Forty years ago small Australian wineries sold their wares to a collection of local merchants and private customers. Today most successful small Australian wine brands consider Australia to be just one of the several markets they service. Now, with the recent rise in wealth throughout our Asian neighbours, it’s becoming harder to board a plane around Asia without bumping into an Australian winemaker or sales manager in a lounge or an aerobridge.
Jeremy Muller, the owner of the tiny Margaret River brand of Peccavi, knows his way around Asia as well as any of them. A refugee from the money market whose father instilled in him a love of cabernet and chardonnay, Muller personifies the recent internationalisation of the wine game. He’s English, lives in Malaysia, travels daily to Singapore where success in his first career enabled him to create the Peccavi brand, fell in love with Margaret River and to this day remains totally besotted by the great wines of the Medoc and Burgundy.
Muller’s top tier Peccavi wines comprise a Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Shiraz and a Bordeaux-inspired Sauvignon Blanc Semillon. They are all outstanding. His second label, No Regrets, houses a Cabernet Merlot and a fruit-focused Sauvignon Blanc Semillon. Most are sold within Asia. It’s intriguing to see how Muller interprets the differences between various Asian wine markets.
Representing around a fifth of Peccavi’s sales is Singapore, Muller’s home base, where thanks in part to the high octane entertaining schedule of his previous life, Muller is known to the restaurant community, to say the least. ‘Singapore is ultra-competitive but strong’, he says. ‘You need to have an established brand and you need connections with the top importers. But there are more than 600 registered importers in Singapore today, most of whom are just bringing in wines they might have discovered on holiday. So prices can be low and the market is always looking for the lowest price. Parallel importers have distorted prices here and several have really trashed some fine brands.’
Muller’s Singapore successful strategy in Singapore was to set up own sales team there to sell not only his wines but a collection of high-end European and Margaret River labels, including Woodlands.
According to Muller, South Korea could yet become the Asian powerhouse for high-end wine. ‘It might be smaller than some markets, but there’s a greater appetite in Korea for wine drinking. Wages are higher than in China and there’s an energy and a willingness to experiment. It’s not as price-sensitive as other Asian markets and it’s a culture that pays on time.’ Coming second to France, Australia is well placed in Korea, where Muller has placed his Peccavi brand with a trade distributor and No Regrets with a restaurant group.
Muller sees great potential in the fast-growing Malaysian market and like many other brands is nationally distributed there by a company based in the capital of KL. The key issue in Malaysia, he argues, is maintaining provenance once the wine lands there. ‘You need to have a distributor who can take responsibility for this’, he says. Tax and other charges can also increase the prices to customers.
While there’s still an import tax into Thailand of around 300%, the expanding restaurant culture in Bangkok and other cities is raising the level and quality of its wine sales. Muller has a new distributor there and sales of Peccavi are increasing. Off a small base, he says, this could be an exciting future market.
Without the right connections, Indonesia remains a hard place to sell high-end wine, while the Philippines remains a small and difficult market to accommodate tax and local terms of trade. Muller’s suggestion to would-be exporters to these countries is to be paid up front.
While he’s not currently represented in Japan, Muller considers it a challenging market for higher-end wines. Second labels of premier brands, he suggests, are doing better there.
The political changes in China, which include the highly publicised FTA with Australia, are leading to a more consumer-focused and educated market. There’s now a bullish feel about Australian wines in China, says Muller, and emerging wine drinkers are now starting to feel that French wines – Australia’s major competitors – are very expensive. Muller recently moved from a distributor who was largely focused on the gifting market to one with strong trade connections. Starting from a small base, since his brand was not known within the trade, signs are encouraging.
Across Asia, Muller finds that people respond positively to the Margaret River brand and the taste of his medium-bodied Peccavi wines. The exposure he has gained across key international media and his expanding swag of international wine awards resonate strongly throughout the region. His next focus? Of all places, Australia!
