A fresh and unprecedented way of buying wine online from the best regions across Australia was recently launched by Federal Agricultural and Water Resources Minister Barnaby Joyce to counter the dominance of major retailers and reflect the shift in consumer online purchasing behaviour.
The SEEKWINE Australia online initiative has culminated in a community of family independent Australian winemakers from distinct geographical winemaking areas who have banded together to support the provenance of their wine while providing a critical mass for consumers to purchase wines from different regions.
SEEKWINE Australia founder and Harvey River Estate managing director Kevin Sorgiovanni said the wine industry in Australia was one of the toughest sectors in which to survive with increasing downward pressure from the two major retailers.
“Small passionate winemaking families from around Australia have teamed up to combine their market power and provide consumers with the ability to source wine from every wine-growing region in Australia with a single click,” he said.
“This initiative creates a unique online space between a company’s website and the bottle-price sites, which currently exist, but offer little value to real brands, due to a focus on discounting, which is not always in the public interest.”
The SEEKWINE Australia initiative is based on approximately 60 Geographical Indicator (GI) wine regions throughout Australia and will in time feature a representative wine company from every wine region – 60 wine companies from 60 discrete Australian GI wine regions.
Currently 12 winemakers from 12 regions have signed on.
The benefit that comes with being the only wine company from the Barossa, Margaret River, the Hunter, Yarra or Tamar Valley’s and others, will assist in both educating consumers about Australian wine regions and also about the small and specific Australian wine making families’ own brands and story from that region.
“Small, passionate, Australian wine companies working together will be a large reason for the success of this site,” Mr Sorgiovanni said.
“It will benefit both the small wine making companies, who need market and consumer engagement, and the consumer who is keen to learn more about Australian regions and wine.”