What are your thoughts on the Canadian wine industry?

You guys have made some great inroads winning awards for your wines recently. You have one of the best chardonnays. And since you’re making the best icewine I suppose we’ve got something in common. I admire the Canadian wine industry and their people, where they’ve come from, particularly in the Ontario region and British Columbia.

Is the on-trade market a big market for your brands?

I think we are in most of the international hotels. I think we are very strongly represented. I would think we’re in nearly 80 per cent of restaurants. Otherwise, we couldn’t sell the stuff. I personally believe we are very strong. It’s one of the major markets for us.

Your Yellow Label Cabernet Sauvignon is the No. 1 selling Cabernet Sauvignon in Canada. Why do you think it’s done so well in the Canadian market?

I think the colour. When I started, the colour (of the label) was one issue that was easy to identify. So we made some easy drinking styles of wine whereby the heavy harshness and the tannin, which in our production system has been reduced. We brought out the best of the fruit and we used the maturation process to bring young wines onto the market. And these wines were not aggressive, they were easy to drink. The key word in our company became drinkability and this hasn’t changed and I think that this is why the yellow label has become the No. 1 Wolf Blass wine globally in the world, and the rest of the industry has followed us.

How can servers enrich a guest’s experience when serving your wine?

We’re the first company now in Australia putting the screw top on all products from the low priced to the high priced (even $80 bottles) so the presentation in the restaurant is much simpler than it used to be. You used to have the sommelier in the restaurant with the corkscrew doing all the sampling and tasting. He’d think, ‘Is the wine corked? Isn’t it corked? Is it OK?’ With the screw top you haven’t got these problems. You don’t need to worry if there’s going to be a fluctuation in the difference of flavours if you open up eight different bottles. We believe that is the stronghold which is going to be beneficial in restaurants, airlines, shipping lines and it looks like you Canadians have accepted it also.

How important is stemware in a restaurant or bar?

It doesn’t matter how old the wine is, I like to see red wines be decanted before they are served. That adds that little touch of class. It has nothing to do with deposits in the bottom. It’s just a slight absorption of oxygen during the decanting that breathes new life in the aroma complex of the product. That’s something I’d really like to see automatically included when you serve red wines.

Where do you see wine in the future?

You’re asking a very serious question. This is very serious – we’ve got a global surplus of wine – anything in the vicinity of 15 to 20 per cent. I’m talking about global wine surplus in the northern and southern hemisphere. I’ve seen the developments of all countries over the last 10 to 15 years. And nearly every country in the world wants to grow wine, for some stupid reason. It’s because people who have some money they put a vineyard in and want to put their own label on, so we’ve got this excess. It’s commercially not viable. It cannot go on forever, so the very good wine companies will retain and maintain a good market share but there will be a lot of hardships in most countries. There’s a surplus of wine in the world, which is creating a big headache for the manufacturers because there will be huge discounting in the world. The discounting is going to make it so there’s no profit and if there’s no profit then you go broke. I think there’s going to be a restructuring over the next 10 years. Those people who thought they were going to come in and make a fast buck will not be around.