are taking off in Australia, because Australians are not only renowned travellers, who are willing to try new things abroad, but they are also exposed to a range of wine styles at home.

The good news in all of this is that when Australian wines hit British shelves in the 1980s, it dented French sales, badly. Consumers flocked to the new wines that weren’t just well-priced, but clean and well made.

But the French learned their lesson and sent their children off to study winemaking at Montpellier, leading to the great renaissance of French winemaking that’s taking place today. The influx of international wines into Australia will definitely pose a challenge to domestic producers – but it will also push them to new heights. Wine is, after all, about socialising – the rule is, the more the merrier.