One of the latest manifestations of the current lack of faith in Australian wine has been the delay of a share offer to raise A$30 million by McPherson Wines, an Australian winery that exports around 85% of its product to the US and UK. A number of excellent articles have been published around Australia recently that pose the question why morale has sunk so low, especially given the present shortage of chardonnay and the imminent shortage of red grapes around 2-3 years from now. This sort of reaction, which is again likely to be caused by a lack of understanding of the mechanics of wine production and marketing, will simply exacerbate the industry’s troubling tendency to make dramatic swings between boom and bust situations. Hopefully commonsense will prevail and potential investors in wine will make intelligent, measured decisions based on quality research and opinion, rather than the knee-jerk reactions of those who simply haven’t been around for long enough to know what they’re talking about. Or else by the time people decide to act, the stable door will not only have been bolted long before, but the hinges will be rusting.
