International distributors of Australian wine

I have unfortunately discovered that my conundrum of how to find a good distributor Australian wine in Italy, with a respectable range is an ongoing one.

To give you an example, I’ll refer to some brief research I did yesterday on prices of Penfolds Bin 707, from the 90’s vintages. An email came through from British wine merchant Seckfords with some lots of 1993, 1994 and 1997 (I believe I recall) Penfolds Bin 707.

The lots, of six bottles, were available at a price of 50 pounds a bottle which isn’t a bad price. When buying from UK wine merchants most wines are offered duty paid meaning EU taxes are already included in the price, you don’t require any import numbers, no customs is to be paid on EU delivery and your only extra costs are delivery.

The 50 pounds turns out to be quite a reasonable price, but to come to this conclusion some investigation needed to occur. First of all I hopped onto the Robert Parker website to look at some vintage notes.

I’m not so interested in the points system, but I often find that Australian vintage notes are scarce and sometimes the site can be helpful on this front. It turns out that according to the site, the 1994 is the best bet for quality at this stage.

I then figured that there wouldn’t be much point in buying in the UK, if Italy had better availability, at comparable prices without the worry of organising a shipment.

I cannot, in all honesty, seriously comment on Austrade’s work in representing the interests of the Australian wine industry in Italy, so suffice to say they have a vino australiano website that lists the distributors of Australian wine in Italy.

Penfolds has an exclusive distributor in Italy, called Meregalli, who is conveniently holding a wine tasting day in Monza on Monday September 29. Despite the fact I’m supposed to be working that afternoon, I will endeavour to go.

But now price of a Bin 707 through Meregalli is listed, and there's no way of knowing whether they're a wholesaler or whether they also sell to the public.

So I also had a look at Peck, who sells at a whopping 143 euros for the 1998 vintage, and Enoteca Ronchi, who was reasonable enough at 126 euros for the 1993 vintage (over the hill?) and the 1997. The hunt continues...

Finding French wine in Australia (to then import to Europe)

Who says the Europeans know better than us? Welcome to the new world, in all its laidback professionalism.

I’ve had the rather strange situation of contacting an Australian wine shop, all the way from Italy, as part of our famous ongoing acquisition of Romanee Conti (2006 vintage this time). I expect it put a wry smile on the face of the guy who owns the shop.

Anyway, the point of this post is that my boss, in asking me to do this, requested that I make specific enquiries as to the “security” of these bottles – that is how they would be transported, covering them with insurance etc.

The thing that amuses me is that while Rathdowne Cellars might be small fry compared to what we’re used to, they were far more pleasant and professional in their response than other interactions I’ve had.

We’re very good at buying willy nilly all over the world, and the idea that more care was required just because we were considering a purchase in Australia, narked at me just a little (see my comments on jet lagged wine from the US for example).

Rathdowne Cellars gave me a quote on shipment from Australia to Italy which was not necessarily cheap, but neither was it outrageously expensive.

No cheaper shipping options are available though. Why? Because in the words of Cameron Kidd, store manager: “This is via my preferred air carrier with door-to-door freight. We do not use cheaper options like sea freight, as for small quantities I cannot guarantee it will go in temperature controlled containers.”

And to think I couldn’t even get wine shipped from England to Italy, with Christie’s (largest auction house in the world) preferred shipper in a refrigerated truck.