Ep. 1007 5 Must Know Facts For Success In Australian Post Pandemic | wine2wine Business Forum 2021

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For more information, please visit wine to wine dot net and tune in every Thursday at two pm central European time for more episodes recorded during this latest edition of wine to wine business forum. Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining, Jill Gordon Smith and I for, sharing business ideas. Our wine to wine session is five must know facts for success in the Australian post pandemic export market. So we hope we can share some interesting info with you all today. For us, it's this evening. So, excuse me, if I say the wrong time zone. Hi, Jill. Hey, Vanessa. How are you? And hi, everybody. It's fantastic to be here with you. So a little bit about us for a start, I'm very excited to be here with Jill Gordon Smith, who is an amazing woman and wine, also a woman in Australian wine. She's not only a wine judge. She also sells wine. She's an incredible wine maker, which she hasn't put in her little bio here. And she's also won numerous awards, including wine communicator of the year. So we are very lucky to have Jill with us today. And I'm absolutely thrilled to be here with Vanessa, who I have a great admiration for. Vanessa's a judge, an importer, a restauranteur, and she's also the CEO of the Clifton's group. And apart from that, whilst managing a family, Vanessa is also a very, and has been a very large importer of Italian wines into Australia. So hopefully tonight, we can give you some insight into what's happening in Australia. And some positives about, importing into Australia. Indeed. And I think the most important thing about Jill and I is that we both love Italian wine. We're passionate passionate about Italian wines, and we would love to help you bring it to Australia because we'd love to see more fabulous Italian wines here. Absolutely. And and I think that's one thing both Vanessa and I are Italian wine ambassadors through the Italy Academy and very proud to be so. And I think that's one of the things that we can talk about later about how we can help you by tapping into that. Indeed. And in fact, Jill is an Italian wine expert, one of only a handful around the world. I think, yes, quite lucky with that. But I love how many points. We do. So we have here just a list of our session, discussion, and and objectives. So what we'd like to get through with you today, feel free to throw questions in at any time. We may due to our technical prowess only get to those at the end of what we're saying. But if you put questions, then we will find them. So we'd like to cover off with you the impact of COVID on the Australian on an off premise market. The maturity of the Australian market within Asia Pacific region, how to find the right right importer for you or if you should go it alone, the issues affecting imports and how to find solutions and then ways to connect to the Australian market. That's quite a few things we we're going to talk about. And a lot of this at the moment may not sound as positive as we'd like it, but we really truly believe that, things are about to change. Yeah. We certainly hope so. And look just a a comment there on that map that we've put there to demonstrate how far, as I'm sure you're aware, Italy is from Australia, which leads to some issues with freight and logistics, which will cover in a little bit. That's absolutely. And I and I think that's that's a really good point, Vanessa, because most people don't realize, you know, how far away we are, but also how close we are to Asia. So we're only if you get to Asia, we're just a hop and a step away. We're probably about six hours. But, yeah, I think that's really important. So let's chat about that, Vanessa. What do you think's changed during COVID? And you'll you've been in Sydney, and I know you've been in lockdown. So, I don't know if everybody realizes, but Can you tell us a little bit about what that's been like and how long you've been locked down for? Sure. So I I used to spend a lot of my time bouncing between Sydney and Melbourne, but with COVID lockdowns, we've been very much, trapped at home for the last four months in all of New South Wales, we haven't been able to go more than five kilometers, and even then only with going the five kilometers, you're only largely home for specific reasons. Melbourne, which is the other main center for, FNB and wine, and and really second economic center in Australia has been in lockdown on and off throughout the entire year. So we've been very much hit, by COVID, especially by Delta when it's come through. I gotta attended a session today. That was an update on from the IMF on October figures. And I thought I'd share those quickly here. IMF have downgraded Australia's GDP forecast for twenty twenty one by one point eight percent, which is quite a big drop back for twenty twenty one. So we're now looking at a GDP growth for twenty twenty one of three point five percent. So it's still positive, which is good. But it is slower than we'd expected and well behind the European market. I think Italy is at five point eight, or twenty twenty one. And I think we expected when we first went into COVID that we'd actually cope really well. And that we would, you know, we were doing extremely well. But this extended lockdowns definitely