Developing Victoria's wine industry for future growth and innovation
Through the Wine Growth Fund, the Victorian Government is committed to growing the State’s wine industry to increase its domestic and international markets, improve wine tourism and grow local businesses.
Achieving positive outcomes:
A key benefit of the fund is to support investment and jobs by:
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Rutherglen Estates - Cellar door upgrade and art gallery
Rutherglen Estates will revitalise its existing cellar door by designing an art gallery in the existing space. The winery has already secured the rights to display an extensive collection of indigenous Australian art that includes paintings and sculptures.
Rutherglen Estate is aiming to promote limited run exhibitions several times a year, in addition to bringing in artists-in-residence to interact with and educate the public on their creative processes.
The proposal is to align marketing and promotion toward prestigious offerings to encourage visitation and direct sales.
Outcomes: This project will assist in revitalising Rutherglen as a tourist destination. The gallery and associated events will attract visitors to the winery that will increase cellar door sales (and memberships) and provide visitors with an enhanced winery experience.
The project is expected to directly generate two new jobs, and will improve the tourism offering in Rutherglen and encourage extended stays that will consequently create flow on benefits to the local economy.
Rosdal Wines - New purpose built cellar door
Rosdal Wines intends to build a custom designed, purpose built large cellar door, creating a unique destination in the north central part of the Heathcote wine region.
The cellar door will be able to cater for events, provide food and create a significant tourism attraction.
Outcomes: The project involves significant investment by Rosdal Wines, and aims to develop and grow the Victorian wine industry by lifting the profile of the Heathcote wine region through increased visitation and creation of an additional cellar door.
A new cellar door in the north-central part of the region will also assist in attracting visitors north of the town of Heathcote to experience a further cluster of cellar doors within a 5-10km radius.
A key benefit of the fund is to increase visitation and expenditure within Victoria’s wine regions by:
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Pyrenees Grape Growers and Winemakers Association - Pyrenees Unearthed - Avoca Wine Festival 2017
The project will build on the success of the 2016 Avoca Wine Festival and attract more attendees to the 2017 event (approx. 2,000) through earlier and improved marketing and promotion. The organisation will also implement eight recommendations from the 2016 festival evaluation report.
Outcomes: The event will assist to increase wine tourism and cellar door sales, and will support Pyrenees grape growers and grow the market sector in the region.
Victorian Alps Winery / Gapsted Wines - Development of wine and destination website and App
Gapsted Wines is looking to bolster the area’s wine industry and broader economy by upgrading its digital presence. This will include the development of a digitally responsive and multilingual website and engagement app. This online activity will help Gapsted to grow its export markets by removing language barriers, highlight the diversity of grape varieties available in the region and encourage visitation through wine tourism.
Outcomes: The project aims to deliver a digital presence that will grow visitation and increase sales and knowledge of the Alpine and King Valley wine regions. The Alpine Valley and King Valley are generally not nationally recognised for their diversity and premium quality wines. Embracing digital technology to enhance the area’s profile will entice more people to visit the region. The website enhancements will promote regional activities and attract more visitors to the cellar door as well as to the region by offering a greater awareness of the experiences available to them.
Yarra Valley Winegrowers Association - Developing Chinese Tourism to Yarra Valley Cellar Doors and demand for Yarra Valley wine in China
This project will undertake a series of initiatives designed to connect with the Chinese market, increase wine tourism and cellar door sales from Chinese visitors to the region, build demand for wine in China and improve skills training for cellar door staff. Specifically, the project will undertake the following activities:
- Undertake a Chinese tourist and consumer analysis;
- Develop Chinese communication tools such as a tailored Chinese section on the Association’s website and the development of Chinese social media platforms;
- In-market promotional activities geared towards the Chinese market; and
- Tools and training for cellar door staff - on the website and social media platforms.
Outcomes: This is a collaborative project with broad regional benefits. The project will better connect wineries with Chinese tourists both during and after their visits to Yarra Valley wineries. It will increase tourism to the wineries and subsequently cellar door sales. Increased sales and improved wine production is expected to lead to business growth.
| A key benefit of the fund is to strengthen industry structure and coordination to develop and grow the Victorian wine industry. |
Geelong Winegrowers Association - Maximise the potential - Wine tourism in the Geelong region
The project will seek the services of consultants to develop a region wide wine marketing and branding strategy which will include market research, consultation, brand development, web development/enhancement, promotional campaigns and the development of marketing and promotional tools.
