Who Makes my Wine? The Mystery of Cow Bombie
The guys at Grapes and Lager were kind enough to send us an entertaining little video – The Mystery of Cow Bombie – which left us in no doubt that there was no such winery in Margaret River.
Cow Bombie, the name of a famous off-shore surf break near Cowaramup, is just one of many labels Woolworths and Coles dream up for their BOBs – Buyers Own Brands. HERE is the full list, courtesy of Sarah Collingwoodof Four Winds vineyard at Murrumbateman near Canberra.
It’s a question that we’d like to know the answer to, always. Fine wine is not some anonymous products churned out in a nameless refinery by faceless people, or at least it shouldn’t be. As it happens, Cow Bombie is made by a winery in Margaret River that wants to remain nameless. What’s behind that? The wine surplus we in Australia and the rest of world suffer from (or benefit from if you’re a consumer).
Who makes My Wine?
Subscriber Brian explained how this happens: ‘You are a medium sized winery sitting on 100,000 litres of excess, unloved, bulk Merlot. It cost you $200,000 to make it (adjust by region). “Someone” offers you $100,000 for the lot. Half its book “value”. You can say no, then sit and watch your precious Merlot mellow for the next 5 years. Or you can spend another $100,000 bottling, packaging and marketing it. Or you can bank a cheque for $100,000 that afternoon.
That “someone” used to be large, avaricious wineries and your wine disappeared into a corporate branded blend. Or it was sold to intermediary wine brokers, or exporters. Now it’s large retailers. What’s the difference? The large retailer may even buy some of your branded product as well, now that you know them, or a mutually-agreed proprietary label. They won’t do it for love, but no one does.
The consumer gets your wine one way or the other. I’m not saying it’s moral, sustainable, desirable, romantic or thinning. I am saying it’s real.’
Second thoughts
Sean Bell at Grapes and Lager has confessed to a change of heart in this piece by ABC Rural, saying the supermarkets’ private label offerings aren’t necessarily bad news for small winemakers. ‘Talking about this with many people in industry, he told the ABC, ‘it’s many smaller producers trying to get the juice they haven’t been able to put in their own labels…into the market.’
‘I should have investigated further,’ Sean said. ’The particular brand we were speaking about was actually produced by a small producer and that producer contacted me and said, ‘Sean I think you’re being a little bit unfair and this is the reason why.’
We never find out the reason, but our friend Brian has done a good job on that front above, unlike ex-Treasure Wine Estates CEO Ian Dearie who told BRW: ‘Private label wine exists only because wine companies sell their wine in bulk to retailers and let the retailers put their labels on it. You’ve got to look at who is causing the problem. If you’re a wine company and you’ve decided to make excess wine and sell to the retailers, you can’t then complain.’ More Here.
Maybe that bizarre statement helps explain why Dearie is no longer running TWE. As if wineries made excess wine on purpose. They make wine from their vineyards – how could they foresee the collapse in Australia’s export boom, or the sudden rise of the Aussie dollar or sudden changes in consumer preferences?
Kim