Wine for Thought

As with most industries selling a product, the wine industry is very adept at promoting a positive message. Life’s wonderful, everything is fabulous! However, I recently read an article titled ‘Consumers can handle the truth’ (Cathy Gadd, Wine Business Magazine, May/June 2024) and it got me thinking. In the article Cathy writes ‘most consumers are oblivious to the state of play and the dire situation of the Australian wine industry’. Bushfires, Covid, China tariffs, interest rate hikes, the increased cost of doing business and a shift in drinking habits have all combined to cause some real pain.

But there is one issue that most consumers may be quite unaware of - the big two wine retailers Endeavour Drinks (formerly Woolworths) and Coles (Dan Murphy’s, Vintage Cellars, 1st Choice, Liquorland, Woolworths Liquor and BWS) own hundreds of their own wine brands which often look very much like family-owned boutique brands.

And this is where you come in!

I may be preaching to the choir here, you clearly are already a supporter of family-owned wineries (thank you 😊) but you might want to check out this website. It's a page on the The Real Review site (founded by wine writer Huon Hooke) and it lists all the brands owned by the big two. We all shop at these stores and they do support plenty of smaller producers, but a fantastic way to support all these wonderful, family-owned wineries in Australia would be to take a list of these brands with you when you are next browsing the aisles so you can make an informed choice.

Winemakers all over the country will thank you for it.