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John Casella of Casella Wines, whose Yellow Tail wine shot up from the drawing board after the Sydney Olympics to become the biggest imported wine in the US with a sale of about 9 million cases out of its total sales of 12 million cases, seems to have another hit on his hands with the fruity Spanish party drink which has an estimated $700 million market in the US. Americans are going wild about sangria, but rather than drinking their own they are increasingly going for the ready to drink beverage and Australia has taken a slice of the market, retailing at around $6 a bottle.
John Casella says, ‘It has been very much welcomed and is selling really well in the United States. The Yellow Tail brand on the sangria bottle really helped with brand recognition. It’s a different wine of course to what we sell, but it's still made within the Yellow Tail style.’’ The Griffith-based family winery, whose highly recognisable leaping kangaroo label helped start the critter trend in wine labeling featuring animals on their labels, has become a mainstay of supermarket and bottle shop shelves in the US.
‘‘You would think it would be popular with Hispanic groups," Mr Casella reportedly said. "It has, but it's also been more general than that, broader- and it has been helped by word of mouth, people buying it and recommending to friends.’’ Selling for as little as $US6 in the US, and below $8 in many Australian bottle shops, the sangria brand clashes with the image the Australian wine industry is trying to project to the world, of a region that excels in producing premium, high-priced wine. But Mr Casella is nonplussed, saying the model worked well for him.
DelWine was perhaps the first online media to report about the launch globally-outside Australia at any rate- when it posted an article about the launch on August 29, 2013 from Germany after talking to the then Senior Brand Manager of Casella Wines, Travis Fuller, who has been a fellow judge with Subhash Arora at MundusVini wine competition for several years.
Interestingly, the European Parliament reportedly passed legislation recently imposing strict labeling rules for sangria. In the eyes of Europe's lawmakers, genuine sangria comes from Spain or Portugal only.
Yellow Tail Sangria not in India
As might be expected and as commented upon by delWine last year, it is highly unlikely that the Yellow Tail Sangria would find a market in India where it is otherwise becoming extremely popular as a summer party drink. Primarily due to heavy taxes and also because many people feel that the left-over wines are the best ingredients for this wine-based cocktail which needs to be reinforced with a lot of fruits anyway, they prefer to make their own with each bartender offering his or her own recipe.
Farhad Bhabha, Managing Director of Mumbai-based Berkmann Wine Cellars India Pvt ltd, confirms our hypothesis. His company is very bullish on the sale of Yellow Tail label though, he says. They sold about 4,500 cases of Yellow Tail in 2013-14, at a growth rate of 36% over the previous year. This represents over a quarter of their total sales but he has no plans to import Sangria.
He says, ‘we have just introduced the Pink Moscato in Mumbai, Delhi & Gurgaon. The Moscato (White) is being introduced in October this year. We have also just brought in 187ml of the Shiraz & Chardonnay as well as the 200ml Bubbles for Mini Bars. Sangria is unfortunately not on the import radar just yet.’
The Indian winery-produced Sangria
Looking at the increasing popularity of Sangria in the Indian youth segment which is his target audience for the fancy packaged Turning Point wines, and realising the high cost factor for these imported wines, Ashwin Deo, creator of Turning Point Wines, has jumped into the fray and is shortly bringing out the Indian RTD (Ready-to-drink) version. Although he would be considered a pioneer for introducing Sangria to the local market as another Turning Point label, he is not very happy about spending one year running around in circles for the excise department to approve the 330ml packing he has designed.
It will be the first ready to drink Sangria in the country and in a 330ml bottle and while conceding that he is also apprehensive about the numerous permissions he may have to take in various states, he is hopeful that he would have the first mover advantage. The product to be retailed at Rs.135 will have 11% alcohol. It is slated to come out in Mumbai and Pune within August or September, bureaucratic and other delays notwithstanding.
For more info, contact Ashwin at ashwin@trinityvintners.com
Subhash Arora
Tags: Yellow Tail, John Casella, Casella Wines, sangria, Turning Point |