Up north they are picking on Cooks

Press, 20 August 1981, Page 8

Up north they are picking on Cooks

Maurice Hunter’s

GRAPEVINE

I have sometimes felt that it is a disadvantage to write about wine so far away from where it is all happening; that it would be nice to be able to be more up-to-date by being closer to the horse’s mouth. I have recently spent three weeks so close to the horse that we shared the same nosebag — and the things I heard! Almost as I disembarked at Auckland Airport I found that it was “Hate Cooks’’ week, mainly because of their recent release of Party

Pack, a cheap flavoured wine (beverage?) in a three

litre bag-in-box pack. This, it i was contended, was a line

i that ; no self-respecting wine ; company should be putting ; on the market. ■ In spite of the holier-than- ' thou attitude of all the i others, I was unable to dis- ; cover whether the real

reason for the spate of criticism was the quality of the product or jealousy aroused by the volume of sales it had achieved. The horse told me that a special meeting of the appropriate committee of the Wine Institute had failed, after an all-day sitting, to agree to ban the production of flavoured wines because some of the members felt that they may want to produce them themselves at some stage! This seems to argue that jealousy was the stronger emotion.

The whole industry is

jumpy over a projected surplus of grape juice in 1982. (It would have happened this year but for bad weather at flowering which prevented the fruit from setting). The feeling is that, if all wine had a 95 per cent juice content, the surplus would be absorbed.

A question which no one seemed to be willing to answer was whether a surplus would result in a level of competition which would bring consumer prices down, or at least contain them.

Some producers would argue that their profitability would be at risk. If that is so, how is it that Corbans, who have given a guarantee of 95 per cent of juice content, even in their bag-in-box wines, since the 1980 vintage, have managed to keep their prices competitive? Cooks were again in the news a few days later when the board unofficially revealed that it believed that McWilliams, in the first innovative move I have known them to make, were trying to buy a 24.9 per cent shareholding in the company from CBA Finance Holdings.

Although the horse was incorrect when it told me that McWilliams had actually taken Cooks over, I was not surprised. Shareholders were told at the annual meeeting that sales and profits were down. Considering the way in which they have been fiddling around with lines like

Spritzer (a flavoured wine), Waimak mineral water and then Party Pack, whether the board wished to convey the impression or not, these appeared to be almost last ditch moves to retrieve a deteriorating situation. Others have obviously had similar thoughts. At the time of writing nothing further has been heard of the move but, in the absence of any official statement, we must assume that the in-fighting is still going on.

Ballins Industries and Lion Breweries, partners in previous ventures, would appear to be initiators of the action. Between them they have a shareholding of 52.8 per cent of McWilliams, both have been active in other directions recently, and. they are not likely to give in easily. In the middle of. all this, hands were raised in horror at a Parliamentary announcement that several winemakers were suspected of watering down their wines.

Everyone ducked for cover, saying, “Don’t look at me!” and Terry Dunleavey, executive officer of the Wine Institute, dragged a couple of red herrings across the trail. One was in the form of a statement dismissing the announcement as “a rash of publicity in the last few days to non-compliance notices sent to a few of our wineries, in which these minor technical -Please explains’ have

been distorted into a minor campaign of denigration of New Zealand wine.”

Enclosed was a clipping of Pamela Vandyke Price’s article in “Good Housekeeping” in praise of our quality wines.

The other was a copy of an article by the Australian authority. Len Evans, talking about the poor quality of Australian cask and flagon wines.

So what? We know that our export wines are the best — and we know that Aussie cask and flagon jobs can leave much to be desired. How can either be relevant to the watering of New Zealand wines?

On behalf of the producers who are playing the game, Corbans general manager, Kevin Peterson, expressed' grave concern, not only that some diluted, flavoured beverages were being sold by the carafe or glass as genuine house wines on some licensed premises, but also that the Wine Institute appeared to be reluctant to recommend prompt action to the Government.

He also feels, and it would be difficult to find anyone who would disagree, that the villains should be named. This business of water in our wines has been going on for far too long and there has been too much pussyfooting around at official level. The regulations are there in everyone's interest. If anyone is not complying, the remedy is simple. Just publish the name, and the public will sort him out in two seconds flat.

Note: Speculation on the possibility of McWilliams taking a 24.9 per cent interest in Cooks has ended. C.B.A. Finance Holdings, Ltd, has sold its 30 per cent holding in Cooks to the Hawke’s Bay Farmers Co-Operative Association, Ltd, it was reported in “The Press” commercial page yesterday. The price for the cash purchase was not disclosed. Cooks shares have lately been selling at around 130 c. Home and People editor.