‘Race to the bottom’ keeps Wine Hero Paul Henry awake nights

Rather than a ‘race to the bottom’ that risks stripping value out of wine, where someone will always undercut you to supply major multiples, wine expert Henry (pictured) instead urges a ‘race to the top’ backed by values such as desire, respect, guts, dignity, and innovation. “What keeps me awake at night, apart from Olympic jetlag, is the idea that I think the retail world is predicated on three attributes. Fast, good and cheap,” Henry said, in his opening address to delegates at Wine Vision 2013 (November 18-21). Genuine fine wine narrative lacking Rather than simply negotiating with a retailers and mainly discussing price, Henry suggests alternative marketing models that are less proprietary – say narratives positioning your region or country in the world – integrating, say, wine, tourism and food platforms, like the Barossa region of South Australia. “While I’m certainly not here to demand that wine drinking shouldn’t remain a mainstream pursuit, I think once again we’ve barely – perhaps outside a few regions in France – made much of a case for a genuine fine wine narrative, certainly not from the Southern Hemisphere,” Henry said. “Production is growing in the Southern Hemisphere versus the North. Consumption is growing versus the north – this is an obvious omission that we need to address,” he added. Mechanics of money problematic Talking about a 100-acre vineyard called 1000 Candles, in the Yarra Valley, that he is involved in, Henry says it is owned by a Chinese businessman who demanded he ‘change the conversation’ on Australian fine wine. “What’s hard in wine in terms of being ambitious – is that it’s hard to realize the mechanics of money and return on investment. Invariably the value of your land appreciates much quicker than you can get things off in terms of production,” Henry said. “The wine world is in desperate need of ‘patient capital’, the mechanics of return on investment . You just make it far too attritional otherwise. Here we have an opportunity to realize an individual investor’s dream and hopefully by so doing, invite the world to look at the category in a different way." Citing the phrase coined by a restaurateur David Chang, ‘Food 3.0’, to describe a shift towards Asia supplanting Mediterranean world as the dominant food force in Europe (where it has reigned for 600+ years) as well as at home, Henry expressed his approval. “How neat, how exciting to capture the evolution of food and food styles in this way – with such a story. I compare that to that which we have in the wine industry, which for me seems a little leaden footed.” Food 3.0 to Wine 3.0? “We talk about the old world – the new world, not sure whether we’re referring to geography, philosophy or a mixture of both. Meanwhile, the food industry makes cuisine something experiential that speaks to consumers far more directly,” Henry said. “Some of the answers, in terms of how we put our products together to engage people – particularly young people, are to be found in the annals of restaurants and food at the moment. By 2020 the Millennial generation will be in charge of consumption. “And if I look at the soft power focus of restaurants at the moment – it almost seems to have replaced music. It speaks to the masses, agitates, it’s disruptive – at times it’s even intensely political. “I think we have much to learn,” Henry said.

‘Race to the bottom’ keeps Wine Hero Paul Henry awake nights

Marketing consultant Paul Henry, Wine Hero, says the main thing that keeps him up at night is a retail world for wine focused on three attributes – fast, good, cheap – with the latter cause for concern.

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