This is how Australians market wine (you may be surprised)

Greetings of the season:
God jul! Merry Christmas. Joyeux noël. Fröhe Weihnachten. Feliz Navidad. Buon Natale!

Each country has its own way of marketing wine to its populace. That is, there are commercial, cultural and legal arrangements that facilitate and encourage the transfer of wine from the producers to the customers. These arrangements can differ greatly between countries.

Here, I will look briefly at how the Australians appear to do it, within Australia itself.

The main arrangement is via wine brands, of course. That is, wine is aggregated into volumes that are then marketed under a single name, or label. This is the most common arrangement around the world. The wine producers sometimes create the brands themselves, and thus sell the wine direct to the customers, or they sell the wine to intermediaries, called retailers, who then sell the wine to the consumers.

However, one aspect of the Australian system does seem to differ quite considerably from many other countries. How many of these wine brands are owned by huge conglomerations? That is, there are many wine brands on the retail shelves, but not quite so many companies standing behind those brands.

The web site that contains the most detailed summary of this situation for Australia is: Who makes my wine? It was put online by The Real Review back in February 2018, and was most recently updated in December 2023. This lists which companies dominate wine retailing in Australia, and for which the ownership of their brands is often not publicly disclosed. The Real Review data are summarized below.

There are, of course, wine conglomerates in Australia, who have simply purchased other wine companies. This is widespread throughout the world, as discussed at: The 10 largest wine companies in the world. The biggest of these conglomerates in Australia are shown in this first table. The largest of these, Treasury Wine Estates, is only the fifth largest wine company globally, so there is nothing particularly out of line here.

However, it addition, within Australia there are supermarket conglomerates who are (mostly) inventing wine brands out of thin air. The biggest three collections of these are shown in the second table. Note the massive number of brands (aka “bulk-shipped retailer own-labels”), compared to the first table.

Also, note that the Endeavour Group (formerly called Woolworths supermarkets) actually owns a whole series of acquired “independent” liquor retail outlets, including: Dan Murphy’s, BWS, Langton’s, Cellarmasters, Pinnacle Drinks, Jimmy Brings, and Shorty’s Liquor — these retailers may look different on the outside, but they are all pretty much the same in terms of content,

So, four times as many brands are marketed in Australia by large supermarkets than are marketed by large wine companies. Indeed, back in 2016, Tyson Stelzer (Who makes my wine?) noted that:

The growth in supermarket “Buyer’s Own Brand” wines in Australia has been substantial, estimated to have mushroomed from five percent a decade ago to between 16 and 25 percent of the market today.

Do any other countries market wine in this manner? We are told that US-style marketing is being adopted elsewhere (French winemakers adopt US-style marketing to halt falling sales), and this consists of: “In Anglo-Saxon countries, they ask what the consumer wants first.” However, trying to market the Australian supermarket wines elsewhere is not a viable proposition (Australian wine is in crisis — here’s why).

Mind you, the increase in size of the Australian wine conglomerations is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, as it also will for the other world mega-companies (Consolidation moves):

Consolidation is nothing new for the wine industry, but the pace of change has accelerated in recent years as interest rates have risen, costs of labor and supplies have jumped, and demand for wine has softened.

Treasury Wine Estates, for example, is buying a substantial vineyard area in New Zealand (Treasury’s New Zealand vineyard expansion); and it has recently made United States acquisitions (The 10 most important M&A deals in drinks in 2023) — these are intended to “strengthen its global portfolio”.

Note:
The Real Review site listed above is a large update of the original Who makes my wine? site (pictured here). It first appeared in the Wayback Machine on November 28, 2010. It listed “100 or so” wines for Coles and Woolworths supermarkets. It was archived last on October 4, 2015, but was gone from the web by January 10, 2016. The domain was later resurrected, and it was first archived by the Wayback Machine on February 26, 2021. I last accessed it in December 2023, when 81 brands were listed. For each wine, it has a pretty good description of the Australian Wine Regions.

