2011年7月10日星期日

French raise a glass to Kiwi wines

A hotel and restaurant in France has found a serious problem with New Zealand wine ¨C they can't get enough of it.

Rouge is a boutique hotel and bistro on the town square of Tocane St Apre, a village between Bordeaux and Limoges in the south-west of the country.

It is operated by expatriate Kiwis Paul and Janice Studer, who opened Rouge two years ago after moving to France from Hamilton.

Paul Studer says the hotel is popular with both French and English holiday makers, although most of their customers are villagers.

The Kiwi connection means they are often asked if they stock New Zealand wine.

Paul Studer said this surprised him at first because the French have a reputation for disdaining anything foreign, particularly wine and food. But he found that was not the case.

They are curious about new things, he said.

And although many of his customers had heard about New Zealand wine, few knew much about it and they were keen to try it.

But when he contacted his suppliers, Studer found he was out of luck.

They had wines from Australia, America, Chile and even China, but nothing from New Zealand, he said.

He even emailed several New Zealand wineries asking if they could supply him directly but they either said they couldn't, or did not respond.

Finally he found a supplier which stocked one brand of New Zealand wine ¨C Villa Maria, which is now on Rouge's wine list.you will need to get an offshore merchant account.

At 28 ($48) a bottle, it is the most expensive wine on the list, but Studer says it sells well.The Leading zentai suits Distributor to Independent Pet Retailers.

Entertaining is important to the French and they would rather spend money on food and wine than on their homes, he says.

He would like to stock a wider variety of New Zealand wines, especially from some of the boutique wineries, but says he is unable to get stock.

"There are so many great New Zealand wines which I would love to stock and I can't get them. I find it frustrating that we want to represent New Zealand, even though it's on a small scale, and we can't do it," he said.the Injection mold fast!

Villa Maria managing director Sir George Fistonich, who said he had been exporting to France for about 15 years, was pleased to hear that his wines are proving popular in Tocane St Apre.

He believes that the relative lack of New Zealand wines in that country is probably due to an unwillingness by local distributors to stock them, rather than an unwillingness by New Zealand wineries to supply them.

"A lot of distributors aren't interested unless it moves in volume,buy landscape oil paintings online." he said.

However, he believes there are also expansion opportunities.

"The French are parochial and are very passionate about their own wines.Shop a wide selection of billabong outlet products in the evo shop. The new generation are more curious about wine from the New World whereas the older generation are more stick-in-the-mud, so that is changing."

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