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MANAGEMENT MARKET WATCH Export Lessons the U.S. Can Learn from Australia Promoting the middle ground between jug wines and cult wines Photo: Thinkstock TIM TEICHGRAEBER Tim Teichgraeber cut his teeth in retail wine sales before becoming the wine col- umnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Today he is a contributor to the San Fran- cisco Chronicle, Tasting Panel, Opus Vino and other publications, when he's not working as an entertainment lawyer in San Francisco. success for many Australian winer- ies, but it was also a time where simple messaging and trends left middle-class regional producers behind, and left Australian wine vulnerable to clichéd criticisms. I called Wine Australia's regional director for North America, Angela Slade, to talk about what went wrong with Australian wine export marketing, and what the industry is doing to right the ship. "When you talk about the 'sun- shine in a bottle' wines that started appearing in the '90s – they were great wines at a great price-point that way over-delivered in quality, but the market got flooded with them," she said. "They became commodity wines." At the other end of the spec- e Americans are infa- mous for doing things our own way. We seldom look abroad for guidance or advice, except maybe when it comes to Burgundian winemaking techniques or Biody- namic farming secrets. Sure, inde- pendent thinking can sometimes be a good thing, but every once in a while, we should crib a few notes from the rest of the world – even when it comes to marketing, some- thing the U.S. wine industry figures it pretty much invented. With more and more American wineries looking to export wine, a lot of them are finding that they don't know where to start. The truth is that despite recent mile- stones in U.S. exports, the French, Italians, Spanish, South Americans and Australians have been moving much more wine overseas than we WWW.VWM-ONLINE.COM have, and they have a lot of wis- dom to offer. According to a report by the Wine Institute, U.S. wine exports in 2011 were up a record-breaking 21.7% in dollar sales over 2010, and up 5.8% in volume. Shipments to Hong Kong were up 39%, to Japan up 39%, and to China up 42%. Opportunities in Asia are certainly there, and the gates have clearly opened, but how can exports to Asia be systematically maintained and managed for the broad range of American wineries, from bulk producers to regional estate wineries? LOOKING TO AUSTRALIA This is a good time to look at Australia's experience in the United States market through the 1990s and 2000s. It was a period of great trum, Slade added, "You had the really high-end wines with (Robert M.) Parker scores … I don't know how much marketing was really SHORT COURSE U.S. wine exports have reached record-breaking value levels, but there are lessons to be learned from Australia. Australia fell victim to offering either commodity wines or high- priced blockbusters. The Australian industry has launched efforts to combat mis- conceptions about its wines. Mid-priced wineries in America face challenges in finding import- ers to bring in their products. MAY - JUNE 2012 VINEYARD & WINERY MANAGEMENT 25