Wine of the Times

Guardian wine writer Victoria Moore reports on the overwhelming success of NZ wine in the UK. NZ wine boasts the highest average retail price in the UK (second-place Australia lags by £1.77) and almost 10% of mid-price wine purchased by Britons hails from NZ. “Aside from champagne, I can’t think of any other kind of wine for which ordinary people are prepared to flick notes out of their wallet and hand them over in the same slam-dunk way as they will swap a tenner for a bottle of NZ sauvignon blanc,” writes Moore. She cites coherent marketing, technological innovation and a refusal to do “Tesco plonk” as the secrets to NZ wine’s success.