Decanter World Wine AwardsHuge NZ harvest will 'add to country's woes'
- Thursday 9 December 2010
The latest industry survey published by accountancy firm Deloitte and New Zealand Winegrowers reports a reduced vintage in 2010, totalling 265 tonnes, has gone some way to alleviating problems caused by the previous two record crops but Deloitte partner, Paul Munro warned, 'Predictions that the 2011 harvest could exceed 300,000 tonnes threaten to add to the industry’s woes'.
'Future supply must be matched to global demand, otherwise a cheapening of our wines in key international markets could occur,' he added.
The country's marketing body, New Zealand Winegrowers, is urging its producers to cap yields to prevent a bumper crop. Philip Gregan, CEO of Winegrowers told Decanter.com: 'We sent out a letter to every grape grower and wine producers last week stressing the importance of being market-led and have had meetings in Hawke's Bay and Marlborough to get home the same message: there's a fine line between having a supply balance and imbalance.'
The report also revealed the past year has continued the recent trend of declining profitability and rising indebtedness, with little prospect of any improvement in the short term.
The smallest wineries are suffering the most, losing around NZ$50 per case. The country's biggest producers are making a small profit but hold more than 10 million litres of stock and it warned releasing this stock would fuel the downward pressure on prices, making life even more difficult for the smaller players.
Have your say!
Peter Le Fort
December 10 19:14
New Zealands locally owned Wine Producers need to concentrate on maintaining a worldwide reputation for quality and value. That will allow them,over time, to stand up to the Internationally owned companies, who are taking advantage of the NZ Sauv. Blanc mini-boom, while having little or no interest in the long term health of the NZ Wine Industry.
Jay
December 10 18:38
NZ Sauvignon Blanc is some of the best in the world. You just to have get folks to try it. Put Chinese pictograms on it and bingo - problem solved.
Jamie Goode
December 09 17:45
265 tons certainly is a reduced harvest!
One of the problems of holding stock back is that 3MHA, one of the thiols that makes Marlborough savvie so distinctive, diminishes a great deal with time in bottle, and is almost all gone after a year.