WA winery clinches UK export deal via internet

A SMALL West Australian wine producer has used an innovative online marketing method to seal its first export deal.

Greedy Sheep Winery, between Margaret River and Busselton, took advantage of an online auction to clinch a $12,000 export deal to the UK.

Greedy Sheep Winery - named after the neighbouring farmer's sheep broke into the vineyard and destroyed 20 per cent of the first harvest in 2005 - has been thrust into the international spotlight after UK wine tasters put its Cabernet Merlot 2007 in the top 15 of 100 wines tested.

The event was organised by the Australian Government's Austrade and the UK online wine retailer, Nakedwines.com.

Once the judges decided on the best wines, bidding started over the internet, through the social networking site Twitter.com

Greedy Sheep Winery winemaker Dave Johnson said: "I got woken up by a call at 3.30am, I was online at 4am and by 5am I had an order for $12,000. Now, that is the way to do business."

The exercise is designed to help Aussie boutique wine producers break into the British market.

Austrade senior trade commissioner Kylie Hargreaves said online sales were one of the few sectors of the UK economy showing strong growth.

"It's a great model, helping to bring new wines direct to interested UK consumers while enabling Australian wineries to duck the enormous purchasing power that the UK supermarkets use to force enormous discounts onto our wines," Ms Hargreaves said.

Customer Alex Vidovic said it was a great way to buy wine.

"It's the next best thing to visiting three dozen wineries in one night and picking products straight from the cellar," he said.

Greedy Sheep Winery owner Briget Guiney said it was the the company's first export deal but it was only the beginning and she expected follow-up orders.

Online was not only a new way of selling it also was a cheaper way of doing business, she said.

"It's pretty exciting," she said.

"They're talking about wanting container loads of wine.

"We've had our online cart going since December and we definitely see it as the future for us.

"It reduces your marketing overheads and being out on the road doing tastings."

"You definitely have to find smarter ways of doing it. For us, we can now see the benefits and cost effectiveness of using the web as a marketing tool."