Bibendum boosts Australian range with Rathbone Wine Group

By Gemma McKenna

Published: 29 May, 2014

Bibendum Wine has beefed up its Australian portfolio with the addition of three new Australian wineries following a partnership with Rathbone Wine Group.

The wineries are Mount Langhi Ghiran in Grampians, Victoria; Yering Station in Victoria's Yarra Valley; and Xanadu from Margaret River, Western Australia.

Bibendum boost Australia Mount Langhi GhiranBibendum has further beefed up its Australian wine range with the addition of three wineries from Rathbone Wine Group.

All three wineries have a five-star rating from Australian critic James Halliday and their locations in Victoria and Western Australia boost Bibendum's existing Australian portfolio which includes Penfolds, Tim Adams, Best's and Battle of Bosworth. The group added Treasury Estates-owned Wynns, alongside Fraser Gallop and Morris of Rutherglen, to its portfolio back in March.

Matt Smith, Bibendum's New World buying manager, said: "We are hugely excited to be representing such a quality-focused, family wine company. Rathbone's highly awarded wineries perfectly complement each other and offer our customers fantastic regional and stylistic diversity."

Darren Rathbone, chief executive and group winemaker of Rathbone Wine Group, said: "We have big ambitions for the UK market and are very pleased to be working with a like-minded, independent business to grow our sales. Bibendum has a proven track record of selling premium wines to all sectors of the UK market and I expect us to enjoy a long and profitable partnership together."

Bibendum becomes the UK agent for Rathbone Wine Group in the on and off-trade on June 22, 2014.

Bibendum sells over 1.5 million cases of wine to nearly 3,000 on-trade customers, from Michelin-starred restaurants to independent pubs and international sporting venues. The company's off-trade division was set up in 1995.

Rathbone's Yering Station was Victoria's first vineyard, planted in 1838. The group's Mount Laghi was set up in the 1870s while Xanadu was a more recent addition, planted by John and Eithne Lagan in 1977. The couple named the vineyard after Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Kubla Khan poem.

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