They're loving our wine over there

LONDON - When a consumer survey last week showed Australia was about to unseat France as Britain's leading source of wine, one reason for British liquor group Allied Domecq's bid to take over Montana was revealed.

In a shock to French winemakers, the survey showed France would this year lose its winemaking crown as consumer-savvy New World wines took a grip of British palates - and wallets.

Australian wine sales in Britain would outstrip French sales for the first time by the northern autumn if current trends continued, market analysts ACNielsen said.

The Montana takeover bid by Allied Domecq was an inevitable result of a 20-year trend in which wine consumption has soared in Britain as consumption of traditional drinks such as beer and spirits sags.

Though tiny in comparison with Australia's, the New Zealand industry has aimed for a more elite niche in the UK market, while retaining the consumer-friendly attributes wooing the British away from European wine.

"Attitudes, tastes have changed," the Wine Institute of New Zealand's UK marketing manager, Katherine O'Callaghan, said at New Zealand's 20th annual trade tasting, in the plush London suburb of Chelsea.

"You have got a new generation who wouldn't dream of buying a French wine. New World wines are very much more accessible. New World wines are more consumer oriented. It's not just, 'Our wines are the best'."

New Zealand exported more than £25 million ($84 million) to the British market last year - 55 per cent of its total exports.

That was a 24 per cent increase by volume over 1999.

New Zealand has claimed just a tiny part of the total British market - little more than 1 per cent - but it is an elite segment; at £5.50 ($18.50) a bottle, its average retail price is the highest of any country.

"We may be small, but we're perfectly formed and we're a force to be reckoned with," Ms O'Callaghan said.

British wine writer Rosemary George, who has published a book on New Zealand wines, said she held no fears that a takeover of Montana, New Zealand's biggest wine producer, by Allied Domecq would have altered the industry's focus.

"I was more concerned when Montana took over Corbans," she said.

Britons felt close bonds with New Zealanders, who shared the same self-deprecating humour, and those bonds meant the market would continue to grow, she said.

Last year's figures showed Australia accounted for 19.5 per cent of wine sales in British shops by value, an increase of nearly a quarter from the previous year.

In contrast, French wine has been steadily declining. Its market share fell from 28.6 per cent in 1998 to 23.6 per cent last year.

If that continued, Australia would lead France by 22 per cent to 21 per cent by the end of this year.

Wine buffs said a new generation of novice wine drinkers was bewildered by the vast and complex selection of wine.

New World wines offered easily identifiable brands divided into clearly defined grape types, avoiding too many confusing details and jargon about the vineyards' location, the names of chateaux and the vintage.

"You pick up a bottle of Hardy's or Jacob's Creek and you know what it is going to taste like," said Allan Cheesman, director of wine at supermarket chain Sainsbury's.

Critics have found such predictability and lack of challenge rather dull compared with the complexity of French wines.

But Ms O'Callaghan argues that the New Zealand climate and the country's regional variations mean it can offer the best of both worlds, with fruity and complex wines.

A decade ago Britain was a beer-drinking nation, each adult drinking the equivalent of 140 litres a year. Wine consumption was relatively modest at 15.7 litres.

Now beer consumption is down 12.4 per cent, while wine drinking has soared 53 per cent to 24 litres an adult.

Other trends point to stronger wine sales.

Pubs have changed from dark, beer-soaked bloke-havens as cheery, chrome-and-wood bars encourage women to go out and drink.

Excuses to drink increasingly involve wine, especially at meal-times but also for casual consumption.

It is now unusual for a British household not to have a bottle of wine ready to drink.

Which all means the two-day trade fair at Stamford Bridge, home of the Chelsea Football Club, is very important for New Zealand winemakers.

There, they get to wine and woo about 700 invited British wine importers, retailers, agents, restaurants and writers.

"It's really exciting," Ms O'Callaghan said.

"A lot of people don't realise we've been going for 20 years and we've come a hell of a long way since we had Muller Thurgau as our main variety."

- NZPA