Fred Tibbitts
started sweeping warehouse floors in New York when he was 16. Now at
58 he heads Fred Tibbitts & Associates (FTA), and is the wine by
the glass consultant to more chain hotels than anyone else in the
world. Starwood Hotels & Resorts (Asia-Pacific), Raffles Hotels
International, Accor Asia (Novotel & Sofitel) and the
Inter-Continental Hotels Group South East Asia are just some of the
giants on his “wine list”.
He helps chain hotels decide which wines they will offer by
the glass. FTA’s wine by the glass programme with “on-premise”
chains introduces new world wines to new customers globally and
helps build demand for them.
In addition, Fred is an advisor to many wine companies in
the US, Chile,
South Africa and
Australia, opening chain hotel and
restaurant doors for their brands worldwide.
Right now he is exploring distribution channels and brand
building strategies for China…an almost
untapped market for wine appreciation by a huge and growing market
segment -“the newly affluent
Chinese”.
Fred also hosts a series of relationship building industry
dinners in key international centres throughout the year to
introduce a select and influential clientele to outstanding new wine
labels. He is a regular wine columnist for some
of the leading magazines for the hotel and food & beverage
industries including HOTFAB Executive, Restaurant Marketing,
Beverage Retailer and Nightclub & Bar in the US, and Hotel Asia
Pacific in Asia Pacific.
In March Fred was brought to New
Zealand on an NZTE-sponsored visit.
He toured wineries in the North and South Islands with George
Vizer, Vice President of the Food & Beverage for the 133 Hyatt
Hotels in North America (who commissioned Fred to lead the trip), to
find good value, quality New Zealand wines to include on the Hyatt
master wine list. Fred was also on the lookout
for local wine companies to represent overseas for sales to
on-premise chains.
Q: What are your observations of the New
Zealand wine industry?
FT: I was last here three years ago for “Pinot Noir 2001”
and I was delighted to return and see all the progress – so many
grape varietals have come on and the quality ranges from pretty good
to great. The pinot noir is getting bigger and
better, the sauvignon blanc is as good as ever and there’s a move to
some interesting varietals. Some very special
wines are coming out of New
Zealand.
The New Zealand wine industry is
really still in its infancy and I think the alliances being formed
with wine companies from other places, like
Australia and
California, are helping it to
grow. Increasingly, other successful wineries are
taking a share in or partnering with New
Zealand wineries. It’s great because
they get additional expertise while directing their own
destinies. The partnerships provide capital for
them to access new technology and they also benefit from shared
knowledge and skills. The best ideas often come from a blending of
know-how.
New Zealand’s as innovative as anybody and
full of energy. It needs to be serious in
using the best technology it can to advance its
viticulture.
Q: What work have you done with New
Zealand wineries?
FT: In the past I’ve marketed
Matua Valley
until their acquisition by Australian company Beringer Blass.
As a result of my recent visit, I’m looking
forward to working with Greg Hay of Peregrine Winery in
Central Otago. I’ve
been looking for a good New Zealand wine
to promote in hotels in Asia-Pacific. It’s a
winery that stood out, because it had energy as well as great wine
in the bottle and great value; but there is plenty of room for
others to step forward and ask for our help.
We’ve also had New Zealand
sponsors at the annual industry dinners that FTA hosts. At our
recent Spring Dinner at the Harvard Club in New
York, we poured three New
Zealand wines. Peregrine was a
sponsor at our Singapore Black Tie dinner and they will be a sponsor
at our very first Beijing dinner on June 25 as well as at our first
dinner in Shanghai at the Westin Hotel on September 16.
At Greg’s request we’re helping them secure a distributor in
China. And there are
still opportunities for as many as three New
Zealand wineries to join us for our Fifth Annual FTA
Black Tie Dinner in Hong Kong on 29
October or for our Thirteenth Annual Fall Dinner in New
York on 16 November.
Right now, a lot of New Zealand
wineries are smaller than FTA’s usual clients, so we’re in the
process of putting together a modified fee programme to give smaller
and medium sized companies the opportunity to work with
us. Also, by combining with other companies, in
the future many are likely to become a size that’s viable to do
business with us globally.
