Australia: Wine trade organization

The structure of the wine sector, measured by the size of individual companies or groups, underwent profound changes in the first few years of the 21st century, and more are sure to come. The largest was the assimilation of Hardys by constellation of the US to form the world’s largest wine group. Soon afterwards, Constellation sold its Australian wine interests to local venture capitalists Champ Equity (see accolade). The most publicized change was the acquisition by Southcorp of Rosemount, and the financial haemorrhage which ensued. What seemed to be the most successful at the time was the 2000 acquisition of Beringer in California (by brewers Foster’s who went on to swallow Southcorp/Rosemount) to form Beringer Blass, with the disappearance of the Mildara name. In 2011, Foster’s separated its wine division from its brewing division and renamed it treasury wine Estates. The 2002 merger of Simeon Wines and Brian McGuigan Wines, and the acquisition by that group of Miranda Wines, Yaldara, and later Nepenthe, lifted McGuigan into the top four, where it remained in 2014—although in 2008 it was renamed, rather curiously, Australian Vintage Limited. Evans & Tate transformed itself from a small to medium winery based in the Margaret River to Australia’s eighth-largest wine group by acquiring Cranswick Estate and was then taken over by McWilliam’s in 2007. Arguably, the greatest success story was that of Riverina-based Casella Wines, nowhere in the top 20 companies in 2000, and by 2014 third-largest thanks to its enormous sales of yellow tail into the United States and elsewhere.