Wine awards reform urged

New Zealand Winegrowers is expected to make public today its audit of Wither Hills, amid calls from senior wine industry figures for an overhaul of wine competition rules in the wake of the scandal.

In a letter to all its member wineries, chairman Stuart Smith refutes the suggestion that it is "dragging the chain" over the Wither Hills episode.

The scandal erupted after a Wither Hills sauvignon blanc 2006 submitted to Cuisine magazine's annual tasting was found to be different to some of the wine being sold under the same label in stores. Cuisine is published by Fairfax Magazines.

Smith's letter said the chain- dragging allegation is "not the case at all".

"We have an obligation to treat every individual member fairly and with proper process. We cannot rush to judgment on the basis of speculation and unverified allegations. We have acted swiftly to establish the facts of the situation through audits conducted by a qualified independent auditor. The final audit report will be completed and provided to the Board of New Zealand Winegrowers for consideration at its board meeting."

Dave Nicholas, director of wine marketing consultancy Wine Partners, said he was concerned that the Wither Hills scandal would devalue wine awards in the eyes of the public.

Nicholas is a former chairman of New Zealand Wine Exporters, a previous director of the Wine Institute and also headed the international operations of Corbans Wines.

Wine awards were very important to many wineries and winning a gold medal in the Air New Zealand wine awards could boost local sales by 20-40 per cent, he said.

"There needs to be a thorough review of wine competition rules so that wineries that make extremely large volume blends, such as Wither Hills, Montana, Nobilos and Villa Maria, have far tighter regulation on how their entries are made."

Nicholas said that it appeared that Wither Hills's move to enter a blend of wine into an award that was identical to only 2 per cent of that wine on the market was within the rules of most wine competitions.

"There are differences between blends, but in this case only 2 per cent of the blend being identical to the medal- winning wine being on the market seems to be pushing it a little bit far."

The Wither Hills episode had exposed that the rules are too loose, Nicholas said.

"This has been a criticism within the industry for some time."

Wine competitions and awards risked becoming meaningless if the rules were not overhauled, he said.

Michael Jamieson, managing director of wine importer and distributor Macvine International, said that the Wither Hills episode could hurt the marketing efforts of smaller wineries, many of whom rely on awards to build their brands.

"Wine shows are incredibly important for small wineries," he said.

"We do have a market group that relies extremely heavily on how a wine does in a competition rather than relying on their own palate. Maybe this tells people that wine awards are not all that they're cracked up to be and they should trust their own palate more.

"Maybe the rules do need to be reviewed to make sure that such oversights are avoided in future."

Nicholas said that there was a significant risk that the scandal would hurt international sales of New Zealand wine.

Jeff Poole, managing director of The Fine Wine Delivery Company, said he expected Wither Hills's sales would suffer as a result of the scandal. The Auckland-based wine retailer is the largest single-store wine shop in the country. Many customers have expressed doubts about the credibility of Wither Hills in the past few days, Poole said.

"We actually ran out of Wither Hills sauvignon blanc before the news broke and have not re-stocked it," he said.

"Having said that, there have been no requests for it."

(From: www.winebusiness.com)