had, a big impact on the the industry in also some positive ways, and we're gonna talk a little bit about that. So Vanessa, you, have run a chain of restaurants. It's a really amazing restaurant in Melbourne and Sydney. We're gonna mention about on premise. There's been a a real reduction in sales. What's happened with on premise? On premise is totally wound up other than for takeaway sales. And on premise takeaway sales aren't competitive because, restaurants will have bought the wine at a at a higher price and they used selling, obviously, as we know, wines at a higher price than you would if you were, direct to consumer retail or wholesale. So there's not a lot happening. And my imports that, my company would do was very much for on premise sales. So that means that what the wires that normally be importing into Australia also, the has been very little activity for the last year. So and Australia wide on premise sales have been very patchy this year. Although, as Jill mentioned, we're expecting it to start bouncing back. But there's been some real growth areas, haven't they, Jill? Well, there there has. And I think one of the major growth areas that we've found has been direct to consumer. We know that we, Australians have, got quite a high, per capita, amount of wine and, you know, beverages that we consume. And there's been a massive direct to consumer sales rush, and that's been including imports. And for us, it's something that really saved us when we were closed down during COVID was the direct to consumer. And also the fact that we could have bottle shops open because in Australia, we considered that to be something that's really really necessary. It's essential. That was an essential service. So I think, you know, we had some massive increased sales in retail as well. I think we were up thirty percent in retail. That's fantastic. I think that's a good thing to know about the Australian culture is that many things were closed down, but for us, bottle shops remaining open was an essential service. So I still mentioned those retail and online sales have continued. They have. And I think that, as we were saying, the on premise will return. I mean, what's the first thing you did when you got out of lockdown last week, Vanessa? Oh, yes. I was telling Jill. So Monday, was the first little slight lifting of lockdowns. And the first thing that I and some friends and colleagues did was go straight to the closest bar and celebrate with a glass of wine. And that was a Monday night, and it was very busy. There was a lot of excitement to be out. I think many Australians are out there keen to bring back on premise and support their local bars and restaurants. And I think we've, we've just about hit eighty percent vaccination rate or least first vaccination rate in most cities now. So I think as we get closer to Christmas, the, forecast is gonna look a lot better for for sales. Indeed. So we started talking a little bit about the Australian consumer, and we've told you all that, Australians love wine, and we considered bottle shops and essential service. Shall we have a little bit more of a explore into that, Jill? Definitely. So, let's have a little chat about knowing your target market or the structuring the size of of Australian market and also the consumer and a bit about the preferences and the preconceptions. So, with the target market, we actually have quite a big market for wine. I know you've got some great, stats coming up shortly. Yeah. And Australians basically do like to we love the Mediterranean lifestyle. We love to have wine and drink with most things. And it's it's a even though we're only about twenty five million people, I think, you know, with per capita, I think it's about two liters to three liters per head. That's quite a lot. So we, as a country, we drink more than five hundred million liters of wine per year, and that's more than one hundred million glasses of alcohol per week. I've got a graph there. I don't know if you can see it. It depends how tiny your screen is. But, you can see that we've been increasing year on year. So alcohol consumption has increased. But interestingly, there's been a the wine amount of wine we consumed had been reducing, but between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty, that has gone up compared to other beverages as well. And, as we mentioned before, we've seen online and direct to consumer wine sales increasing and also the sales of imported wines are increasing. And I think that's worth noting that even with Italian wines, we have our imported wines would be New Zealand first of all in France. And then Italy is our third, most imported wine, and that's gone up by roughly three point one percent. Between two thousand and nineteen and two thousand and twenty. So that's that's a really significant increase. And you were mentioning this world that, the percentage of wine was was wine being consumed was increasing. And that's really interesting. It is. It's a a similar to the, the import with Italian wine increase. You mentioned it was three point something percent. So Three point one. Yeah. Yeah. And thinking about the Australian market and who is drinking that wine, there's two pie charts there. Now men drink sixty five percent of the alcohol in Australia and women drink thirty five percent, but women are the larger wine drinkers. So don't