Online sales click with wine lovers

Online wine sales are surpassing cellar door sales for the first time, with Margaret River industry representatives pegging website-based sales as the next big thing for producers.

A recent report by Wine Intelligence examined a group of more than 1000 regular wine drinkers last year from across Australia and showed about one in five people had bought wine online recently, making online sales more popular than cellar door purchases.

Laurance Wines' Dianne Laurance, who is gearing up to launch a new website in the next few days, told the _Times _ she thought online sales were going to take over from sales everywhere, including liquor chain stores.

Mrs Laurance said she saw her new online store as the main area to sell her wine after the cellar door and added she would be hiring someone full-time to manage the site.

"Online sales, this is where the next big area is going to be with buying wine," she said.

Cullen Wines managing director Vanya Cullen said she definitely thought online sales were increasing but said she had been in the business for more than 30 years and there was "always something" trying to take over cellar sales.

"We're trying to incorporate both cellar door and online," she said.

"The online thing opens up a whole other way of doing business." Ms Cullen said while online forums meant producers could have a good relationship with customers, not only at the cellar door but also away from it, she said the best advertising "always has been and always will be if people come to your cellar door and have a good experience".

Although online sales are increasing, Wines of WA chief executive Larry Jorgensen said it was also important to "interact" with wine before purchasing it.