New Zealand has been described as the “Coldplay of the wine world” in a panel debate held in the UK. Richard Siddle, editor of Grapevine magazine, said that New Zealand wines were “consistent, popular and in everyone’s collection,” but now faced the challenge of making them more exciting.
“In the 1980s New Zealand was known for two things: butter and lamb, as we didn’t export wine at that time,” said New Zealand Winegrowers CEO Philip Gregan, who also took part in the panel. “Today wine is an important part of New Zealand’s image on the world stage. We owe a lot of our success to the UK, as that is where the wines were first discovered.”
“The challenge now is to broaden the story beyond Sauvignon Blanc. We’re a New World country so we need to be open-minded, think differently and come up with fresh ideas in order to keep our wines exciting and relevant,” he said. “The UK continues to surprise us and continues to grow. We see Brexit as a positive thing for New Zealand wine in the UK as access to the market will improve. Rosé has been a huge success story for us over that last 18 months. Before it was such a small category we didn’t even track it at export.”
