New Zealand 'could lose top slot'

New Zealand: losing its premium place?

(Image credit: New Zealand: losing its premium place?)

The New Zealand wine industry could lose its premium reputation if government does not support its marketing efforts.

The premium position of New Zealand’s industry is ‘as fragile as Pinot Noir’, Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts told this week’s Pinot Noir 2010 conference

‘It is vital you get the New Zealand government to help because as individuals you have not got a prayer.

‘Otherwise, others like the USA, Argentina, Chile and South Africa will jump in. You need to secure your premium position,’ Roberts said.

New Zealand producers currently fund the wine industry’s marketing efforts but Roberts told the industry, ‘You should place pressure on the government and lobby very hard.’

New Zealand Winegrowers marketing director Chris Yorke told decanter.com they were putting together an application for government funding.

‘Roberts said we have to get out there and sell the wine. There’s a strong case for the country to support the wine industry in our marketing efforts and we are looking to put a case together,’ he said.

New Zealand Winegrowers is funded by producer levies and pay-as-you-go promotions totaling NZ$9 million (£4m). Government funding could help promote New Zealand wines in export markets.

Sam Lewis, director of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s food and beverage taskforce said the government was investing NZ$19m in the wine industry over four years.

Written by Rebecca Gibb

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Rebecca Gibb MW is a wine journalist and editor who has also founded Bamboozled games, ‘the world’s first wine and spirit puzzle makers’. Having spent six years living in New Zealand, she has recently returned to her native north-east England. While in New Zealand, she became a Master of Wine, graduating top of her class and winning the Madame Bollinger medal for excellence in tasting. A former winner of both the UK’s young wine writer of the year and the Louis Roederer Emerging Wine Writer, her first book The Wines of New Zealand was published in 2018. She also runs wine events and has her own consultancy business The Drinks Project. She was a judge at the 2019 Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA).