The Buyer | Analysis: How World Bulk Wine Exhibition sets global wine agenda

Here’s a challenge for you. You have got less than four hours to go to an international wine trade fair and then come back and write a business report on what the major trends, challenges and opportunities are for the global wine industry.

Sounds a pretty impossible task doesn’t it? Not if you go to the World Bulk Wine Exhibition and know what you are doing and who to talk to. That’s also exactly what some of the wine industry’s most important and influential wine buyers do every year when they find the time to go to Amsterdam at the end of November. A fair when you only need half a day to find out what is really going on in the industry you work in.

Spend two days there and you get to know all the chapters and verses of who is buying what and what for.

In fact, it’s more of a surprise who is not there than who is, considering how influential the show has become in the last 10 years as bulk wine increasingly fills the shelves of our major supermarkets, bars and restaurants.

The technology, know-how and capability of bottling wines in market means 18 out of the top 20 UK wine brands are brought in by bulk.

Throw sustainability into the mix and it becomes even more relevant and important to the buying strategies of our major retailers, pub and restaurant groups and the producers looking to serve them.

Rodolphe Lameyse, chief executive of Vinexposium, the events business behind Wine Paris that now owns 100% of WBWE, says “the world of wine all sits in this hall” and it is like bringing together the “concentrated” talents of the industry’s main buyers and producers in one small room.

One major UK importer even accused those buyers, particularly from the big supermarkets, that are not at the show as “being lazy” and “not doing their jobs properly”. “You have got to be here to see what is going on,” they said. “How can you not have time to come to this show?”

It’s the fact you can cut to the chase and get right down to business that makes the show so effective for producers and buyers alike, said another. A number of major UK importers and retail buyers told The Buyer it was a quick and effective way to see their main producers.

Or as one rather succinctly put it: “There’s so much less f***ing around here.”

Both Alastair Pyatt, head of buying, and Rob Hilton, operations director, at Freixenet Copestick, said it was a great way for them to catch up with their key bulk wine suppliers - particularly for its iHeart range - and keep up to speed with their partners, particularly from South America.

With a much smaller show it is also possible to spend so much more quality time with them, they added.

Down to earth

The belt and braces approach of the World Bulk Wine Exhibition even stretched this year as far as not even having a carpet for the producers and buyers to do business on - which might have been pushing it a bit. But you don’t go to the WBWE for the pot pourri, gourmet lunches and double decker exhibition stands.

Its stripped back approach, though, is one that Lameyse and the Vinexposium team will look to build on in the coming years, he says. For example, this year’s show allowed buyers and producers to pre-book meetings for the first time which has “been very successful”.

Watching you, watching me

For the UK wine industry this year’s show could not come at a better time. It was the first major event since the budget that importers and retailers could get to see their customers and producer partners.

A chance to reflect on another duty rise and confirmation that the new duty regime and higher rates for higher alcohol wines is set to start in February 2025.

An opportunity also to watch, look and listen to what your competitors and peers are up to and how they are going to face up to and implement the changes.

There was definitely a sense that everyone was watching each other at the show in order to plot the right way forward for them.

What came out loud and clear from multiple sources was that few of major importers are willing to list and sell wines below 10% abv and that the sweet spot, if there is such a thing, for lower alcohol wines that can take advantage of the lower abv duty rates sits more between 10% and 11.5%.

All the talk earlier this year at Wine Paris and ProWein of a mass move to 8%-9% appears to have abated for two key reasons. Importers and retailers are agreed that there simply is not the consistent quality of wine at that level, and, crucially, there is little consumer demand for them.

Even the term “mid” range wines is not understood and the retailers that have gone ahead with near 8% wines have had customers coming back into the shop with half drunk bottles of wine asking for their money back. Hardly the way to increase wine sales never mind hang on to them.

Hilton confirmed that Freixenet Copestick was looking to source 10%-11.5% for its bulk wine needs. Similarly Hugo Campbell, managing director, at Ehrmanns.

Lesley Cook, buying director at Lanchester Wines, said the duty changes were going to have a different impact depending on which channel of the market you are in. Lanchester Wines remains steadfast, she stressed, that it won’t “do anything that comprises quality”.

The consumer, she added, will ultimately decide, and it is clear from initial research and sales that the consumer demand for sub 10% wines is not there.

There is also the issue of convincing producers to make the wines in the first place and committing to contracts that may not deliver the volumes being asked for, she warned.

For the major retailers looking to save a couple of pence per bottle by moving abv levels by 0.1% it means huge administrative costs and the risk that the percentage rate remains the same throughout the wine’s journey through the supply chain, added Mark Roberts, sales director at Lanchester Wines.

