A new conversation about Australia wine: www.apluswines.com

Wine Australia has started the roll out its new consumer-facing website, www.apluswines.com, into all key export markets with the aim of facilitating conversations about Australian wine via a global audience of wine lovers.

Initially launched in Australia earlier this year, the new website has now been translated and updated to suit key international markets, with the Japanese website the latest to go “live”.

Wine Australia’s Brand Manager and the Project Manager of the website, Stacey Packer said there had been an online “revolution” in the past 12 months among the Australian wine community.

“Wineries have embraced technology allowing them to engage in an online conversation with their consumers, their suppliers and their peers to tell their unique stories and promote their wines’, diversity and sense of place” she said.

“There has been a range of initiatives developed in the past 12 months to promote social media and wine and these have resulted in creating an online wine community willing to share ideas and stories about their experiences with Australian wine – and the people behind it.

“Wine Australia has developed its online presence to help encourage this online community to interact, debate and tell stories.”

Underpinning Wine Australia’s social media strategy has been the launch of the new website, www.apluswines.com to complement the A+ Australian Wine marketing strategy.

“The new website aims to create an online community of wine lovers and increase awareness of how much more there is to discover about Australian wine” Ms Packer said.

“We launched the Australian version earlier this year, and are now rolling out sites in different languages and to suit other markets. It is all about providing a channel for the wine sector to initiate the conversation with consumers, tell its stories and highlight the characters and personality behind Australian wines.”

The new website includes information about every wine region in Australia, as well as consumer-friendly facts about wine varieties and educational material for the more evolved wine consumer.

Wine Australia’s long-term goal is for www.apluswines.com to be a ‘gateway’ for wine consumers world-wide where they can search for their favourite Australian wine, find out where to purchase the wine – wherever they are in the world – or simply make direct contact with a winery.

“The first phase of the website project was to encourage Australian wineries to tell their stories and the wine sector embraced that opportunity when it was launched in June, 2010,” Ms Packer said.

“We have led initially with five stories on the landing page of the website, which were chosen by a three-person panel and were selected for their originality, connection to their region and consumer appeal.”

These stories are about:

• Josef Chromy – Tasmania

• Chapel Hill - McLaren Vale, SA

• Brokenwood Wines - Hunter, NSW

• Wanted Man Vineyard - Heathcote, VIC

• Flying Fish Cove - MargaretRiver, WA

The website and A+ Australian Wine brand is the cornerstone of Wine Australia’s approach to recapturing the excitement about the Australian category and evolving its position towards a stronger perception of quality, diversity (style, regional, place, story) and value.

All activities associated with the brand, including the website, are aimed at educating, engaging and communicating that there is so much more to discover about Australian wine.”

“As with any website, this is an evolving platform and is growing every day and we now have close to 300 stories online, however we still encourage Australian wineries to continue to upload their stories for publication on the website, and this can be done by visiting the story platform at www.australiaplus.com.,” Ms Packer said.