Australian UK wine exports continue premium trend

By Mathew Lyons

Published: 25 January, 2017

Australian wine exports to the UK continue to show a strong trend towards premiumisation, according to Wine Australia's latest annual Export Report, due to be released this Friday.

The report will shows that exports at $5/L were up 23% while those at $10/L and above grew by 25%. In addition, bulk wine exports fell back 14% while bottled exports rose 6%.

Premium wines showed strong sales in the key Christmas season, with sales over £19.99 at key retailer Majestic Wines up 54%, and sales over £15 at Virgin Wines up by 5%. Australian wines constitute around 20% of all Virgin wine sales.

The trend to premiumisation was also apparent at the first Australia Day Tasting in London yesterday.

The event saw a record 900 visitors sample some 1,100 wines from over 200 wineries, just over half of which were priced between £10 and £20 and over a fifth were priced between £20 and £35.

Laura Jewell MW, head of market EMEA at Wine Australia, said: "This week's Australia Day Tasting in London really highlighted the diversity of Australian wine and reinforced the country's reputation as a premium wine producer. As our biggest UK event to date, it was a great success and I'd like to raise a toast to the 230 wineries that joined us.

As momentum for Australian premium wine grows, we'll continue to share stories of people, place and provenance and work with the trade to build on what has been a very positive start to the year."

Simon Thorpe MW, managing director at Negociants UK, said: "The trend towards premiumisation continues as the more engaged consumer segments look to trade up into GI specific wines at and more than the £10 price point. This trend has been particularly strong in independent retail and premium fine dining venues.

In addition, we have never witnessed such strong demand for super-premium/iconic wines across our Australian portfolio, this demand is coming from fine wine exponents whose customers are obviously keen to explore the very top end of what Australia has to offer."

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