No better time for Top Value
Huon Hooke in Top Value Wines Become a member to view this article
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Treasury Wine Estates is selling off several brands including Wolf Blass. Wolf Blass Wines
Top Value Wines Feature Week
Here we are in The Real Review’s annual Top Value feature weeks and there is good news for the drinker.
With over-supply, the poorest wine is left over, the best goes into bottles, and the drinker is the winner.Two of our biggest wine producing entities—Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) and Pernod-Ricard—are trying to quit the lower priced wine market. Sales of lower-priced Australian red wine have slumped, leaving a lot of unsold bulk wine in tanks around the country.
This is likely to result in higher quality wine for the budget buyer. With over-supply, the poorest wine is left over, the best goes into bottles, and the drinker is the winner.
Accentuating the positive, we at The Real Review are celebrating the Top Value wines of Australia and New Zealand. Our annual survey of the best wines up to AUD $25 a bottle is all about finding great value drinking without breaking the bank.
We are championing the seeker of value in wine. Yes, most of the greatest wines of either Australia or New Zealand are expensive, and their price limits their market to a small and well-heeled audience.
But that is not where most wine drinkers live. And when cost of living pressures bite, as they are doing now, people are looking to make their dollar go further.
Treasury Wine Estates is selling off several brands—Wolf Blass, Yellowglen, Lindeman’s and Blossom Hill—and there are rumours other brands such as Wynns, Seppelt, Pepperjack and Rawson’s Retreat could be sold or de-merged into a separate business.
TWE boss Tim Ford says they are going where the customers are going—up-market. “We’re moving to where the consumer is going.”
He makes it sound as if all consumers are going up-market. Maybe what he really means is that cheap wines aren’t sufficiently profitable for a publicly listed company which has to please shareholders and industry analysts.
We say: “Make hay while the sun shines!”