There is an uplift in spirit throughout the Fleurieu’s wine regions as the South Australian Wine Ambassadors Club (SAWAC) recently held its family wine tasting event in McLaren Vale, giving local winemakers the opportunity to showcase their wine with international delegates.
For the first time this year Indian and Vietnamese ambassadors joined the tour, representing their growing wine markets and the opportunity for importation throughout developing wine countries.
Mike Brown, Founder and Chief Winemaker at McLaren Vale’s Gemtree Wines is part of SAWAC and says that getting potential exporters to visit the region is key for growth, with the SAWAC Tastings providing that avenue of opportunity for local winemakers.
“The Department of Trade and Investment (DTI) host these ambassador tastings once or twice a year, so we’ve been involved with them for quite some time,” Mr Brown said.
“The concept of it all is about introducing different countries to brands within a specific region, so they don’t just do McLaren Vale, they do Coonawarra, the Limestone Coast, the Barossa, Adelaide Hills…
“For us, the most important thing for business, development and export is to have people visit the region, because if we just communicate over telephone and video calls, it’s not the same as bringing people to the region and showing them the uniqueness of McLaren Vale.”
The wine industry has had a hard slog over the past few years due to COVID and export issues, but with China lifting their wine tariffs in March this year and more people travelling than ever, Mr Brown says business is changing.
“We lost three years of momentum because of COVID, so that visitation process completely ceased,” he said.
“Diversification is absolutely key across multiple markets and we learnt that lesson in November 2020 when the China tariffs came into effect and from a business perspective we lost 30 per cent of our revenue overnight.
“After COVID everyone had a reset and I think as businesses we had to think about what business as usual looks like now, compared to what we want business to look like in the future.”
The importation of McLaren Vale wine is on a steady rise in countries like India with Indian SAWAC ambassador Nikhil Agarwal explaining how South Australian wine has developed into a worldwide brand.
“As importers, we are the custodians of the brands we represent. You can’t be a custodian if you haven’t hung around them, eaten food with them and established a sense of place, which is why this initiative is extremely valuable,” Mr Agarwal said.
“Already in South Australia we’re seeing a focus on experimenting with new grape varieties, so it’s exciting to see these fresh ideas along with the more traditional lines that are typically associated with these wine regions.
“There was no wine consumption in India 30 years ago unless you were extremely rich, but now we have the largest store in Asia for wine and spirits, we make our own wine here and also sell more than 2,000 international brands.
“The wine market in India is growing at an unfathomable rate as customers now have more disposable income.”
With SAWAC continuing to flourish and wine culture growing worldwide, tasting events are just the start of new beginnings for Fleurieu wines.