The ethics of presenting the wine industry

Ethics in the wine industry is a continual topic, as a quick perusal of any wine industry news-site will show you (eg. Wine Industry Insight). It usually involves questioning the (lack of?) ethics of some (many?) people in the industry (especially with regard to tax compliance!). How big a difference is there between evading the law and breaking it?

I have not written much about wine-industry ethics in this blog. This is not from a lack of interest in the topic, but for lack of anything much to say that might be a bit different from any other wine blogger. However, a couple of events recently have changed that. So, here we go.

First, I was sent an email (thanks John Stallcup) drawing my attention to the blog of Scott Galloway (No Mercy / No Malice), and specifically the post on Firewater. You should check it out, as it is both interesting and very well written. The author does not shy away from ethics, or any other topic.

The second thing is that I finally made it to South Africa (see the photo above). This was fascinating, especially for me as a biologist — the plants and animals are unique, and it was great to see them in situ; and the landscape reminds me very much of my homeland (Australia). Moreover, my wife’s parents long ago worked for Svenskakyrkan (the Church of Sweden) as school teachers for the black children of what was then called Rhodesia. So, South Africa is pretty close to her original homeland, too.

What does this have to do with the wine industry? That is simple, because I have now been to wine-lands on several continents (Australia, North America, Europe, South America); and their contrast with South Africa is, in one particular way, stark.

Vineyards in Australia, for example, are nested among the bushland (as we call it), so that the backdrop is often native eucalypt trees, etc. Vineyards in northern Europe, for example, are spread along romantic rivers with scattered medieval villages. These sorts of things are part of the image that the wine industry tries to promulgate for itself; and by and large it is accurate.

However, it would be just as accurate to note, for example, that the European villages were once the home-land of abject poverty; the Middle Ages were not a time to be a poor serf — servile life was no fun, and death at a young age was rampant. The Plague (or Black Death) was not something that was easy to live through. However, we do not see any of that in the modern world, so that wine tourists can focus on the romance. Focus on enjoyment, and the quality of life, is important.

South Africa, in some ways, is another matter. Sure, there are vineyard regions that are very familiar to me from growing up in Australia, in both look and feel (although the eucalypt trees growing there are not native, but were introduced by Europeans). However, by contrast there are the vineyards around Cape Town. The massive shanty town (as an Australian would call it) south-east of Cape Town was a great shock to my bus-load of middle-class Swedish tourists. The contrast with the Kruger National Park (lions, elephants, giraffes, buffalo, etc), and the lower-middle-class servers in the tourist industry, was stark. Everyone on the bus noticed, and everyone expressed concern. Our guide, on the other hand, kept the same neutral tone as he had throughout the trip, while he explained what the government was doing about it, and planning to do.

These slums (named Khayelitsha) are possibly the third largest in the world (8 cities with the world’s largest slums), with perhaps one million residents. They are not the only slums in South Africa (List of slums in South Africa), but probably a third of Cape Town's 3.7 million residents live in its slums (The tale of two slums in South Africa). As you can imagine, Life in South African shanty towns is not easy.

The point here is that some of the vineyards of Cape Town are right next to this enormous shanty town, as shown in the photo above, and on the Google Map below (Khayelitsha is outlined, and one of the nearby vineyards is named). One cannot miss the contrast, when you are there. However you don’t see it in any of the wine-industry photos (see the second photo above).

For me, the wine industry and vineyards will never be the same again. I can no longer look at a village on the Rhine River, nested among the vineyards, without seeing life as it was in the Middle Ages, when the villages came into being. I ask myself: how ethical is it to only ever show the romance? The ethics of only showing this is one of omission, not commission — no-one is faking anything, but they sure as hell are leaving some things out.