Q: So cost is still an important factor in marketing
our wine internationally?
FT: Value is very important. The world
economy hasn’t fully recovered since 9/11 and people are
increasingly careful with their money. The market
is becoming more and more competitive and so your wine has got to be
great value, which means better quality than expected for the
money.
Q: How aware are your clients of New
Zealand wine?
A: Increasingly, New Zealand is
regarded as a very important appellation. More
and more wine lists are including at least one New
Zealand wine. That’s happening
because their customers are saying “we like New
Zealand wine”.
Q: How can New Zealand raise
the profile of its wine
internationally?
A: The primary way that wine brands are built around the
world is by people dining out and enjoying them by the glass with
friends. You need to put New
Zealand wine on tables in restaurants in the chain
hotels and restaurants that are increasingly dominating the major
cities of the world, where the wine consuming public is doing their
sampling and where the disposable income is being spent on
entertainment. That is where the wineries of the
world are battling for market share. Branding is
all about positioning, associations and references.
Brands are built in the on-premise, that is restaurants and
hotels, not the off-premise or the retail side of the
business. As a direct result of every case of
wine sampled in restaurants, bars and hotels, three to five cases of
that wine are later sold at retail.
NZTE’s role is perfect in helping the industry make
important connections with key players in the business overseas,
building its editorial profile in international media and leveraging
expertise to enhance it capability.
Q: Do you see a market niche for New
Zealand wine?
FT: If there’s one wine from New
Zealand you want to try it would be
sauvignon blanc. Then comes pinot
noir. I’m aware that you have a lot of other
varieties coming on well, like pinot gris and the Bordeaux blends,
and the wine connoisseurs of the world are starting to experiment
with these but it’s important to remember that most people are not
wine knowledgeable…they’re maybe familiar with chardonnay, cabernet,
merlot and that’s about it. Wine by the glass is
a way of making introductions. I’ve created
opportunities for wine from Australia,
South Africa and
Chile and now I intend to do the same for
New Zealand wine.
Q: What’s the success of your “wine by the glass”
business?
A: Providing consistently superior value in wine by the
glass creates a comfort factor that comes with
familiarity. Frequent guests such as business
people who are loyal to one hotel brand regionally or globally come
to know a core of wines they can count on when they dine-out and
entertain in the chain’s restaurants. They feel
confident about ordering. The world is now one
marketplace and it requires a global level of consistent good value,
which translates into increased premium wine sales on and
off-premise.
Q: Your foray into China is
interesting – do we need to start relabelling bottles in
Mandarin?
A: If you’re going to be successful in
Asia you have to have a strong distributor
in China. The number of upwardly mobile
people in China is growing rapidly and
they want to replicate everything Western – from jeeps to blue jeans
– and that includes drinking good wine (particularly red
wine). Large, mostly western hotel chains are
going up in Beijing,
Shanghai and all over
China– the locals go there and find they
want the whole Western dining experience. They
like to try different wine and think “I like that” then go out and
buy it the next day at a local wine shop. And the
thing about wine by the glass is they can keep on trying different
brands that pair well with their menu choices, regardless of what
their friends are having. It’s important for
New Zealand wine to be featured by the
glass in every major market worldwide. Where it
is promoted by the key chains by the glass, market share quickly
develops for the good; where it is not, the wines of other countries
easily benefit.
Q: What’s your favourite New
Zealand wine?
A: I like your sauvignon blanc and pinot noir, and I
appreciate the new varietals too. There’s no one label that
dominates when I think of New Zealand, however, Peregrine, Felton
Road, Ngatarawa, Te Awa Farm Winery, Muddy Water and St Clair Estate
Wines would have to be up there among my favourites; but I also
fondly remember Tohu, Villa Maria Estate, Cloudy Bay, Sherwood,
Mission Estate Winery and Palliser Estate. I like
so many New Zealand wines and I’m looking forward to having more and
more of them.
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