An Australian in New York

MELBOURNE-BORN WITH A BACKGROUND WORKING AT AUSTRADE, GORDON LITTLE TOOK ON THE AMERICAN MARKET SELLING AUSTRALIAN WINE WHEN HE MOVED TO NEW YORK. THAT WAS NINE YEARS AGO, AND IT IS STILL GOING STRONG. HE GIVES US AN INSIGHT INTO HIS FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCE OF HOW AUSTRALIAN WINES ARE RECEIVED IN AMERICA RIGHT NOW, AND HOW THE MARKET HAS CHANGED IN THAT TIME.

How long have you had your business, Little Peacock Imports in the US?

This is my ninth year.

It’s been a major success then?

(Laughs) We are still here; so that’s something considering when I look back and think of how many restaurants and stores or accounts we have had that have opened and closed in the time we have been in operation.

I was not in the industry in the good times or the time of the bust. That was when I moved to America. The way everyone described it to me was that wine would sell itself. If you were a winemaker, you just came to the market and went out to lunch. Now the tables have turned.

What is the American drinking when it comes to the wine style?

It depends where you are in the US. There is definitely a market for more adventurous wines and natural wines in the big cities. In the supermarkets, it is more conservative - Shiraz, Cabernet and Sauvignon Blanc. Every year I look at which wine we sold the most of, and it always gravitates towards Shiraz, Cabernet, Sauvignon Blanc and maybe Grenache. The other challenge I find here is they (retailers) confess they don’t know much about Australian wines, yet they get pulled into some new trend. For example, they will create a section on $30 plus Australian natural wines and will say how very up to date their Australian section is. Still, they will have no understanding of the classics such as Margaret River Cabernet or Mornington Peninsula Chardonnay for example. They can say they have a modern section, but it doesn’t pay any homage to the classics.

Are the Millennials a massive slice of the American wine market?

They are big, and they will have money eventually, but they are pulled in multiple directions. You have beer, cocktails and now pot since that has been legalized. They can be huge but making sure they buy wine instead of something else is a challenge.

What are the most significant regions for Australian wine in the states?

New York is probably the best place in the country to find it. I find California a difficult market. There are hubs everywhere; Detroit; some retailers in New Jersey are doing a lot better with their Australian wine sections and really getting behind it; North and South Carolina have potential; Providence in Rhode Island has some nice little boutiques that have a good selection of Australian wines. There are definitely places that get behind Australian wine and support it. It might just be a guy who went to Australia and loved it and is in charge of buying for a store and will go out of his way to find Australian wines.

In terms of on-premise, if we talk about New York, all the big Australian restaurants that were here have all closed. These would be the ones who would have multiple Australian wines by the glass. Now they don’t exist. The last one closed at the start of January. What has replaced them is coffee store chains selling avocado toast, and they are not good with wine. My view is we have lost Australian fine dining as a concept. It is no longer here. And often the Australians that have restaurants here do very little with Australian wine. How do you get more Australians back to fine dining? Michelin star Public, Burke and Wills, Flinders Lane, Kingswood have all closed. The guys that do it for some reason don’t want to be seen as being Australian. The Aussie pub, The Australian is closing after more than a decade in operation.

What have been your challenges?

We have a hybrid model. I am an importer and a distributor so because I can self distribute my portfolio here in New York. I don’t have the distributor bottleneck of relying on someone else to sell my wines for me. Being based here is good. My wines are here. I am all the time showing wines. I also have distributors in other states, and we also have a distributor appointed in New York too because it’s a huge market.

What is your favourite venue in New York to go and drink Australian wine?

At the moment you can go to a number of places because the bushfires have galvanized people. One particular high-end restaurant did all Australian wines by the glass for a month, and the world didn’t fall apart because it turns out people still bought Pinot Noir by the glass that wasn’t from France!

Can we learn anything from American wine retailing?

It depends on where you are. In New York state, for example, there are no chains allowed. It is all independents. Twenty minutes west, you are in New Jersey, and it is all chains with only a small number of independents. I would say that wineries here are more engaged with their customer base than in Australia both from a cellar door and online perspective. They are really tapped into their customers.

How big is the online channel in America?

It’s substantial. I sell to online wine clubs. It’s a price varietal matrix. If it fits you can sell a couple of palates overnight.

What do you love about New York?

It is one of the best food and wine cities in the world. Everything comes here. If you miss a band, they’ll be back. What I miss about Melbourne is the level of relaxation. Here, everything is so cut-throat and hard. The days are long. In Australia it is more laid back.