forget women in any of your, marketing that's aimed at the Australian market. And I think thinking about women not just, you know, to look at with sparkling wands and sort of lighter style ones. Women are really educated in the Australian industry. We have a lot of female sommeliers, and women really, really are quite discerning in what they drink. And they will we go out a lot together, and we also drink a lot of, you know, quite high end wines. So, I think that's important to recognize it's not just preseco sales. We drink a lot more than than just fizz That's right. And I think, you know, we're looking at the on premise market as well, certainly within the restaurants, we find that women are often the more exploratory drinkers as well. They're far more open to suggestion of, like, what else is new? What should I try? Whereas men may be, and I don't wanna generalize, but slightly more traditional drinkers, they're gonna go first for a beer, then for red. So, women, I think, cover the spectrum a little more. And you can see that with, you know, forty eight percent, nearly forty nine percent of of wine consumed by women and twenty one percent with with with men. And I think you you were talking about thirty five to sixty five year old strength the most, but We've had a real increase in eighteen to twenty four year olds consuming wine as a beverage, and they're really interested. And I was thinking about this when you mentioned this the other day. There's a those the organic and biodynamic side of things have really engaged the younger wine consumer. They are interested in trying new grapes, new things, and a lot of my customers would be anywhere from eighteen to eighty, but we have a big range of the eighteen to thirty five year olds. And they're always the ones that want to drink something different. And this is where Italian wines are really something that that interests them. Yeah. I think that's really encouraging to see that our demographic interested in wine so that bodes very well for the future as well of the wine in just tree. Definitely. And it's it's very interesting. And we'll talk a little bit later about, you know, Australia being a very wine savvy country because we produce wine. We have a lot of wine that we sell here, and of course with the pandemic, We've found that, you know, our local market and with China, and the issues that we've had with the Chinese market. And the loss, I think, we've had of nearly twenty eight percent of our sales to China, a lot of that's been consumed at home. But it doesn't mean that there's not the possibility for more imports because as you've noted as well, imports are really something that people are interested in trying something different. Yeah. Exactly. And Jill and I were talking about this the other day, and we think there's huge opportunity to increase the amount of international imports. Right now, as Jill mentioned early in in New Zealand gets the lion's share of the import market, And that's predominantly Savblanc and yeah. Followed by pinot noir. And we'd love to see some new things other than NSA Zabblanc on the market. Oh, I'd love to see Italian, wines, you know, taking a major share of that because You know, I think with seven year blog, you know, from it's seven year blog. That's really nice mostly everything that comes in, whereas Italy has much more of a of a variety of wines that would really suit the the Australian palette, you know, from Saguave to, you know, going right down to Campania, especially with the interest in Fianna and and the varieties that we're growing here. That's right. And look, Jill, you put some interesting notes together here on restaurants. So we've put a few of the old classic that we love. But, Jill, I had not even realized how many fantastic Italian restaurants that were in Australia. Well, think about it, Vanessa. Every single town you go to in Australia, even if it's an outlet town in the middle of, you know, the the desert, there's an Italian restaurant. And I think one of the reasons for that is we have about a hundred and seventy four thousand Italian born people living in Australia, which, you know, considering we've only got a small population, it it's quite a reasonable amount. And, of course, you know, their their families. And it's something that Australians really relate to. And I think they really do love good Italian food. And we've had a lot of people, you know, starting from the, you know, the nineteen hundreds coming to Australia, but especially in the twenties and forties, and they've had a massive impact. And some of the best restaurants in Australia are Italian. For example, you know, the four restaurants were named some of the best Italian restaurants in the world. So with, Lumi and Italianio Fico, and of course eighteen eighty nine, in Brisbane. And Dan, who Dan Clark, who owns that is actually a very big import of Australian wines as well. And you've got a few favorites. I do. Look, I've put some of the old classics there, Grossie, in Melbourne who opened in nineteen twenty eight. Beppies, I think, opened in the fifties. And who else do we have there? There's some, rift valley. Yeah. Autos has been around for a long time. A lot of these months have been open for twenty, thirty, forty years and a real institutions. There's a real, love of Italian, cuisine. And there are some Italian wines in the