Global Beverage Trade and Company Overviews
SITUATION SUMMARY: WINE The New Zealand wine industry has shown rapid growth driven by
Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc; some diversification into new varieties and new regions is occurring
NEW ZEALAND WINE
The New Zealand wine industry has achieved
spectacular growth over the last 40 years, going from
NZ£51 in exports in 1960 to NZ$1.6b in 2016. Today
New Zealand competes successfully with major wine
producers, both old world (e.g. France, Germany) and
new (e.g. Australia). New Zealand has achieved an
overall premium price position in-market on par with
France (which has been producing wine for ~2,000
years).
International success to date has been built almost
exclusively on Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc which
has become a "must-have" wine for major wine
players. However good Marlborough wine area is
now almost all used. This may be a good thing as
Marlborough now has almost as much area in grapes
as Burgundy.
Emergent secondary regions are 20 years behind
Marlborough in terms of development. Hawkes Bay,
Waipara and Central Otago stand out as the next best
prospects. However, other than Hawkes
Bay/Gimblett Gravels Syrah and Central Otago Pinot
Noir most regions have yet to find "their" wine and
the experience of Europe suggest this could take
some time.
Wine production is a fast growing industry for New
Zealand, with a number of firms, ranging from very
large to very small. Many large wineries are now
foreign owned and on-going acquisitions are
occurring. As a result foreign ownership now plays a
big part in the wine industry, and these global firms
with their global sales resources and reach, provide a
path-to-market for introducing global consumers to
New Zealand wines.
That being said, there is a substantial group of
successful medium sized New Zealand owned
wineries that, in many ways, are the key force driving
industry quality and innovation forward (e.g. light
wine development).
COMPETITORS
New Zealand wine competes directly with that from
other premium temperate climate countries,
particularly France, Germany, cooler parts of the US
(e.g. Oregon) and Chile.
CONSUMERS/MARKETS
Global oversupply has been ongoing, pushing down
prices. These falling prices have impacted New
Zealand wines.
At the same time wine consumption is declining in
many EU markets (France, Italy, Spain) for social,
lifestyle and economic reasons. These twin forces,
falling consumption and falling prices, have in turn
triggered a decrease in global wine area and
production, particularly in the three largest wine
producers (France, Italy & Spain). On-going changes
to EU subsidy systems have accelerated the process.
New Zealand's success to date in wine has been
primarily in the Anglo-Saxon four (USA, Canada, UK
& AU). Luckily these markets have had stable-to-
increasing consumption. However, it would be in the
interest of New Zealand producers to develop new
markets to reduce this concentrated reliance on these
markets.
China is a rapidly emerging growth market for global
wine and is now the fourth largest wine importing
country in the world by value. China is now New
Zealand's sixth wine export destination and growing.
Available in-market data suggests - at a high level -
that the growth of New Zealand wine is at the
expense of French wines (i.e. the two are close
substitutes for consumers).
Source: Coriolis; interviews
CORIOLIS 5View entire presentation