I am also reminded of another much simpler, but equally notable, part of my own recent history. On 7 November 2023 it was 150 years since the Swedish parliament decided to formally allow women to attend the country’s universities, and this was duly noted in my local newspaper here in Uppsala. This historical event was way ahead of what happened in most other countries, which is a very positive aspect that Swedes are proud of. However, we should not ignore the fact that Sweden has some of the oldest universities in the world, with Uppsala University founded way back in 1477 and Lund University in 1666 (although it traces its roots back to 1425). So, which do we focus on — the later 150 years (with women) or the first 400 years (without women)? My argument is that, ethically, we should see both; but it seems to me that the wine industry would probably not do so.

[All of the photos above were taken by Susanne Stenlund.]

Health and wine, and also Coca Wine

As I have noted recently, the wine industry is certainly living in uncertain times, with regard to the health effects of alcohol (A scientist looks at alcohol and health, and is concerned). Importantly, as has been noted elsewhere, The World Health Organization is on the case (WHO shifts its alcohol narratives, and the wine industry faces new challenges). In particular, drinking alcohol is now being seen as the same as smoking tobacco (Is consuming wine really as unhealthy as tobacco?).

In response to all of this, I thought that I might cover a few of the more contradictory pieces of information that have been discussed recently. I am no expert in any of these medical discussions, so I will reference some published articles.

However, we should start with the wine industry itself. As Tom Wark has noted (Bringing the 2024 wine industry into focus):

It appears that the wine industry is just now coming around to the idea that there are some very powerful forces working to diminish the sale of wine, in the service of improving the health of the U.S. population. At the heart of this effort is the notion that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption — a message that is being promulgated by the World Health Organization.

This is serious, because the WHO carries a lot of weight. But is the WHO right in their assessment? Tom thinks not — consider this:

Most recently, WHO called for significantly increased taxes on alcohol, including wine, saying that “taxes that increase alcohol prices by 50% would help avert over 21 million deaths over 50 years and generate nearly US$17 trillion in additional revenues. This is equivalent to the total government revenue of eight of the world's largest economies in one year.”

Extreme indeed! Tom’s response is:

The American wine industry must fight this effort to demonize wine, and my sources tell me that there is in fact an effort to do just this. That effort should get off the ground in 2024.

In the meantime, let’s start with this study reported in June (and published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology): More evidence moderate drinking is good for your heart. Also: a reason.

For the first time, researchers found that alcohol, in light to moderate quantities, was associated with long-term reductions in stress signaling in the brain. This impact appeared to significantly account for the reductions in heart disease risk seen in light to moderate drinkers participating in the study.

Previous epidemiological studies have suggested that light to moderate alcohol consumption (one drink per day for women and one to two drinks per day for men) is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

Yet while light/moderate drinkers lowered their risk for cardiovascular disease, the study also showed that any amount of alcohol increases the risk of cancer. And at higher amounts of alcohol consumption — more than 14 drinks a week — heart attack risk started to increase while overall brain activity started to decrease (which may be associated with adverse cognitive health).

Continuing along the same line, also in June (and published in the Nutrients Journal): Study reveals that wine consumption has an inverse relationship to cardiovascular health 

In a recent study, researchers aimed to understand the association between wine consumption and cardiovascular mortality, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and coronary heart disease (CHD).

The researchers performed a systematic review and meta-analysis using longitudinal studies, including cohort and case-control studies retrieved from multiple databases, which they searched from their inception to March 2023.

This current review and meta-analysis added to the previous evidence of an inverse association between the consumption of wine and three cardiovascular events evaluated in this study.

In contrast, there was this report in June (and published in Calcified Tissue International): Heavy drinking linked to lower muscle mass — here’s what you need to know

Heavy drinking has long been associated with various health problems, including cirrhosis of the liver, cancer and heart disease. But our latest study has found that these aren’t the only issues that excess drinking can cause. We found that heavy drinkers had lower levels of muscle mass than those who didn’t drink, or drank moderately. 

Overall, people had lower amounts of muscle the more that they drank. This effect happened after about one unit of alcohol a day for men (just under a small glass of wine) and just under two units for women (the equivalent of a pint of lager).

