These four trends will shape wine in 2025, says Samuel Smith & Son’s new ED

In November, Ty Menzies was named Paul Midolo’s successor as Executive Director of Sales at Samuel Smith & Son and Negociants Australia following Midolo’s retirement.

The news fell just one week prior to the milestone 175th anniversary celebration of Yalumba, Samuel Smith & Son’s flagship brand.

Prior to officially starting his new role on 23 December, Ty Menzies spent 23 years with the company across various key positions, including four years as General Manager of Independent Retail Groups.

Here, Menzies looks ahead to his first full year as Executive Director - Sales at Samuel Smith & Son and Negociants Australia:

“It is a pleasure for me to share our 2025 priorities with you since taking over at Samuel Smith & Son and Negociants Australia at the end of 2024. Our recently retired Executive Director, Paul Midolo, completed 29 years with our company, working across many roles and markets. We thank him for his contribution and leadership, and I look forward to building on the relationships that Paul has had in the trade over this time.

We reflect on a 2024 trading environment in which the wine market returned to small value growth in retail after a year of flat performance and the on-premise channel remaining challenged by constraints on consumers' disposable incomes and material increases in business costs.

The category themes for 2025 will continue to build around premiumisation, sustainability, and digital transformation in customer experience. More recently, we have observed a trend of the wine consumer demanding value at all price points, particularly below $20 in retail.

The value trend is an understandable reaction to the economy's cost-of-living challenges. While we are optimistic that some relief may come this year, we are conscious that the wine shopper will continue to seek outstanding value from every dollar spent. Our broad offer of classic quality at all price points is well-suited to leveraging this customer need.

Our customers are also asking for opportunities to support local wineries and communities. Consumers increasingly seek local offers, and our brand range from around Australia supports this trend.

Our folios of Samuel Smith & Son and Negociants Australia represent family-owned wineries celebrated for their fine wines and classic expressions of the regions they proudly represent. We are encouraged to see our customers more curious to explore our broad range of offers and purchase and promote wines from more regions and varieties.

Our promise to our customers is to be your Ultimate Wine Partner. Our team engages with our partners based on our Knowledge, Service, and Friendship mantra. We will continue to focus on building on our successes in this space and working even harder to forge closer connections with our customers.

Our customer connection will continue this year, and we will host our seasonal release tastings nationwide. In the autumn tasting, we will focus on our imported folios, and in the spring sessions, we will focus on domestic partners.

Education remains a priority as our WSET-accredited educators are active in trade, supporting our customers with programs supporting Level I & II Wine Education in all major cities. For those interested, please get in touch with your Samuel Smith / Negociants contact to see how we can assist you.

Our Sustainability focus remains, and we are pleased by how many of our Australian and International Wine partners are recognised by their local associations for their sustainability practices.

I look forward to meeting with you in a trade this year, and I wish you all the best for a prosperous year ahead.”

This article was written by Ty Menzies for Drinks Guide 2025, which was distributed nationwide in December and can be viewed digitally here. If you did not receive a physically copy and would like to be added to the Drinks Trade/Guide magazine mailing list, get in touch with the team now.