SAME OLD SAME OLD DOWN THE WOOFER?

WITH BUNCHES LIKE THESE BUGGERED EDEN VALLEY SHIRAZ EXAMPLES TYPICAL OF WHAT'S GROWING - OR DYING - IN OUR BEST VINEYARDS RIGHT NOW, SURELY THE NEW WFA PRESIDENT COULD CONSIDER MATTERS OTHER THAN OVERSUPPLY?

Old Southcorpse Takes Over Winemakers' Federation

Somebody Please Tell Him About The Vintage

by PHILIP WHITE

This morning the Winemakers Federation of Australia announced the appointment of Bruce Kemp to its presidency.

Since his role as chief executive of Southcorp Wines from 1992 to 1999, Kemp has been busy in his Global Wine Advice consultancy, and has been chairman of Pipers Brook Vineyards and Anthony Smith & Associates, a manufacturer of synthetic wine stoppers.

"I am honoured to be invited by the WFA to take on this critical leadership role at a time of great challenge for the Australian wine industry," Kemp said.

"The industry's oversupply, policy risks associated with growing community and government concerns about binge drinking and better integration of our key industry bodies will be priorities during my term."

Oversupply?

Will somebody please tell him what’s just happened to the 2009 vintage?

One of his notable statements came in 2001, when Fosters Berringer were about to move on Southcorp, which he’d just left.

“I think what we're seeing is some consolidation within the industry as major companies try and increase their size and scale to ensure that they are going to be able to move what is going to be significantly increasing volumes of wine into the international market”, he said.

The BMW motorcycle addict (that's a tick!) has had eight years to learn that you can’t continue to move significantly increasing volumes of wine into the international market.

As Fosters are beginning to discover.

But one would have thought that the blitz of heat destroying much of Australia’s premium crop, right now, might have earned a mention in the new president’s first major statement. No?

Or the little matter of the death of the River? Or the phylloxera?

Or the consideration of the sudden disappearance of all the money in the world?

The Winemakers Federation grew out of the Small Winemakers Federation, a group initiated in the mid-eighties by the late Greg Trott of Wirra Wirra, which formed because the big industry councils consistently failed to protect the interests of the small winemakers and growers.

At its seminal meeting in McLaren Vale, guest chairman Brian Croser suggested the proposed members size limit of 400 tonnes crush was far too small for such a group to have any punch, and immediately insisted that wineries the size of Yalumba should be included.

There went the Small Winemakers Federation.

It will be interesting to see precisely what "better integration of our key industry bodies" involves.