Long-time American supporter of Australian wine, Chuck Hayward of Vinroads, responds to an article in The Week That Was about the state of the Australian category in the USA.
While some may disagree, I think it was essential that you published your article reminding folks about the bad news concerning Australian wines in the US market.
I can hear people saying that it’s beating a dead horse, but it’s also not a topic that should be swept under the rug either.
We all need to stare intensely at this news and figure out how to deal with the ripples and jolts that this all represents.
Or maybe we should have been doing that years ago.
But, about that Tahoe trip.
I should point out that there were not one but two of those Tahoe trips organised by Wine Australia with a second weekend produced the following year.
Those Tahoe trips left some very strong comments, both positive and critical, from many folks who are involved with Australian wines in the States.
I could go and on about the event and the impacts it had but that amount of content would overload your server.
What I will say, however, is that another marketing slogan is not the answer (as reinforced by empty wine glasses or none at all in the pix you published. I mean, who does this?).
Yet it seems to be the only answer that the folks who run things in Australia can come up with.
The US wine trade is inundated by marketing programs from all sorts of countries and many of them are directed at us from Europe funded by the EEC’s flood of money.
I can’t think of any country, whether it’s an old standby like Portugal or newcomers like Cyprus, that can say that the success in promoting their wines comes from one-liners like, “We Make a Wine for That.”
It’s important to put money into a market like the States which still has more potential despite what some might think.
However, what is needed is smart money, especially with the limited budgets allocated to our market by the Australian wine industry and government.
Going back to your article, I can offer a bit of good news: Jose Delgado continues to be a good friend of the Aussie wine category to this day.
But to move the needle, we need more than somms on our side.
Today we need more importers, more educators, more distributors, more wine, more money, more, more, more…
Reduced budgets, reduced personnel, reduced presence only guarantee reduced sales.
But we also need more success stories, things that we can all rally around and that is what I am not seeing these days.
2026 will be my 40th year of working with Australian wines in the States and what I see today is more tired people, more folks giving up, and at the same time, no new energy, no new people and no new thinking.
And that is what really worries me.
And what worries me even more is that one month from now, nothing will change.
Except that exports to the US will have declined. Again.