market, but as we keep saying, we really believe there is room for more. It's just really it's it's timing. It's how we can crank up the market post COVID. Absolutely. And I think for not just, entry level wines, I think there is an absolute market here for premium wines to come through. I sell Alana Fuchi's, titular at the shop, and that runs out. And that's a hundred and ten dollars that we sell that for. So, you know, lots of classics like Barolla, Babresco, of course, but also we're really interested in a lot of Southern Italian and Ireland wines, and and one of my biggest selling wines is Swave. Oh, that's a lovely one. And I think a a easy one for us to sell as well with a little bit of, a little bit of communication about about what the one is like. Certainly, in the restaurants, we find that people come in looking for something new and they want something that, you know, what I I wanna for our lovely Mediterranean lifestyle, they'll quite often want a white wine. They'll want something that has a little bit of body or, that's fairly aromatic. And there's such a amazing range of Italian wines that we can suggest. And the fantastic thing is how Australians are becoming more familiar with native Italian varieties. And one of Jill's many hats that she wears is a fantastic winemaker specializing in Native Italian wines not native Italian grapes, but grown right here in Australia. And I think Jill, you've done it an incredible job helping to educate the Australian market, by producing these beautiful wines, and they want to try what they've tried Jill's wines, And then I wanna see what the, wine from Italy would taste like. And I think that that's something that, you know, works really well in Australia because even though we grow Italian grapes, and and it's something that we found is really suiting our lifestyle. It's, you know, as our culture's changing, we're very similar to Mediterranean countries. So wine is part of the meal. It's not just for drinking. And we've been changing the drinking culture of Australian. So lower alcohol, more moderation, more savoriness. This is where Italian grape varieties really come into it. And as you said, we grow some of those grapes here, but what people want to do is see the originals. So I think it's not a threat. I think it's absolutely a positive chance To bring in some of those other varieties, I make a skin contact orange wine, and I sell so much of Vicky or Samperi, or, the Natichirostano in my shop. So, you know, we're open to all sorts of flavors and tastes, from lighter style reds, and I know the the public now are looking for those lighter style reds with some savoriness, but also beautiful freshness and acidity. And this is where I think Italian wines have almost been more accepted than a lot of French grapes that we have. So, you know, and we've got so many more choices. Thank you for listening to Italian wine podcast. We know there are many of you listening out there, so we just want to interrupt for a small ask. Italian wine podcast is in the running for an award, the best podcast listening platform through the podcast awards, the people's choice. Lister nominations is from July first to the thirty first and we would really appreciate your vote. We are hoping our listeners will come through for us. So if you have a second and could do this small thing for us, just head to Italian wine podcast dot com from July first to the thirty first, and click the link. We thank you, and back to the show. We do. Indeed. And so we put a little bit here together on what we wanted to go through in terms of barriers to entering the market, but also what we saw as opportunities. And the first thing we put up there was closures, which is. And Australians love screw caps. We make, and we produce our own premium wines with a screw cap. And within many restaurants now, a lot of, people, especially in restaurants without train familiar stuff, they will really struggle with the cork because they're used to just being able to crack open a screw cap and pour. And honestly, the Australian consumer is now so accepting of a screw cap that, if they There's absolutely no issue in in that as a closure. In fact, what people wanna see is to pour the wine in the glass and taste the wine and not necessarily looking for a big show of taking a cork from a bottle unless they're looking for a super premium experience. I think that's that was a fair comment? That's an absolutely fair comment. And I can tell you, people like Pura Pan who started twenty years ago, bringing their wines into Australia under screw caps through Trembelt and Taylor. We're crazy. Vasilino sells really well. He puts his wines under screwcap. So don't be afraid of, you know, using a screwcap. Firstly, much easier for the Australian market because it's really hard to actually get a corkscrew here at times. But I think most, most importantly, it's really great when you're shipping wines, you know, to have it under screw cap, we are really, really open to it and not just your entry level. You could sort of go to mid level ones with with screw cap as well. So, yeah, don't don't think that it's not gonna sell an Australia screw cap sell really well. And in fact, if I'm buying a wine and it's under screw cap, I'm more likely to to buy that and pull that by the glass because as you said, much easier in a restaurant. We also