“There’s lots of people who are not sure how this is going to work from an administrative point of view,” he added. “This time next year we will all have a clearer view on where all this is going to go.”

Cook agreed: “Time will tell and at the moment no-one really knows.”

No and lower

Will Willis, director at Frederick’s Wine Company, blamed what he called a “knee jerk reaction” as importers and producers alike talked about bringing alcohol duty levels well down. But there was a real risk of “dumbing down the consumer” if they did.

It’s why he has helped co-found, along with David Hodgson, Zeno, a range of premium 0.5% abv wines that are proving their worth with listings in the likes of Waitrose, Hedonism and most recently Fullers.

Here a vacuum distillation technique helps brings down the abv, but with wines sourced from single estate vineyards in Spain the focus is still on wine quality even at 0.5%.

It now has a five-strong range that retails at £10 for still for its white, rosé and red and £12 for its sparkling white and rosé.

“You have to trust consumers to make an informed choice,” he said. “Empower them. Don’t hoodwink them.”

Sellers than buyers

It’s good for the quality and purpose of the show that WBWE attracts so many important buyers, it’s just a shame for more of the producers point of view there aren’t more of them there to do business at the prices they want.

Sean Hutchinson of Tiki Wine felt there was “more sellers than buyers” at the fair, particularly those from New Zealand who are still trying to balance the books from what has been a sharp reduction in the price that competitive buyers have been willing to pay in recent years for bulk wine - particularly off the back of the small 2021 harvest, followed by bumper 2022 harvest that saw some buyers “stuck on stock,” says Hutchinson.

Tiki is keen, he added, to secure more private and exclusive label contracts in “mature and maturing markets” and has been encouraged to see more opportunities around “good, better and best” own label ranges, particularly in the US where there “is still so much potential”.

The work New Zealand has been able to do in that area in the UK has “helped us definitely in lots of other countries” and he was pleased to see a “good flow” of quality buyers from across Europe.

“The quality is there and there is also a lot of volume,” said Chelsea Blalock at Marlborough Vineyards, who was at WBWE for the second time, and came away with a “lot of exciting leads”.

Cautious buyers

It was a similar message from producers from most countries at the show. They were there with lots of volume of wine to sell. The difficulty was convincing cautious buyers to buy it.

Willis and Stuart Bowman-Hood at Frederick’s Wine Company were well placed to comment as they had producers from Argentina, Chile, South Australia, and New Zealand at the show.

“We have had the best show we could,” said Willis, despite the fact there were some “silly prices” being asked for Chile and Australian wine.

He said it was interesting to see the demand for what he calls “parcel” orders for bulk wine for bespoke retail projects - particularly in the hard discounters - that can act as footfall drivers on a ‘when it’s gone, it’s gone’ basis. He said he expected two see some of the bigger retailers follow suit as part of the “keeping up with Aldi” strategy.

It means businesses like Frederick’s have to be “open to new ideas” and keep looking at ways it can be relevant to buyers looking for new options, said Bowman-Hood.

“Bulk wine gives us the platform to work with people we like and want to work with,” he added.

It was at the bulk wine fair where they were able to meet up with Antigua Bodega from San Juan and introduce them to the UK for the first time.

“It has been very helpful for us to listen to what the UK market needs, and we have been able to get some contracts on the back of it,” said Facundo Fernandez at Antigua Bodega.

Australian blues

The fall out in the Australia wine industry is likely to continue well into 2025 as the double whammy of over production and plummeting prices meant buyers were able to pick off the producers and the quality they wanted at the show, well below the prices being asked - as low as AUS$0.65 a litre confirmed one major UK importer.

One leading bulk wine Australian producer, who was happy to talk candidly off the record, described the “last four years as horrendous” and you are now faced with driving through parts of south Australia and “seeing fields with piles of vines that have just been ripped up”.

One upside of a Trump Presidency is that China will “turn its attention on the US and Europe and not be bothered by Australia,” they said.

Bowman-Hood, though, argued there was still a good market for more premium Australian bulk wine and it was working well with its producers at around AUS$2.85 to AUS$3.50 a litre.

Lesley Cook said we can also expect to see Chile’s prices “harden” going into 2025 on the back of a below average 2024 vintage.

The final word on the 2024 WBWE goes to its chief executive Rodolphe Lameyse, who was able to reflect on the impact the show will have long after it has finished: “The bulk wine industry and what we see here in Amsterdam helps raise the quality of all wine around the world.”

* You can find out more about the World Bulk Wine Exhibition at its website here.