The Spence brothers, Bill and Ross, have a special place in the history of New Zealand wine as they planted the first sauvignon blanc vines in 1969 though these were on the North Island not at Marlborough. The first wine was made in 1973 the year the first vines were planted in Marlborough.

They sold out a long time ago, and the brand is now owned by Treasury, though you would not know this if you went to the new Matua web-page, part of the re-launch of the brand in December, 2013. The Spence brothers look fully in charge and appear very happy with what they have achieved.

It is a problem of very large companies that own multiple brands to keep up the illusion that they are all run separately and are part of a large happy family. To maintain the vibrancy of the many brands requires great delicacy. This is missing in large companies, as it seems without exception, they suffer from the management vision of 'seeing what can be saved while never seeing what can be lost'.

Thus decades of cost cutting, down-sizing, and placing all of the brands in one building has made it very hard to keep up the pretence and slowly the multiple brand portfolio withers. As documented here many times, with sadness I might add, two of the finest examples to study are Southcorp and later Treasury Wine Estates.

Australian wine companies have been very slow to embrace the potential of New Zealand and even those, like Yalumba that moved early with its Marlborough Nautilus brand, have had trouble developing a vision. I digress a little but note that the New Zealand sauvignon blanc phenomenon was arguably triggered by Montana (now called Bancroft) as they planted the first vines at Marlborough and have also been incapable of taking control of what they started.

And so it was that Treasury decided to revive Matua (originally Matua Valley) to take a bigger share of the Marlborough story, and to do this hired the services of the Moon Communications Group. The press release builds hope and includes several choice examples of promise:

From Linda Jukie Moons creative director, "With Matua's strong connection to NZ, and its innovative role in the wine industry, it was important to create a brand that would stand out, and truly reflect the wine's unique personality".

"The result is a strong, appealing brand position that tells of the brand's history and future, and provides a platform for the global market."

Other work undertaken by Moon includes the creation of a new typeface for Matua, creating assets that further bring the 'real NZ' positioning to life, and reinforcing the wine's position as the country's most innovative wine brand.

From Matua's global brand manager & vintrepreneur, Adam Prentice: "the striking new brand purpose will enable us to take our brand story to the world".

"It's hard to separate New Zealand and Sauvignon Blanc these days, but we want to remind consumers that not only were we the first to put them together, but we're still breaking new ground....Because of this, we certainly didn't want to become just another generic NZ wine brand that got lost amongst the more established competitor set. Moon absolutely nailed the development and execution of our Real New Zealand positioning. Not only did our internal stakeholder embrace the refreshing new brand direction, our customers, consumers, and even competitors are sitting up and taking notice of us".

Alas it did not take long for optimism and hope to face reality. The Australian market is run by the chains and they are not interested in Real New Zealand, new brand directions, brand purpose, unique brand personalities, internal stakeholders or assets and platforms and alas those with titles of vintrepreneur.

They buy many dollars a bottle cheaper than independent retailers and in this quite hopeless battle the Treasury vintrepreneur's, a new title for a company representative, find their job is to make sure no independent dares undercut the chains while explaining to the independents that they are certain the chains will never be that cheap again. The likes of Treasury lost control of pricing a long time ago and what they do now I do not know.

To position a product which has a new image you must control the pricing or it all just collapses and in the words on Adam Prentice, vintrepreneur; "Because of this, we certainly didn't want to become just another generic NZ wine brand that got lost amongst the more established competitor set."

On the 22nd January the Woolworths Dan Murphy chain decided to challenge the new idea and offered a two bottle 'bundle' of Matua and Tangaroa (Dan Murphy brand) for $12.00. That is good value particularly when you consider an independent will pay about $12 a bottle for Matua.

The rival chain Liquorland, one of the Coles brands, decided it was better late than never and displayed its price of $9.90 for Matua.

As luck would have it I tried the Matua a few weeks ago and noted it carries a Trophy sticker from the recent London IWSC wine judging. The judges were very generous but the wine is worth $8 to $10.

So what now for the new look Matua? Well they and many other brand owners have a big problem and I will continue to unfold the story over the years. At this stage though the consumer need not get worried as the only power that works is pricing power which has smashed brand power and I doubt it can be put back together.