By James Atkinson
Compounding ill-feeling over the Moët Hennessy Collection website, some liquor retailers are aggrieved by a new direct-to-consumer wine retail website that has the backing of the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia (WFA).
Currently there are more than 570 wines listed on the From The Producer website, which unabashedly declares that all money goes to the producer.
“There is no middle man and there are no middle man charges,” it says.
While it is mostly smaller winemakers on the website, there are some bigger wineries with close ties to the WFA that have their products listed.
WFA CEO Paul Evans said it was “great to see large companies like Yalumba and Angove getting on board and we expect more will do so because they see it as an additional string to their marketing bow”.
Retailer Mal Higgs, who spoke with TheShout about Moët Hennessy Collection, said the WFA initiative was understandable for smaller wine producers who don’t have the ability to get their product ranged by the retail network.
“However, I would be surprised to see well-known companies who rely on the support of the retailer network go down this path,” he said.