Wine Australia commits to ProWein as London fair wanes

By James Wells in Düsseldorf

Wine Australia general manager, James Gosper, has committed to returning to ProWein as the industry moves away from the declining London International Wine Fair.

Gosper told TheShout that Wine Australia would not be exhibiting at the London fair in 2013 and was "on notice" as far as any future appearances were concerned.

"ProWein is in our prospectus for 2014," Gosper said during his first visit to the event.

"Based on feedback from the industry, ProWein is an essential global show because it is an international show with US buyers, Chinese buyers and of course European buyers.

"We had 28 wineries on our stand this year and we hope to have a stand of similar size in 2014, it is just a matter of which wineries will be able to afford it."

Gosper has some advice for the wineries considering the decision to attend the exhibition in 2014.

"If you are really wanting to be at ProWein, don't come and sit behind a stand and wait for someone to come and taste your wine. You need to organise appointments as the world of wine is already in the room.

"There are literally hundreds of thousands of wines at ProWein and it is a needle in a haystack that someone will randomly stumble across your wine.

"If you are going to make the investment in a booth, do your homework first – work with Wine Australia, make connections and appointments, send emails to your contacts and then be here ready for back to back meetings. People that do that get a lot of business, people that don't… don't."

Click 'play' on the video below to hear more from James Gosper at ProWein.