Outcomes: The project will provide the Geelong Winegrowers Association with a sound base for its marketing and branding decisions.
The project will enable the organisation to improve the strategic and digital communications with target audiences, better understand the needs of its member winegrowing organisations and develop their online presence and brand to promote the region as a wine tourist destination.
Tourism North East - Wine tourism and cellar door visitation research project
Tourism North East seeks funding towards a three-stage major research project.
Stage 1 - region-wide survey of current cellar door visitation and behaviours;
Stage 2 - in-depth market segmentation research to provide accurate insights into the attitudes, perceptions and behaviours of existing and potential wine visitors;
Stage 3 - review findings and deliver twenty-seven workshops to wine tourism operators and stakeholders sharing project findings, as well as conduct twenty follow-up business mentoring sessions to implement the learnings in future planning.
Outcomes: This project will undertake research and collect the necessary data required to develop a more robust and profitable wine tourism sector within Victoria’s High Country. It will allow for the enhancement and/or development of new products, more targeted communications and marketing, and the potential development of infrastructure required to attract greater numbers of wine tourism visitors to the region.
| A key benefit of the fund is to develop profitable and sustainable export markets. |
Wine Victoria - Wine Victoria North America inbound trade mission 2017
Wine Victoria will partner with Wine Australia and four key exporting regions (Geelong, Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula and the King Valley) to coordinate a small-scale inbound trade mission.
During the mission, ten North American wine influencers (trade, wine educators, buyers, sommeliers) will be hosted by Victorian wine companies over five days.
The objectives of the mission will be to highlight Victoria’s capability in the production of premium cool climate wines and increase the value of Victorian wine exports.
Outcomes: The project aims to capitalise on opportunities for growth of some of Victoria’s premium cool climate wines in the USA (based on industry analysis).
The project seeks to highlight Victoria’s capability in producing premium wines, reduce some of the barriers to increasing existing exports sales and increase the value of Victorian wines.
Jones Winery & Vineyard - Market diversification - export sales project
The project will develop and strengthen the winery’s brand strategy for the domestic and international markets, in particular Northern Europe and Scandinavia.
The project will:
- Engage a consultant to assist in development of PR, media and marketing collateral;
- Engage an export market consultant for initial market introduction;
- Support the winery to attend international wine expos in relevant markets; and
- Facilitate an in-bound visitation for prospective distributors.
Outcomes: The project will further develop already identified export markets to increase market share and export sales while also promoting Victorian Rutherglen wine. The brand and marketing strategy will enable the winery to focus and target its resources and energies to have the most impact, while an export consultant will assist the winery to gain access to the international markets.
One key benefit of the fund is to support adaptation to a new industry operating environment to:
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Lethbridge Wines - Sustainability through mulch and compost project
The project is a vineyard trial that will compare two types of under-vine mulch cover - straw and woodchip - over eleven acres. A control treatment will be used to compare the overall benefits of mulching on yield and vine vigour.
Outcomes: This project seeks to improve water use efficiency, decrease evaporation losses and increase grape yields and quality by using the best method of under vine mulch. The findings will be shared with other wineries in the region online and through a field day.
Beechworth Vignerons Association - Region to market - trade and media tastings
The trade and media tasting was initiated this year with the aim to become an annual event in Melbourne and Sydney. The main component, a trade and media tasting event, delivers a high quality sampling of the breadth of Beechworth wines. Funding was provided towards staging the Sydney event.
Outcomes: The event will benefit regional wine and wine tourism and will raise the profile of the Beechworth region in an interstate market. This event will lead to future trade events and develop into masterclasses and further education to foster the connection with the Beechworth wine region.
Shadowfax Winery - Shadowfax website redevelopment
This project involves the redevelopment of the company’s existing website to improve functionality. The improved website will include e-newsletter functionality, database integration (between cellar door, restaurant and contacts), shopping cart, automated wine club functions, social feeds, customised site notifications, and multilingual functionality. The project also includes a Facebook launch campaign, photography and training for two staff members.
Outcomes: The winery is well positioned on the outskirts of Melbourne’s west and situated in close proximity to the Werribee Zoo.
The project will enable the winery to capitalise on its location to draw visitation to the winery from metro Melbourne as well as tap into current visitation to the area. This project will help increase wine tourism to the area and cellar door sales as well as online sales. It will also help foster export markets through the inclusion of Mandarin language capability.