The Daily Telegraph

Hazel Murphy

Trade promoter who banished the ‘Chateau Chunder’ image of Australian wine in Britain

- Hazel Murphy, born February 19 1948, died December 31 2019

HAZEL MURPHY, who has died aged 71, was a Britishbor­n marketing expert who was almost single-handedly responsibl­e for the staggering growth of Australian wine exports to Britain, from fewer than 100,000 cases in 1985 to more than 20 million in 2002.

Australia had been exporting wine before she became involved in the 1980s, and while it was recognised by a small group of connoisseu­rs as a source of high-quality wine, catering for a variety of tastes and budgets, it could not shake off its poor quality reputation – lampooned as “Chateau Chunder” by Monty Python in a notorious 1972 sketch.

From the mid-1970s Hazel Murphy worked for 10 years for the Australian Trade Commission (Austrade), in Britain, promoting everything from mousetraps to earth for fining beer. During that time wine was added to her list. “I knew absolutely nothing about wine then,” she recalled. “I was probably drinking Mateus Rosé.”

In 1982 she organised the first all-australian wine presentati­on in London, inviting 40 wineries, and at about the same time she wrote a paper for Austrade observing that of the commoditie­s within her portfolio, Australian wine had the greatest potential.

Two years later, she flew a group of English Masters of Wine to Australia in a coup that helped to establish Australian wine as a superior alternativ­e to French plonk. They wrote and commented and the message began to spread.

In 1985 she was persuaded by nine producers to open a small London office to promote their wine in Britain and Ireland as chief executive of a newly formed Australian Wine Bureau. Within a year her persistenc­e and good humour, combined with a depreciati­ng Australian dollar, had doubled wine exports to Britain.

Under her leadership the bureau expanded to represent some 80 producers, promoting their wines in a territory including Germany, France, the Benelux countries and Italy.

Where other countries tended to pour their promotiona­l efforts into advertisin­g, Hazel Murphy’s approach – initially constraine­d by meagre budgets – was to mount a non-stop “glass-in-the-hand” programme, providing free tastings of Australian wine at wine and food fairs and other events across the country. She held roadshows everywhere from the

Hampton Court Flower Show to the Irish Ploughing Championsh­ips, and from the Royal Agricultur­al Show to the Ideal Home Exhibition and golf tournament­s in St Andrews.

She instituted an annual Australia Day tasting, a major event held initially at the Café Royal and later at Lord’s cricket ground, at which Australian wine producers were introduced to the UK, and later European, wine trade and press.

From 1992 she initiated a series of “Wine Flights” – two-week tours of Australian wine regions that she organised for trade and media, the passengers paying for their flights but with all expenses covered on terroir Australis. “On the first one we had Robert Joseph [The Sunday Telegraph], Tim Atkin [The Guardian], Oz Clarke [The Daily Telegraph]; people from Oddbins and Sainsbury’s supermarke­ts and the guy who now buys for Safeway,” she recalled. Another guest on one of these jaunts was The Spectator wine critic Auberon Waugh, previously dismissive of Australian wine, who began including Australian labels in his Spectator wine selections.

Hazel Murphy was once described as looking “as fragile and delicate as a Meissen figure” among burly Australian wine growers, but she made up for any deficienci­es in physical stature with energy and determinat­ion. Stories were legion about her refusal to be messed about – or to be put off some promising promotiona­l wheeze because of shortage of funds. The wine writer James Halliday remarked: “Pint-sized she may have been, but her energy and commitment were boundless.”

By the 1990s Australian wine was the British favourite. In terms of volume sold it even overtook French wine. Between 1985 and 2002 Hazel Murphy contribute­d to a remarkable rise in annual Australian wine exports from A$1.4m to $897.1m

Hazel Murphy was born in Manchester on February 19 1948 and educated at Withington Girls School. After qualifying with a distinctio­n in Business Studies at Manchester College of Commerce she joined the Australian Trade Commission and was promoted to business developmen­t manager two years later.

In 2004 Hazel Murphy stepped down from the Australian Wine Bureau and took a job as European consultant and director for the Mclaren Vale winery Chapel Hill. In 1996 she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia and received the Maurice O’shea Award for her “outstandin­g contributi­on to the success of Australian wines in the UK”.

She had a holiday home in Provence for many years, but latterly lived in a cottage in the Peak District, where she enjoyed walking in all weathers. She continued to travel, her main loves being Australia and Africa, while her trips in recent years included visits to Vietnam and Sri Lanka and an olive-picking holiday in Umbria.

Hazel Murphy was divorced and had no children.

 ??  ?? Hazel Murphy: she wooed British oenophiles with a non-stop ‘glass-inthe-hand’ programme, providing free tastings of Australian wine at wine and food fairs and other events
Hazel Murphy: she wooed British oenophiles with a non-stop ‘glass-inthe-hand’ programme, providing free tastings of Australian wine at wine and food fairs and other events

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