BRL Hardy Europe's wine venture bears fruit

The collaboration between BRL Hardy Europe and a leading South African winery has borne its first fruit with the launch of a new branded wine.

Shamwari, set to be unveiled at this week's South African Wine tastings (October 16 and 17) in London and Edinburgh, is a selection of competitively priced South African wines from the renowned Stellenbosch vineyards and is co-owned by the two companies.

The range boasts two varietals, a Robertson Chardonnay and a Stellenbosch Shiraz, designed exclusively for pubs and bars in an attempt to avoid consumer price comparisons between the take-home market and the on-trade.

"A lot of people in the on-trade find that branded wine is often subject to promotional activity in supermarkets and are then reluctant to run it," said Christopher Carson, chief executive of BRL Hardy. "So we felt that the way to go forward was to have different labelling and packaging.

But the on-trade is beginning to accept that if someone has purchased a wine in the off-trade then they will have the confidence to order it in a pub."

South Africa is one of the leading regions spearheading the New World Wine sector and Mr Carson predicts the wines will continue to grow in a pub market viewed as a couple of years behind the off-trade.

He said: "New World wine brands are probably more marketing oriented (than European brands) and will no doubt perform very strongly in the next five years."

Mr Carson recommended that Shamwari should be positioned "a tad above entry level" at around £10 a bottle.

The launch of the new range will be accompanied by point-of-sale material and tastings while a marketing campaign has been scheduled for next year.

The Stellenbosch vineyard produces around 850,000 cases of regional wine annually for the export and domestic markets.