talked about labeling. And one thing that we've done very hard in some markets that import into Australia is they won't write the grape variety on the bottle. And I'm seeing it more and more in Italian wines, and I think it doesn't have to be on the front label, but somewhere put the grape variety. It's something I think that would really increase your chance to sell wines. What do you think, Vanessa? Yeah. Absolutely. Australians have grown up with wines, not by region or terwar, but by the variety. We don't have a lot of legislation here over what you can grow where. It's really all about what is the variety and what does it taste like. And yes, it may taste different in different environments, but people wanna know what the grape is, and it's a great opportunity. If you can put the varieties on the back, and it may be a little descriptor on what it's like, that will sell a lot of wine here. And I think you've you've just highlighted a really important point. If you are importing into Australia, providing some tasty notes, but a little bit of the history as well, not just a traditional tasting note. It's, you know, we are really interested in where things come from, how they're grown, and and even suggestions of what you serve them with, those sorts of things really help with distributors. And we were talking about the impact of Italy on Australian culture. It is massive. We're a coastal loving country. We live along the coast. We have, a very climate. You're probably not familiar with. We actually have snow in Australia. So, you know, all sorts of wines are are a possibility to sell here, and including organic and biodynamic, and there's a massive organic biodynamic push in Australia. So those sorts of, importers are actually doing very well as well. And we're becoming more familiar with the different grape varieties because we grow them here, or some of them here. I think, you know, Charmers has been very instrumental in bringing in those those grapes. To Australia. And, once Australians can say it, for example, multiple channels become quite, a good seller because we like to shorten everything. So we call it monitor. But, you know, Australian are really keen to try those new things. I mean, even Allianneco, we grow, lots of Ematino. Once they've tried the Australian version, they want to try the original because we really are interested and and we really love love Italy. It's it's it's crazy. Just how of, you know, how much of a difference that that can make. And the Fiano and Anessa both becoming are quite popular. People do know Kianti. That is a region that definitely people are familiar with. They will think that Praseco is probably a variety, as opposed to a region, but Yes. Yeah, for sure. And also Barolo Babaresco and, and at the market near a dabbler. So Sicily is something that's really interesting to the Australian market. And you know, near a dabbler is being planted in a lot of our regions, and people I get people coming in constantly asking for Italian narrows. They want to try, the original, the original wine. It's becoming very popular indeed. And, Jill, I think you made a really good point about when we're talking about what to put on the label, that Australians love a story. If if you can put something which is a little bit about where the wine is from, not necessarily from a tewa perspective, but from the history or or, you know, what it may be beautiful to drink with having that story interwoven there is important. And who you are, and we want to know. Australia's really like to know who you are and the story of your your label, not just technical data, They really do wanna know about you. So I think telling your own story and getting somebody to translate that into reasonable English is is probably something to think about. And I was thinking also, you know, we have sticks five now. So we've got five ambassadors in Australia, from youth, Daniello Marcello, who's based in Sydney as well. Karamasano, who's based in Melbourne, and, of course, of Italian descent, and Julie Minman, ah, man, man joining. So we do actually have people here that can you could contact. And because I was thinking about the consortiums. We've got ambassadors that could really be used here to help you get your wines out there. So if you're doing a Grange Bo or there is a consortium that is doing a push into Australia, contact Via and use the beer ambassadors because everybody that's gone through the program Luvs Italian wine has actually made a real effort to get over to Italy and do it because, you know, we've, we're a very small percentage, but we're people who really do drink a lot of wine and a lot of Italian wine. That's right. That that's a really good point, Jill. You know, if we could possibly be in Verona with you or right now, then we would be. So, and and any, via, anyone who's been through the program would be more than happy to help bring your wines in and offer advice and connections. Absolutely. And I think you're not doing this alone. But I don't think a lot of the consortia maybe know about us, and they're not really taking advantage of a resource that's already here for you. So feel free to take advantage of us. Exactly. And I and I think that brings us to opportunities for collaboration. And you you had some really good points about about, you know, collaborating. And we were talking about the