Annie’s Lane Coppertrail Shiraz wins Shiraz Challenge

Annie’s Lane – once one of the finest value producers in South Australia, but suffering under years of corporate mismanagement, were announced yesterday as the winners of the 2009 Visy Shiraz Challenge with their 2005 Coppertrail Shiraz.

Link here

Congratulations I say, as the Coppertrail label has provided some seriously good wines over the years, and the winemaking team is said to be quite talented. It’s just a pity that the Annie’s Lane brand has been destroyed by heavy discounting, leading to the laughable situation where you can purchase the (once vgood) Cabernet Merlot for $10 a bottle in major chain stores, whilst Fosters expect independant (read anyone other than Coles and Woolworths) merchants to pay more than that as their cost price.

The result of this situation is that it effectively makes the brand unprofitable for anyone other than the chain stores, who then in turn want to sell it for $10 all year round, thus forcing the fruit quality to drop away in sync with the drop in actual retail price….