All members of the recently formed Alliance have decided to join forces to showcase their wines, a first in the wine industry for competitor countries to operate as a team.
All five regions have continued to grow exports despite the global recession and believe that by working in concert they stand a better chance of competing against the EU, whose own wine-producing members, they claim, are supported by substantial subsidies in their export initiatives.
Australia, which is reportedly now focusing more on the East, has not joined the alliance.Eight years ago a similar Alliuance was formed but id included Australia at that time. The New World Five then were the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, South America, and South Africa.
The new five generic marketing bodies representing the five New World Alliance partners are optimistic about the initiative and believe their combined efforts in promoting the New World as a premium source of wines and as a network of innovation, will generate worldwide interest amongst media and trade at ProWein.
The New World Five have succeeded in building their wine trades on the back of aggressive branding; by demystifying wine and thus attracting new consumers; by playing up their regional strengths and unique features and by focusing on technical, packaging and marketing innovation, while giving increasing accent to sustainable wine-growing and wine production.
According to a spokesman for the Alliance, there had been exploratory talks amongst New World producers for several years about establishing a stand-alone show targeted at the international wine trade. However, recent research had suggested that with so many shows already in place, the alliance would be better served by creating a show within a show and they decided to use the well-established platform of ProWein.
Held annually in Dusseldorf, ProWein had about 3200 exhibitors in 2009 and also succeeded in attracting over 35000 delegates from 50 countries, besides more than 1000 journalists.
All the alliance partners will be grouped together in a single pavilion. They intend to jointly offer a series of seminars, lectures, presentations and workshops featuring high-level wine trade and academic specialists as well as prominent growers and wine makers under the umbrella theme, Down to Earth. Issues they plan to cover include sustainable wine production, the management of scarce natural resources and managing climate change, cool-climate viticulture, organic wines, branding, icon wines, building on-trade consumption sales and the importance of unique grape varietals.
The spokesman added: “Although we remain competitors, we believe the potential exists to further advance the New World’s share of the global wine market by sharing best practice. We have already benefitted from each other enormously by exchanging viticultural and cellar research as well as innovations in packaging, marketing and logistics.”
Exports from this group continue to prosper despite the economic slowdown in the global wine market. Export data for 2008 shows that last year, Argentina exported 23,8 million 9-litre cases worth US$550m, representing an increase of 14% in volume and 28% in value on 2007. California exported 55 million cases worth over US$1billion, an increase of 8% in volume and 6% in value, and Chile exported 65,4 million cases worth US$1,4billion, an increase of 10% in value but a 3% decrease in volume. New Zealand exports rose 19% to 10,9 million cases, at a value of US$574m, representing an increase of 19%. South Africa’s exports rose 32% in volume to 45,2 million cases, worth US$778m, up 47% in value.
For details, contact:
California Wine Institute:
Christine Berthold +49 (0) 421-217020
berthold@wineinstitute.de
Wines of Chile:
Juan Somavia (Chile) +56 9776 75086 or Michael Cox (UK) +44 (0) 7785 291503
Email:jsomavia@winesofchile.org Michael@winesofchile.org.uk
Wines of Argentina:
Lis Clément Work +54 261 4235346 Int. 2. Mobile +54 9261 6829829
Email: lclement@winesofargentina.com.ar
Wines of New Zealand:
David Cox +44 (0)20 7973 8079 mobile +44 (0)7974 228986
Email: davidc@nzwine.com
Wines of South Africa:
Su Birch +27 21 825630677 or +27 21 8833860
Email: su@wosa.co.za |