Drinks Business | Lenz Moser: ‘The wine industry needs an iPhone moment’

In a drinks business podcast last month, Austrian winemaker Lenz Maria Moser spoke openly about the potential for white wine in China, and why the wine industry needs “an iPhone moment” to “excite” a new generation of drinkers.

You can listen to the interview in full here, in which Lenz covers many topics, especially his role as consultant winemaker for Changyu Pioneer Wine Co – China’s oldest and largest winery – which he has worked with over the past 20 years, producing a range of wines under the brand, Chateau Changyu Moser XV.

However, at the outset of the discussion, he considered the well-documented challenges for the wine trade worldwide right now, expressing his concern, but also optimism.

When asked about the state of the market, he told db, “The trouble at the moment is it’s not just a usual downturn led by economics, it’s a structural one.”

Explaining further, he said that the decline in wine consumption was due to an imbalance between the number of people leaving the market, and those coming into it: “The baby boomers go to rest or drink less, or their cellars are full,” he said, accounting for a fall-off in sales, before adding, “But the problem is that the generation Z and X only fill half of the slot emptied by the older folks.”

Continuing he said, “So that leaves a gap.”

Such a development is “not recent” according to Moser, but is being felt more acutely now because “of the struggles of the cyclical downturn.”

Moser, however, then told db that he sees the current negative trend “as a chance; I’m a positive person, and I’m in a niche, you know, with China, with Austria, with Tokaji” – he said, referring to his range of projects, from the aforementioned Chateau Changyu Moser XV to his winery in Krems, and Furmint called Ma’d Moser.

He continued, “I tend to think it’s a lot easier for me because I’m in a niche, but we [the wine trade] need to innovate, and we need to listen to what the consumer really wants, although not too much, because I believe in giving direction to the consumer.”

He added, “I like the Steve Jobs approach: he gave people the iPhone; people wanted it, but they did not know that it existed or that they can have it, and then, all of a sudden, it was touch, touch, touch – and this was the magic stroke because everything was invented before, but he put everything together and gave people something new.

“They were surprised and they loved it, and now they’re hooked, we all hooked on this touch thing, and I think the wine industry needs an iPhone moment.”

As for what this might be, Moser can’t be sure, but he is clear that he doesn’t believe it will come with natural or orange wines, nor de-alcoholised ones.

“I don’t see it with natural, orange or no and low, and I might be completely wrong, but the world is not going to drink only no and low, but, looking at the beer sector, it might be 5%, but it’s not going to save the [wine] industry, because in essence, what we do is substitute alcohol with sugar, and I’m not sure if this a healthy thing to do.”

“So we all need to scratch our heads and talk to people, and talk to young people in particular because that’s the ones we lost. And, when I go to China, that’s the bright spot for me, because I have found a new target group which doesn’t exist in Europe, which is young women.”

Continuing, he recorded, “They are leading the charge in China… most of them have studied in Europe or travelled there, and they are bringing the wine back home that they want, and it’s different from what their fathers or grandfathers or official people in public enjoyed.

He then observed, “They drink wine because they like it, and not just because it’s a social drink, and they couldn’t care about gifting because that was until ten years ago, the big thing, gifting and social drinking – and it was red wine, almost 100%, but now most dealers in white wines are always sold out half way through the year and struggle to get more wines in.

“And this demand is basically led by the female element in the market which is very healthy.”

It is for this reason that Moser has also found success with a novel wine from China in the domestic market.

He explained, “Nine years ago we did white Cabernet, and I did it because I needed a white wine for Europe.”

But Moser added that he had told the chairman of Changyu that “one day white wine will come”, referring to the domestic market, and nowadays “people love it, in China as well,” leading Moser to state, “Thank God we have it because we don’t have any grape varieties on the white side at this moment.”

However, back to a broader solution to the wine market worldwide, Moser said this, “We cannot only please the consumer. It’s not enough to satisfy their needs. We really need to excite them again, like we did in the 80s and 90s.”