Wine company pulls out of Australia campaign

Wine company Australian Vintage whose brands include McGuigan and Tempus Two is pulling its funding for this year’s UK generic marketing campaign by Wine Australia claiming the plans no longer represent their commercial interests and are too focused on promoting regionality.

The move is the first significant crack to show under the stress of repositioning Australia from 'sunshine in a bottle', the home of good value wines, to promoting regional identity with their regional heroes campaign.

Wine giant Foster's are backing the Wine Australia campaign although marketing director Richard Trimby said there needs to be more of a focus on Brand Australia in order to protect Australia's number-one spot in the UK.

Pernod Ricard said it had settled its membership bill and fully backed Wine Australia.