Exports of wine

Press, 20 December 1978, Page 20

Exports of wine

The difficulties which New Zealand faces in selling its traditional agricultural products — meat, wool and dairy products — overseas will probably increase rather than lessen. Diverting land, capital, skills and effort to other products of the land has been supported by the Government and makes good sense, provided, of course, that they are products for which reliable and profitable markets can be found. One product for which such markets may be found, and in which production has a sound base, is wine. The decision of the Wine Institute and the Customs Department to collaborate in ensuring that the vines which are exported from New Zealand are of a good standard is a necessary first step to developing a reasonably large wine export business, but a first step only.

Securing the reputation for New Zealand wines overseas which will ensure their sale will not be easy. The country must establish that its ordinary wines are of a uniformly good standard. The proposed certification scheme should help towards this goal. But the country must also aim to produce some superb wines whose reputation will enhance the country’s ordinary wines. Time will be needed both to convince consumers overseas that some of the wines New Zealand produces at the moment are of a good quality and to experiment further with the growing of different varieties of grape in different areas until the right combination is found to enable New Zealand to produce at least one or two world-class wines.

The obvious first call on producers is to maintain and improve the stand-

ards of their product, so that the label bearing the proposed new certification is not misleading. But the country’s wine producers must do more than just produce wine. They must become thoroughly conversant with the regulations of other countries, research their markets carefully and become fully conversant with all aspects of bottling, storing, handling and transporting wine for overseas markets. These requirements, too, suggest that a steady rather than a spectacular growth in the country’s exports of wine is all that can be expected for some years.

Fears may be entertained by soriie New Zealand wine drinkers that they are going to have inferior wines palmed off on them while the country’s best wines are shipped abroad. But there seems to be no need for wines produced for domestic consumption to be certified. The certification of export wines is needed because one unscrupulous winemaker could, by unloading an inferior vintage overseas for short-term gain, sour an important market for all New Zealand producers for many years. Within New Zealand, the discrimination of individual drinkers of wine is probably sufficient to ensure that the producers of good wine prosper while those who produce an inferior product will soon suffer. But overseas consumers will identify New Zealand wines by their country of origin rather than by individual winemaker, making a scheme to protect the country’s good name imperative if a promising export trade is, eventually, to flourish.