fact that, and when we get and talk about a few of the the issues that collaborations can really help. Yeah. They absolutely can. I'm gonna flick through now because I'm also aware of time. We talked a little bit about imports coming in You can see there, as we mentioned, New Zealand accounts for three hundred and forty one million of our imports. France comes in second at three hundred and twenty million, Italy third at a hundred and four million, which is approximately sixty six million euro. So about a billion dollars a year is, imp is imported wine into Australia, and our total domestic market is forty billion. So there's a huge gap there. We Jill and I are seeing that people are interested in something different. So I really think there's the opportunity to increase the imports. Yeah. Definitely. Absolutely. And, you know, a hundred and and hundred and four million, we we'd really like to see that that increase So, I know that, you know, we were talking about the fact that we do have quite a lot of importers and probably people that would do smaller than they might have been to Italy and they'll start an import business right through to massive companies who have been importing for many, many years like Trimbeth and Taylor. Yeah. Negoscience. Indeed. So, actually, I've just off flick ahead. We can always go back to that slide. So Jill's put together an amazing list here of some example distributors, there are so many that aren't there. Yeah. So we're talking, you know, with the distributors as you were you were saying, it's less risk us route to market, but there's some hidden pitfalls. You really do need to know your distributor. So people are Adley Clark in Brisbane, babendum, who are a really fantastic, import company. We've got, you know, smaller people like Frankra About Wine and Kilvino, who a lot of these people are Italian and speak Italian, Mediterranean. Right through to, you know, Andrew Gart, who's right on the forefront of the natural wine and and mineral intervention scene. And Georgia Demada, he brings in a lot of wines from all over Italy, but a lot from sort of around, the Benito. And, negotiations who are very big, they have a portfolio that encompasses most countries in the world. And then things like, Delicarum, this is an Italian girl who's fantastic, and she really does specialize in small producers. Right through to Trendarth and Taylor who have been importing for over twenty five years. But there's a lot of different sizes here of of, distributors. There are. So plenty of of options there. And if I I pop back. I mean, it a couple of our slides, you have the option of going through an Australian importer or going direct. The things to be aware of is that Australia is a long way away. The freight and logistics can be costly and difficult. You have to use refrigerated units you need to go with somebody like Hiller Brand, which does add to your cost, but you could not possibly risk all that distance without, proper management of your wines. So and really you need to be because of the cost and the distance you need to be bringing in a full container loads at a time. So either you have to make a big commitment and ship that and set up an office here and get some local advice, but run it yourself. Or look at finding a partner or other producers who'd like to go in, together to manage some of those logistics and share the cost or or go with one of the many Australian importers. And I think that it's very interesting when you're talking about that. There's actually, a couple of people in Australia that put together containers in Italy for a lot of different people. So I know they do it with qantas and a and a few other, bigger companies as well as small ones in, Lesky does that. And the biggest issue we've had at the moment is freight, unfortunately, freights. Freight costs have doubled. Everybody I spoke to, and I rang quite a few importers before this talk to, you know, get their perspective, and they said freight costs are killing killing it. So, and very hard to get containers at the moment. I know there's a world shortage of containers. So, and I'll I'll call this the boring slide, but it's it's important that everyone's aware is the compliance and logistics slide. So in in terms of, yeah, what we need to do to bring it in, you've got to think about, the legal requirements for labeling. Our tax system in Australia is is quite nasty. We have something called wet tax. And as soon as your wine lands, it's a twenty nine percent tax not only on the wine, but also on the shipping cost to get the wine to the country. And the, import tax as well. So that's a bit of an issue. Definitely. I think at Norman, Vanessa, it works about three times. So if you pay ten euros, by the time you get it here, it's thirty euros. Indeed, it is. And there's a few things you need to be if you're aware, you can save yourself some of the upfront costs. You can get a bonded warehouse, which means that your wine sits there and until it's sold, you don't have to pay the tax. Or again, in in many ways, I think it is easier if you're starting out to go through a distributor because while you have more control and you may be able to, keep more margin going direct, mistakes can be very expensive and it is a complex tax system and also pop to note there about licensing is state based licensing requirements. And that means