Accolade Wines boss Robert Foye welcomes talks between Anthony Albanese and President Xi of China, hoping wine tariffs will eventually be removed

Australia’s biggest winemaker Accolade Wines, which owns Hardys and Arras, applauds Albanese’s talks with Xi and is ready to relaunch into China if crippling tariffs are removed.

The boss of Australia’s biggest winemaker Accolade Wines has welcomed the meeting overnight between prime minister Anthony Albanese and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which holds out hope China will soon be “open for business” again to local wine.

Robert Foye told The Australian that it was positive talks were finally happening between Australia and China and that he hoped the relationship between Australia and its biggest trading partner would continue, with Accolade keen to get back into the Chinese market when its crippling tariffs on Australian wine were removed.

“There is a new administration, there are talks happening, the first in six years that happened last night, so it definitely it is a positive sign for me, and we don’t bank anything, and we have no idea of timelines on these kinds of things, but it’s definitely a positive thing for us,” Mr Foye said from his office in London.

“And we hope talks continue between the two countries and relationships get better.”

Although Accolade is the biggest winemaker in Australia by volume, boasting of top brands such as Hardys, House of Arras and Grant Burge, it did not have a huge export business into China before the crushing tariffs of 116 per cent to 218 per cent were imposed on Australian wine as part of growing trade tensions between China and Australia.

Australia's House of Arras is one of many brands owned by Accolade Wines, which is hopeful overnight talks between Australian and Chinese leaders will see crippling tariffs on Australian wine removed. Picture: Des Houghton

That heavy tariff regime saw Australian wine exports to China slump from $1.1bn to around $25m within two years. But now with Mr Albanese meeting with President Xi on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Bali overnight, there are renewed hopes a thawing relationship could see tariffs removed and Australian wine welcomed back to its once biggest and most profitable market.

“We had a decent business in China, it wasn’t huge, but it was a pretty good business and as soon as those tariffs go away we will absolutely have a strong business in China,” said Mr Foye.

Mr Foye said Chinese drinkers had a lot of loyalty to his Hardys brand before the tariffs were imposed. “When the time is right, we will go hard on that brand (in China),” Mr Foye said.

Meanwhile, Mr Foye said inflation, the rising cost of living and inflation was having an impact on his business across his key markets in Europe, North America and Australia as consumers contemplate their household budgets.

However, the winemaker, whose brands also include Houghton, Petaluma, St Hallett, Katnook Estate and Rolf Binder, is picking up business outside of the restaurant channel and in the premium wine category which was holding up well.

Petaluma winemaker Teresa Heuzenroeder.

“We are finding it a little bit more tight in terms of the cost of living in the UK and Europe right now than Australia, that isn’t to say Australia could end up in the same place pretty quick,” Mr Foye said.

“But what we’re finding is there’s two main things that consumers are doing. One is they’re going out a little bit less to restaurants and when they do that, they might actually pick up something a little bit more premium at the bottle shop, or the supermarket. So that’s one trend.

“And then the second one is when they are in the supermarket doing their normal shopping, they are not treating themselves. For sure, they are looking at their total basket, and they’re making some choices.

“Typically, what we’re seeing so far is they’re not drinking less wine, but they’re just trying to make sure they stick to certain price points. So if their favourite wine goes up in price, they certainly will look at possibly switching and just getting the right price point based on their shopping basket and how much money they have in their pocket.”

Mr Foye said Accolade had lifted the prices for some of its wines, particularly in Britain but had been very selective about it, and had kept many of the wine brands within particular price point bands to maintain consumer loyalty.

He said Accolade’s wine business in Australia had vastly improved over the last few years, gaining traction with retailers and drinkers, whole in Britain it was growing at above market growth rates led by its Hardys brand.

Mr Foye said Accolade was close to announcing a deal on the sale of its premium Mornington Peninsula wine Stonier.