A New Handle  (21 August)

Dan Philips of The Grateful Palate (TGP) was a trailblazer. Phillips is the one US importer who can probably be credited with being more responsible for getting boutique and high end Australian wine into the US market than any of his competitors. In the early days, he did a phenomenally good job of selecting wines that would appeal to Robert Parker and getting them under his nose. The resulting high scores caused a tidal wave of popularity for high end Australian wine in the US. The wines Philips imported helped capture the imagination of the top end US consumer market. Initially, Australian producers were happy because they had a new, lucrative market for their wines, US consumers were happy because they were able to secure the urinal bragging rights for that weeks fashion item, and Dan was laughing all the way to the bank.

In those early days, when I saw some of the prices being charged for many of these Australian wines in the US, from my perspective, price gouging was rampant and someone, or some people, were doing extremely well with these products. I was guilty of calling The Grateful Palate, The Greedy Pirate. There were two schools of thought. The first was typical of most American (and some Australian) consumers; who cares? The market sets the price in a free enterprise economy. The second school had two concerns. Some consumers were not happy with the prices they were being charged, especially when they saw how much those same wines cost in Oz. However the most concerning issue was with the producers who were worried about the longer term effect theses prices may have on their Australian brands. The producer has no legal right to control the end price of their product once it has left their hands, and its doubly difficult when its going to a foreign country. However, if the brand is to be correctly positioned for the long term, the distributor and the producer have to work together to ensure its correct, longer term positioning. In the early days, this did not always happen, and whilst the market ruled, and some people got rich, it was often at the expense of the brands positioning.

The first big blowups occurred when Rolf Binder from Veritas Wines separated from TGP. The falling out of was publicly debated on the Mark Squires Forum. It was an interesting situation to watch, because clearly one of the players was not being entirely truthful about the separation and was basically caught out telling porky pies. That was the first of many wineries that moved away from TGP. In those early days, most of the ones that I spoke to after they departed, basically told me they left for pretty much the same reason. They didn't like the positioning of their product in the US market. The list of players that at one time had been associated with TGP that is no longer associated with them, for whatever reason, is lengthy. For the record, however it should be noted that a number of the original players, like Greenock Creek, Trevor Jones, and Burge Family Winemakers, are still with Philips to this day.

Brands will always move in and out of portfolios but TGP seemed to have more movement than any other, but that may be because they have a large number of brands; but not as many as it was a little while ago. In 2004 they had approximately seventy brands, and their web site currently lists close to fifty, although some of those have departed, but TGP still has stock, hence their listing.

The news was broken (incorrectly) on Parkers Forum that TGP had walked away from all brands except those in which they had a direct financial interest, like their own R brand.

The matter was set straight in a communication to their distributors. Phillips explained that a number of wineries, for different reasons, had severed ties with TGP. Some had left of their own accord and some had been dumped. The brands that were no longer in the portfolio were:- Betts & Scholl, Cape D’Estaing, Clos Clare, Digger’s Bluff, Geoff Weaver, Gibson, Henry’s Drive, Hutton Vale, Lashmar, Longhop, Lunar Wines, Mclean’s Farm, Nurioopta High School, Old Plains, Oliver’s Taranga, RBJ, Rockford, Rusden Wines, Scarpantoni, Shirvington, Silesian, Teusner, Torzi Mathews, Troll Creek, Two Way Range and Wild Duck Creek.

They are now left with approximately thirty brands including their own R wines.

When Phillips announced these departures, in his communication he said, “Some departed months ago, others in the past few days or weeks, but all have been exiled to wine Siberia and will no longer enjoy life in the Distributor Collective of Fine Wine at The Grateful Palate.”

The letter closed with “Fine Wine Distributors all over the world unite to defeat Greedy Evil Wine Invaders and their dogs.”

The second comment is completely meaningless and tasteless. The first is obnoxious, completely insensitive, and the height of arrogance. Perhaps The Greedy Pirate should be renamed the Graceless Peddler?
 

 

Feel free to submit your comments!

From James Hook: Thursday 21 August

I always thought Nurioopta High School were “Greedy Evil Wine Invaders and their dogs.”

Now I know its true

 

If Oliver’s Taranga, Teusner and Torzi Mathews have relocated to the Region, Wine Siberia, how do I book a holiday there?

 

Copyright © Ric Einstein 2008