Hardys signals shift from cask wine

Published: 23 July, 2008

Peter Dawson, senior operations vice president at the Hardy Wine Company, has highlighted the company's plans to shift production away from sales of cask wine.

To do so the company will rein in the intake of grapes from the 2011 vintage by cutting the harvesting of grapes in South Australia's Riverland and also north-west Victoria's Sunraysia region by 15%.

Dawson told ABC: "The thing that's driving the review is probably over this time frame a decline in cask wine sales and also a decline in sales at the lower price points in our international markets."

Scaling back the vintage means the amount of grapes picked will be effectively reduced from 50,000 tonnes to 40,000 tonnes., he added.

The move ties into a wider strategy from Hardy's owner Constellation Brands to tighten up production and efficiency procedures.

Last month Constellation announced it was consolidating Hardy's winemaking and packaging activities from the Buronga winery to the larger Berri Estates winery.

Speaking at the time, Constellation chief executive Rob Sands said: "Similar to other production-oriented businesses, we must periodically refine our global production footprint and this is an example of our pro-active approach to address marketplace macro trends."

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