Winepress - July 2021

GROW

Port Pause Many a slip twixt the wine and the ship SOPHIE PREECE

Siobhan Wilson

SHIPPING DELAYS are “majorly” impacting wine exports, says Siobhan Wilson of Marisco Vineyards in Marlborough.

“We have orders coming in, which we are madly bottling the new vintage to meet, to then have the containers bumped off boats,” says the general manager, sales and marketing.

“This is having a negative impact on delivering our sales budgets, our financial planning and cash flow.”

The ramifications of Covid-19 mean exporting has been challenging for the past six to eight months, but the impact is worse now than ever, because of decisions shipping companies made when the pandemic was in “full swing”, says Siobhan. “The reduction in the number of boats coming to New Zealand, and therefore the availability of space

12 / Winepress July 2021

“Even more challenging is when boats omit coming to Nelson at all”

on these boats, means that we are competing with not just other wine companies but all export products from New Zealand to get our orders on board.”

Ships are being overbooked, so that containers all set to go get “bumped off” and have to wait another two weeks for potential space on another vessel, she says. “Even more challenging is when boats omit coming to Nelson at all – which means that there can be up to a month before another boat is coming in.”

The delays are not just a result of departures from New Zealand, but also because ships are caught up in other ports,

Siobhan Wilson