Giving a talk at a recent WSET Business and Commercial Knowledge course gave Matthew Dickinson the opportunity to look at where the profit in wine has gone. Here he reflects on what he discovered:
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Following last week's web video masterclass and seminar hosted by Google and YouTube for members of the UK wine trade and students from Burgundy's School of Wine Business, wine consultant Matthew Dickinson gives his personal summary and looks at how video is going to change the way the wine industry communicates.
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I've never worried about being controversial, and some statements in this post may shock - so if you don't want to know the score, look away now. Whisper it: "Some producers do not invest sufficiently in their commercial activities."' And perhaps even more quietly: "Some agents squat on an agreement with a producer without doing anything for their commissions."
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Having attended my fair share of wine fairs (geddit?) over the years, both as buyer, producer, agent and now general dogsbody (sorry, highly regarded entrepreneur), I find myself getting cynical - a dangerous place to be during your mid-life crisis.
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Last week, I had the potentially dubious pleasure of being invited to the French Embassy in London to participate in a round table discussion with a roll-call of French dignitaries - the French export minister Mme Bricq, a senator, a (rather attractive, and surprisingly young) 'député' - as French MPs are known - the Ambassador, a raft of bureaucrats, the chief executive of Danone UK etc. As far as egos, remuneration and importance in the general pecking order went, I was way down the far end of the table.
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There has been lots of noise on either side of the Channel in the past few years about how the French don't really need the UK market any more. How they don't like us any more, how we're tighter than the Dutch and the Germans, and if the French don't succeed here, there are other markets, more dynamic and happier to pay a higher price.
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