New World countries create new alliance

Published: 15 July, 2009

Five competing New World countries and regions have joined forces to create a new alliance, in a world first for the wine industry.

Argentina, Caliornia, Chile, New Zealand and South Africa have launched the New World Wine Alliance, which will collaborate at ProWein 2010 in Germany to present a combined show.

The unusual step of competiting countries launching a unified marketing front is aimed at giving the alliance "increased momentum" in the marketplace, said the alliance.

The five members have continued to grow exports despite the global credit crisis and believe that by working together they stand a better chance of competing against EU countries, which are supported by subsidies for marketing initiatives.

An alliance spokesman said: "Although we remain competitors, we believe the potential exists to further advance the New World's share of the global wine market by sharing best practice. We have already benefitted from each other enormously by exchanging viticultural and cellar research as well as innovations in packaging, marketing and logistics."

The five generic marketing bodies representing the five New World alliance partners are leading the initiative.

The alliance said it would seek to build trade through aggressive branding, by demystifying wine and thus attracting new consumers; by playing up regional strengths; focusing on technical, packaging and marketing innovation and focusing on a sustainable message.

There have been exploratory talks amongst New World producers for several years about establishing a stand-alone show targeted at the international wine trade. However the alliance said that with so many shows already in place, it decided it would be better to create a show within a show, using the well-established platform of ProWein.

At ProWein in March 2010, the five alliance partners will be grouped together in a single hall and will run seminars, presentations and workshops under an umbrella theme of Down to Earth.

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