Five leading Western Australian businessmen established Palandri Wines in 1998. From inception, the aim of Palandri Wines was to produce premium wines for world markets from the Margaret River and Great Southern wine regions of Western Australia.
Backed by more than 1,400 private investors, Palandri Wines, in one year, established a state-of-the-art winery in Margaret River and Western Australia's largest single stand-alone vineyards at Frankland River.
Explaining the thinking behind the development of Palandri Wines, Executive Chairman, Darrel Jarvis says: "The five directors have long held interests in the Australian wine industry - and particularly that of the Western Australian industry. In formulating our plans for the development of Palandri Wines we took into account the history of that industry. The majority of the WA wine industry grew incrementally - people started as grape growers, then established wineries and then found markets for their products."
"In 1997-98 we saw a dramatic increase in the planting of vineyards in WA - as we did for much of the rest of Australia. The driving forces behind this vineyard growth were two-fold - investors seeking tax benefit opportunities and the vision for 2025 which said that if we were to grow wine exports we needed to dramatically increase wine production, starting with vineyards."
"We could see the vineyards growing, but could also see that there was not a complementary increase in capital expenditure on wineries, production facilities and marketing."
"We saw the point fast approaching where there would not be enough production facilities and not enough effort being put into international marketing and brand development of products to compensate for the increased grape production."
"We identified a tremendous opportunity arising internationally for marketing, brand building, product positioning and production facilities for quality bottled wine. We recognised that the international markets of the future would be driven by premium bottled table wines - varietal wines - which were of consistent high quality and were high in volume."
"Importantly, it had to have a brand - and Australia has started to achieve that through brand Australia. Our decision was to build a global brand - to make our brand, or brands, relevant to an international market, while also concentrating on the market within Australia."
That global brand strategy has been the driving force behind the company's development from day one.