First Barossa en primeur' a success

Published: 23 July, 2008

The first attempt to sell wines from Australia's Barossa Valley region to UK consumers en primeur' - before the wines is finally blended or bottled, as is common in Bordeaux and Burgundy - was judged a success by its organisers, DMT Wine Imports (part owned by Bordeaux Index).

Held last week, the inaugural event attracted around 300 consumers and trade buyers at the London tasting and another 100 at the Hampshire tasting.

According to DMT founder David Thomas, we are still calculating all of the orders, but they have been flooding in this week. We should sell out of our allocations on all of the wines.

I think customers have realised that this is their only chance

to get hold of some of these wines easily.'

The majority of those wines offered were from the 2004 vintage. Most of the wines are to be blended and bottled by the end of the year, with delivery expected next summer.

Thomas said that around 95% of those buying the wines understood the en primeur system, probably from buying Bordeaux in the past, and were comfortable with the idea of it'.

He added that they will be running another offer next year and haven't yet decided' if they will expand it outside the Barossa region. Eleven wineries were offering their wines - including Spinifex, Massena, Tin Shed, Mt Billy, Schwarz Wine Company and Teusner - which varied in price from 140 to 400 a case. We have also had lots of interest from wineries that have heard about what we are doing,' said Thomas.

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