Dan Killey, sales director of Brand Warrior, reflects on Wine Paris 2026 and the strong pipeline of sales leads it generated.
From our perspective, on face value, Wine Paris 2026 was potentially one of the best wine platforms I’ve ever attended for selling wine.
The event delivered beautifully, great venue, easy access, all stock arrived (which is always a win), and we had a strong booth that we shared with our friends from Diva Bordeaux and A Wines (Spain and California) in the French section. Everything ran to plan.
Most importantly, the quality of buyers was excellent.
Meetings were short, sharp and highly engaged.
I’ve been attending Dusseldorf since around 2014, and while the Germans run a fantastic show, I would say Wine Paris has now taken over as the number one platform to introduce wines to new buyers, negotiate, and move deals forward.
From our side, Claire and I were on the stand, along with two of our European business partners.
Across the three days, we held well over 60 meetings.
As we both know, the real work begins now, converting those conversations into partners and orders, but the pipeline is strong.
Encouragingly, the head buyers from Sweden, Norway and Finland all came to see us, and we had very productive discussions around our wines, with strong interest in certain SKUs.
There was also great representation from Eastern Europe and across the broader European market.
All the key UK players were present, most of whom we met with. And just maybe Canada might be the first to place orders.
Overall, I’m upbeat.
We were exhausted by the end of it, but in a good way. Now it’s about following through and closing.
This year, Brand Warrior implemented a far more targeted approach.
Each winery had clearly defined countries they wanted to enter, so meetings were strategic rather than speculative.
We also introduced a few new offshore importer strategies, which were very well received and appear to have gained traction.
I did hear some chatter on my return about questionable deals being done.
I can’t speak to that directly, but what I will say is that the global wine market is tough at the moment.
Companies everywhere, whether in New Zealand, Italy, Spain, France, the USA or elsewhere, are simply trying to survive. It’s not unique to any one country.
Business back at home in Australia with our clients is strong, Brand Warrior Marketing (Claire and the girls) are doing some amazing work across many platforms and getting great cut through.
Sales side, Byron and I are working really well with some of our partner brands within the majors.
While distribution or finding homes for brands in Australia is tough, we are seeing some wins for companies.
The main thing we are targeting is getting or opening more direct distribution channels for people and increasing invoicing.
It’s not an easy market, but there is progress being made, and momentum is building in the right areas.
We front up again to Honkers in a few months for Vinexpo 2026
Lastly, the Pork Knuckle was replaced with Steak Frites, some Terrine and a rather large glass of Champagne, which I was very ok with!
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