that if you're selling across Australia, your your legal requirements are reporting are different in each different state. So there's a lot to get your head around there. And I think that's that's that's probably really good advice. You know, if I was a first time, export it into Australia, I would be definitely looking to go through a local distributor importer because otherwise, as you said, having someone here, it's a bit hard. But I know that you do have, quite a few different companies in Italy that look after small producers and put everything together. So that's something to maybe consider. But, yeah, think about the shipping logistics. We're a big country. Australians, you know, you know, it is massive from one side of Australia to the other side. You know, how many times do we fit into does Europe fit into us? That's right. Well, actually, I got the the, I looked that up just before this week. Australia is seven point seven million square kilometers, and it Italy is less than four percent of that size. So we could fit the whole of Europe into Australia a couple of times. And and everything is around the coast. So our freight even for Australian wine is very expensive. So we have to get it. So Melbourne and Sydney seem to be the main, import areas, and then it gets graded out. So that adds to the cost, especially even for retail. We have that freight cost involved in it. We do have some great specialist, distributors, though, once you are as in freight, specialist, once you get to Australia, there's a company called BAM BAM Logistics, and they, they specialist, warehousing, and they'll ship all around the country for you. So there are solutions you can do it yourself if that's the way you wanna go. And I think that's important. There are solutions to all of these these these issues. And I think, you know, one of the most important things to think about is, you know, if you're gonna go to Singapore, and you're doing a trade show there. Please come that bit further because I really do believe that Australia is a market that is even an entry way into what was, an entry way into China, because when people are, you know, people get used to the the grapes that we're growing here and have been buying our grapes. They want always want the originals. But, yes, I think if you're going to Singapore, come that bit further. It's only six hours, you'll be made really welcome. You get to eat some very good food, and we'd really like you to. Now I think we need to really start to look at our stamalas. We have a very professional group of stamalas and They are really keen. I mean, every trade show you go to, it's packed. People want to learn. They want to try new wines. They're really interested in Italian varieties. So we really do need to start to look at, the similiars and start to invite them to some of the events. Yeah. We do. That is a good point. Now I'm where we haven't got long left. So if there's anyone who has any questions they'd like to ask, please pop them in the chat, and, we will get to those. And we've got a list here just of our key takeaways, the things that we, yeah, our key points for you. And Jill and I are happy to answer questions too. So our details are being able to feel free to reach out. But we we've said we are just reopening. It we've it's really hit us quite hard. We're all desperate to get out of here, but you probably don't realize we've actually been locked out of even leaving our own country, and that hopefully will be opening up in December, yay, have you already booked tickets for permission? On. Well, I've booked tickets and had them canceled so many times. But the market's slow, but it will bounce back. And it always does. And there is as we said, there are so many Italian restaurants in Australia and Italian varieties are readily accepted. Their flavors and tastes that we really, are comfortable with and want to know more about. And also, as I said, send you best and stay competitive with minimum orders. At the moment, people are gonna be a little bit slow when they first start ordering. But until your brands recognize, then you can really take off. So if you're happy to, you know, allow smaller orders, what do you think about that, Vanessa? Yeah. Look, I think that is, a really good point. That we do want, you do need to be competitive because there's a lot of Australian wines on the market. However, people are wanting to see new and interesting things. And they need to be good quality wines though. We've got plenty of low cost wine. So the Sendure best is is a really great takeaway. Yeah. Because we do. We have a lot of, you know, we make a lot of wine in Australia, so we've really we can cover a lot of the cheaper entry level wines, send you best, and engaging government. This is something we talked about in freight discussions. It would be really, you know, if there is something that the Italian government or Eche could do, it would be to start talking about freight and helping importers, and even just helping people that are new to the market as importers, with guidelines. Some really simple guidelines about the best Italian companies to use or the best way to consolidate all your palettes, things like that. And I think as we said, their consortiums and Italian trade agencies need to include australian representatives in tastings and events. Which I know we go to Venice. We've