Australian wine is becoming the international flavour of the month, but not only as something to drink or buy by the bottle. Right now there’s hardly a major American or European wine company not sniffing around the edge of the Australian wine industry, snooping around for a purchase or a joint venture. Foster’s Brewing might have thought itself impenetrable once it bought Beringer, one of the jewels in the US wine industry’s crown, but it’s believed to have itself become the target of Diageo and Scottish & Newcastle, two of the UK’s largest liquor businesses. Call it Southmount or Rosecorp, but the merged wine businesses of Southcorp Wines and Rosemount might now have become an even more attractive prospect for some of the game’s big players than had either company been left to their own devices. BRL Hardy, a wonderful wine business whose share price has risen well ahead of optimistic expectations, could also be the next sitting duck. Either way, now that Australia sells more wine by value into the lucrative UK market than France and is potentially ready to give the US market a major shake, the world’s big wine players want their slice of Australia. How good must Pernod Ricard, the owners of Orlando and its exceptionally successful Jacob’s Creek brand, feel right now?