Wine can, of course, be made from many sources, not just grapevines. One that was once popular was coca (from the plant Erythroxylum coca), back in the 1800s (The medical history of Coca-Cola you never knew). So, on this page are advertisements for some of the better-known Coca Wines of yesteryear. There was also the milder Coca Tea, and the much less mild Cocaine.

The oldest known vines, and an interview with myself

Digressive Preamble

Recently, I did an audio interview for The Wonderful World of Wine (WWW). This show is hosted by Mark Lenzi And Kim Simone, and “explores all things wine with you: trends, news, education, and so much more.” You should check it out.

Episode 249 of their series is the interview with:

David Morrison, who is a data expert in the world of wine and has been passionately writing about it for years, garnering a large following of wine enthusiasts around the globe. With his extensive knowledge and unique perspective, David has become a trusted authority in the wine data industry.

Sounds good to me! The interview recording can be found on their SoundCloud channel, and on their Youtube channel.

This follows the interview I did a year ago with Wine For Normal People, episode 424 on Youtube.

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Oldest recorded vines and vineyards

At roughly the same time as this interview, I also did an online presentation for the Old Vine Conference. According to the conference agenda, David covered: “how he used the old vine registry to analyse the distribution of old vineyards around the world, and created some charts.”

On The Wine Gourd blog, I covered a lot of this material in two earlier posts:

• Where in the world are the oldest vineyards and wineries?
• Which countries have most of the oldest vineyards?

However, there were some things that did not appear in those posts, and I cover some of this information here.

Many of you will have encountered The Old Vine Registry recently, which is an ambitious plan to catalogue the world’s oldest vines as a fully searchable and updatable online database. It officially launched on June 28 2023 (Old Vine Registry launched), as: “the world’s first crowd-sourced global database of living historic vineyard sites.” Its goal is: “to create the world’s most authoritative record of these vineyards in the hopes that, through greater awareness and attention, these vineyards and the wines they produce will survive and thrive.”

There have been a number of web sites introducing the concept, but the best of them is by one of the participants, Alder Yarrow (Vinography Wine Blog): Introducing the Old Vine Registry. You should read this if you have not already done so.

There is no legal or generally agreed definition for “old” (Old vine), but the Old Vine Conference uses a minimum vine age of 35 years. So, the Registry notes that: “Vineyards that have been left to grow and thrive beyond that 35-year mark can officially be considered old.” Yarrow observes that: “We have about 2,200 records of old vine vineyards … There should be another 10,000 from around the world added by the time we’re done.”

On this age basis, most of the current data come from Portugal (822 recorded vineyards), followed by Spain (383), the United States (334), Australia (208), and France (142).

However, here I am going to be more strict than this. Below, I have summarized those records for vines that are at least 125 years old. There are currently 150 such records, which may be more than you expected, even globally. The oldest recorded vineyard is c. 600 years old (in Germany), with another three at c. 450 (Georgia, Germany, Slovenia), and one at 350 years (Italy).

The full collection of vine ages (>125) is shown in this graph. This is pretty impressive, of course; but we should note that there are actually 34 known trees with verified ages that are more than twice that of the oldest grapevine (ie. 1,200+ years) (List of oldest trees).

We can also look at which countries these oldest vines come from. Here is a table listing the vineyard count for each of the relevant countries.

Note that 32% of these vines are in the United States of America, and 19% are in Australia. The New World outshines the Old World, when it comes to vineyard preservation! Not unexpectedly, all of the USA vineyards are in California. Here is a list of the vineyard count for each of the relevant counties. Note that 50% are in Sonoma county.

Old vines (and their vineyards) have interest both for their contribution to agricultural history and biodiversity; but they do also have other more immediate practical uses for the wine industry. For example, Enrico Marcolungo (store manager, Shrine to the Vine) sees old vines as being “one of the most effective marketing tools” there is at the moment. “It definitely adds interest to the conversation when you are recommending wine” (Wynns debate: Buyers on Coonawarra’s premium potential). Try it for yourself.