got quite a there's always quite a big Italian contingent that nobody really knows about. Indeed. Now I can see that we have a question here. How is the younger Australian generation? How does it look for the industry as a future consumer? Curious about the history of wine, for example. Look, yes, people are, curious about the history of wine. And, we had a slide earlier. I'm sure you can get these slides later on the Australian demographics. And we were saying that the eighteen to twenty four year olds are really increasing. Their consumption of wine, which is quite exciting because it means that, the wine industry is, is gonna be on a a real growth phrase here that in the previous years, it had been an older demographic that was the main wine drinkers. So the biggest consumers are still the thirty five to sixty four year olds. And I think as far as the younger generation, I have a class full just sitting about five hundred feet away from me. Who they're so interested in the history of wine. We have so many educational institutions here in Australia. And in South Australia, we have some of the best, educational institutions for wine and wine marketing around. And I can tell you they're full. All of our classes are full. We have so many young people that are just so passionate. Similar I think has really just become in the last ten years a really, amazing job here in Australia. So that's changed as well. So yes, younger people, they're really passionate. They're passionate about varieties. They're passionate about organic and biodynamic wines. They're passionate about, you know, traditional Italian wines. I mean, I feel so much, barolo. It's incredible. And as you said, Keanti, but also they're very open minded, and they're really interested to try new things. I'm actually getting to the point where on Friday nights at the shop, you know, I have to have something new every week. This week, we had Vespalina and Uber Rara. Oh, wow. That's amazing. If it's certainly it when we've made the comment about make sure you're bringing in quality wines, I was always surprised, when the restaurants were open, which they will be again soon. How much barolo we would sell because people would wanna try premium that, you know, they know that Australian wines, they wanna try something else. It's like, well, what is going to be like? The big Australian wines that I like? I know. And it's and that's what something Australians do as well. I try and encourage them not to, but they'll say, what is like a Sharaz? Because the majority of reds that we've got plan in Australia, Charaz, so we can offer them something like narrow. And they're they really love it because they like that full flavored sort of character. But, you know, even open to things like, we've been selling Galiapo from Calabrio. We've been selling lots of stuff from Pulia. Because it's got quite generous palette that a lot of the Australians like right through to alpine nebbiolo's Skiava. That I'm spilling a lot of stuff from Ultra R DJ at the moment. So look, Australians are really open. We just have to be, included and educated So I think there is some really absolute positives. In fact, we're about to start at first imports. Hopefully, by Christmas, if I can get some freight, fantastic. Yes. So I think, you know, in summary, there are challenges, but we're expecting things to improve. And we were a bit doom and gloom at the beginning because we've been in lockdown for such a long time, and the economy really has taken a significant hit, but we're at the point now where as we mentioned, we're eighty percent, at least across all of Australia, at least eighty percent vaccinated, in some of the largest cities now. It it's even higher than that for first vaccination, so fully vaccinated as a population by Christmas, which would then mean that our borders will reopen. We should have less supply and logistics issues and also all of the restaurants and bars can open up that have been closed. So I expect a big escalation for our summer, which is, December, January. Yep. Absolutely. I'm really looking forward to it, and and, very excited to start importing Italian wines in the new year. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Well, thank you everyone. And thanks for having us. I'd love to see you. Yeah. It has been such a pleasure. Enjoy, verona. Should you be there? Oh, and we miss you verona. We do. Thanks for listening to this episode of Italian wine podcast brought to you by Vineetli Academy, home of the gold standard of Italian wine education. Do you want to be the next ambassador? Apply online at benitely international dot com for courses in London, Austria, and Hong Kong, the twenty seventh to the twenty ninth of July. Remember to subscribe and like Italian wine podcast, and catch us on SoundCloud, Spotify, and wherever you get your pods. You can also find our entire back catalog of episodes at Italian wine podcast dot com. Hi, guys. I'm Joy Livingston, and I am the producer of the Italian wine podcast. Thank you for listening. We are the only wine podcast that has been doing a daily show since the pandemic began. This is a labor of love and we are committed to bringing you free content every day. Of course, this takes time and effort not to mention the cost of equipment, production, and editing. 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