Australian wine icon Wolf Blass sees inovation as the best way out of the current australian grape glut as reported in the Australian.

He has a good point.

“I’ve seen five breakdowns in this country and each time we survived because we came up with innovative ideas. Our guys today wouldn’t bloody know. They only know one thing — discounting, and that’s the end of the bloody industry.”

Discounting is a dangerous path as there is never much of a way back once you have cut price expectations. This is one of the pitfalls of the “regional varietal” system we in the new world operate under. The wine can turn into a commodity of sorts, but a commodity that can go in and out of fashion.