Treasury Wine Estates boss rails against ‘wall of sameness’

(MoodieReport) - Treasury Wine Estates CEO David Dearie has urged the wine industry to learn from the spirits business in order to make advances within travel retail.

In a speech to the Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference earlier this month, Dearie discussed how the industry needed to develop wine as a luxury product, and detailed how the spirits business had worked “hard to build brands and tell consistent stories about the quality of those brands”.

“It is also worth considering the current dominance of spirits within the international showcase of global travel retail, he added."

"Think about the brand building and story-telling major spirit brands have embraced in order to profile their products. And ponder why certain spirits bottles are instantly recognisable in contrast to the ‘wall of sameness’ that exists in wine.”

Further on in his speech, he said establishing TWE, and Australian wine, as an international force in global travel retail was one of the areas the company was concentrating on.

He also talked about the "immense opportunities" presented by China but at the same time warned that Chinese consumers were more sophisticated and educated than many in Australia were giving them credit for.

"In my opinion you can’t take an unknown brand to China and expect it to succeed just because it’s a big market with growing demand," he said. "You also can’t inflate your prices and kid the Chinese consumer that a $20 wine is now worth $200. The Chinese consumer is too knowledgeable for that.