By James Atkinson
Peter Lehmann Wines is moving to a new state-based distribution model with four separate agency partners, concluding its three-year partnership with Four Seasons Fine Wines.
The announcement comes just weeks after it was revealed that Four Seasons would be merged with Grant Burge's family-owned distributor, Vignerons of the World, establishing a new joint venture company that would be 77.5 per cent owned by Grant Burge.
The prospect of effectively being distributed by a competing Barossa Valley label obviously didn’t sit well with Peter Lehmann Wines, but its Australia & New Zealand director of sales Mike Every told TheShout the company had reached the end of its contract and would have left regardless.
“We’d actually made arrangements to depart Four Seasons at the end of March, then the Grant Burge deal happened so we had to speed up our plans to move out,” he said.
“We weren’t interested in being in the same portfolio.”
Effective from March 3, Peter Lehmann Wines will be distributed to on-premise and independent retail channels via Young and Rashleigh (New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory), Déjà Vu Wine Company (Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania), Options Wine Merchants (South Australia and Northern Territory) and Off the Vine (Western Australia).
“We’ve recognised that the market is changing significantly. The model that we went to with Four Seasons wasn’t particularly working and we needed to move to a different one,” Every said.
Peter Lehmann CEO Jeff Bond said: “We are really excited about this next stage which underpins our efforts to continually build sales and distribution of the Peter Lehmann brand within on-premise and independent retail.”
“These channels are critically important to the Australian wine industry, and it’s vital wine producers provide the best possible support and service to these customers. Teaming up with a clearly focused state-based distributor network ensures we are best placed to tend to our customers’ needs.”
Great model for a disaster – the four distributors get the crumbs and Lehmann Wines play with the duopoly. I give it maybe two years before the cracks start to appear.