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Newsletter July 2010

INNOVATIVE MARKETING SOLUTIONS FOR THE AUSTRALIAN WINE INDUSTRY

Too much stock?

Now that the 2010 vintage has been bedded down and the volumes known, it's an opportune time to compare your sales budgets and your stock on hand. 

This is a fairly straight forward exercise, listing your planned sales (by variety) for the next 12 months, against your existing stock on hand (including bulk wine). This simple matrix will show where you have an issue in so far as having too much stock, or not enough.

If you have too much stock, then you need to make a decision on what you want to do with it.  Here's a few options;

• Sell excess wine as bulk (thus taking a lower margin, but generating cash).
   
• Discount your slower moving stock through a direct mail house (this often hides the discounted price as the wines are included in a mixed dozen). 
   
• Have a warehouse sale at the cellar door, with case only sales at a marked discount.
   
• Offer the excess wine to a larger retailer under a secondary label (again, this will protect your main brand) as a one off (one delivery, one invoice).
   
• Other avenues include the old bonus deal or other incentives in order to drive sales. These work better for those with a broad distribution and a sales team managing it.

There are a range of options, with most of them involving a decreased margin.  However, it's extremely competitive in the market and it's no use having stock that you can't sell costing you storage and potentially losing quality, making it all the harder to sell in the future. 

Be mindful not to just bottle the wines as cleanskins, as this will cost you money, and the bottled wine doesn't necessarily have more chance of finding a home then the bulk wine.

If your stock and sales do not equate, then you should be making the hard decisions now, as they won't just go away.

Cheers,
David & the Define Wine team

Wine Communicators: Taste & Tweet

With the global growth of social media platform Twitter getting people talking about wine, Wine Communicators Australia has introduced a new concept called ‘Taste and Tweet’.

A collaboration with the WCA Young Guns past and present, the aim of the tasting is to facilitate networking between WCA members, and give people a chance to try wines which they normally may not be exposed to. It also has the added benefit of promoting great Australian Wines to the world and generating some positive buzz.

Join in the conversation - more information can be found on the Wine Communicators website.

Top 10 NSW Winemakers

Well done to the ten winemakers listed by Peter Scudamore-Smith MW in Asian Correspondence. The full article and list can be seen here.

"The great wine estates of New South Wales continue to fan away from the State’s capital these days; towards the cooler vineyard sites as global warming seeks to spread its summer influence.

Top 10 NSW winemakers include Printhie (Orange), Windowrie (Cowra), Brokenwood (Hunter Valley), Robert Oatley (Mudgee), Clonakilla (Canberra District) and others...

If you are a NSW Winemaker, join up with the growing number of Facebook fans, eager for information on www.facebook.com/NSWWinemakers