The 2023 Liquor Barons conference concluded over the weekend with a glamorous cocktail party held at one of Florence's finest homes, Villa Cora overlooking the ancient city.
More than 150 delegates have spent nine days split between Rome and Florence, following two key themes: next-generation retailing and the opportunity around imported wines.
Throughout the nine days, WSET trainer Foni Pollitt, from Foni T Pollitt's Wine School, ran education classes covering the wines of Italy, supported by individual retailer visits to wineries in the Tuscany region. The international wine flavour was further studied with Franklin Tate's range of wines, Tatelbaum, at an evening of fine wine and food in Florence.
The Tatelbaum range is already available in Western Australia via some retailers, and this was a chance to meet the man behind the wines, famed Italian winemaker Alberto Antonini - named one of the top 5 most influential winemakers in the world by Decanter magazine. Antonini works in concert with Australian-based winemaker, Emiliano Secco, producing a Prosecco, Grillo, Montepulciano and a Chianti.
"The Tatelbaum range has been based on generations of women in our family, each of them with larger than life personalities. Through our Europen roots, we embody this family story in our Italian wines, packaged with hand-drawn illustrations that represent the women's names and their stories," said Tate.
Earlier in the week, the relatively new team of marketers and content creators, now in-house at Liquor Barons, presented their work and direction for the banner's branding, character and in-store promotion programme. Tips for social media content through to best practice buying alongside promotional timetables. The majority of the head office staff came for the conference, reconfirming Liquor Barons commitment to their team engaging with the retailers as often as possible and fully understanding the cooperative.
Liquor Barons General Manger, Chris O'Brien, said: "Now more than ever, West Australian consumers know to support their local everything. Liquor Barons has invested largely in big-impact marketing campaigns that educate consumers on supporting the little guys (us!), and that’s been hugely successful.
"The marketing efforts focus on promoting our 60-plus store owners and the advantages of shopping local, as well as articulating what the benefits of being independent are to our customers. We’ve communicated that our co-op model allows us to use our combined buying power to offer a huge range of their favourite alcohol brands at competitive prices.
"But most importantly, we’ve communicated that Liquor Barons co-operative has a grassroots approach, with community at the heart," said O'Brien.
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