Interview: Stuart Barclay, Wine Australia

“THERE’S HUGE OPPORTUNITY IN CHINA” STUART BARCLAY

Wine Australia

The message of opportunity for Australian wine in China was stronger than ever at Vinexpo Hong Kong 2018. With Australia the Country of Honour, the footprint of local wine businesses at the event reached a record 151, showcasing more than 225 Australian wine brands, from 51 wine regions. Reinforcing this message, now and for the future, was Wine Australia’s General Manager Marketing, Stuart Barclay, when he sat down with Publishing Editor Ashley Pini.

Drinks Trade: Having been to many expos, there’s clearly a much bigger Australian presence at Vinexpo Hong Kong 2018. I assume that was driven by Wine Australia?

Stuart Barclay: That’s right. I sat down with Wine Australia two years ago and discussed Australia being the Country of Honour at this year’s Vinexpo. This is the culmination of a two-year project for me. We’ve been liaising with regions to get them involved and make people aware that we were going to be here as the Country of Honour. It is a great honour and a massive investment.

DT: What is your strategy for increasing growth in China?

SB: We have a roadshow that will take over 100 brands across China. We are going to secondtier cities and cities we’ve never been to before (Shenyang, Jinan and Wuhan), and ending in Shanghai. This will give us a really deep reach into China. But if we want to continue that reach, what we need to do is get more people in China seeking and drinking Australian wines. The roadshow is only one part of the campaign. Going forward, there is a lot more consumer work that we want to do here involving educational and retail programs, and promotions. China is changing quickly, so to keep up, Australia needs to get to the forefront of technological innovation and do things differently to the rest of the world. We really need to cut through the sea of sameness that’s out there and push the fact that Australia makes some of the best wines in the world.

DT: Was it particularly pleasing for you to see the quality of Australian wineries show up at Vinexpo 2018?

SB: Absolutely. As I said, this has been a twoyear project and a full-time priority for the last 12 months. We’ve been able to get a lot of key

“Two years ago there were 28 million imported wine drinkers in China, today there are 48 million.”

Australian businesses here and Australia’s First Families of Wine are joining us on the roadshow. An expo is a great launch pad if you want to do business here.

DT: China is like the US in terms of being a large country, but how do the two markets differ?

SB: They are very different markets. China is about building awareness, getting consumers to taste our wine and understand how to consume wine correctly. In the US, the issue is around perception. Australia hasn’t been on their shelves for a decade, which means we need to catch up with the other countries that have been.

Improving the Chinese market is easier than the US because it’s about investment and ensuring that we’re talking to the right gatekeepers. China is also growing in terms of its consumers, dramatically and quickly, so there is a great opportunity here.

DT: Do you feel there is a strong appetite for Australian wine in China?

SB: Absolutely, which is why we have seen such dramatic growth in the last few years and there’s a huge opportunity going forward. Two years ago there were 28 million imported wine drinkers in China, today there are 48 million.

DT: How do you measure those kinds of numbers?

SB: We work with Wine Intelligence, which does a lot of research into identifying who the consumer is and what the trends are. We can see from that research that both online and traditional retailing are growing, take alibaba.com and the Alibaba Hema stores, for example. So there’s a big opportunity in China, even just in terms of the distribution footprint and retail footprint that exists, which wasn’t around a few years ago. But you have to be in the market and come here on a regular basis to jump on that; you can’t do it remotely.

DT: In China, it seems there is a back to basics feel, but also a push for technological innovation. Which are you implementing?

SB: It’s a mix of both. China is so large that you can’t do business only in the traditional way. So what we want to do is combine the traditional way of doing business, which is having the winemakers here on the ground regularly through expos, but then also employ technological innovation to talk to the broader mass. That’s why we’re doing the roadshow and talking to TNOW and Alibaba.

DT: What advice would you offer to Australian wine producers trying to access the Chinese market and working with Wine Australia to achieve that?

SB: Sometimes the starting point, if you’re not exporting yet, is to meet with your regional association and understand their strategy to the market. Then ask us about what else you can participate in. We have ProWine Shanghai coming up from 13-15 November 2018, and the China Food and Drinks Fair in Chengdu 24-30 March 2019. They are two very large trade shows and a bit different to Vinexpo in Hong Kong, but we are investing more into them than we have in the past as a way to get a larger footprint. So more wineries can participate in these opportunities now, than ever before.

Stuart Barclay

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