Yellow Tail Wine Is Getting Classy

The Austrailian wine Yellow Tail is associated more with the lower-end drinkers (re: the under-21 crowd, college drinkers, and lovers of the "Second Cheapest" wine) rather than the higher-end drinkers, but that's all about to change. Casella, the maker of Yellow Tail, is looking to create a higher-end image with a higher-priced wine.

Businessweek reports the winemaker's newest offering will cost $10, about 50 percent more than the traditional Yellow Tail bottle. The new vintage will be released next year, with two red varieties and one white. Of course, it's not to say that Yellow Tail will do any worse in sales: Yellow Tail is currently the number three sold wine in the U.S., and number one in Japan. And the company stands behind its taste: in an interview with the Brisbane Times, group managing director John Casella said that Yellow Tail is focused on keeping taste, and price, a priority. "We're product-focused, we wouldn't go and release anything unless we thought it would offer exceptionally good value at that price end, and that's what we're working on," he said. 

Some argue that Yellow Tail has made Austrailian wine look bad (although we imagine Penfolds has gone against the grain to fix that), but it seems that Yellow Tail's success won't be going anywhere — or hurting the overall wine economy of Austrailia. "Yellow Tail is at a certain price point and people buy it because it's there; the Toyota Corolla didn't destroy the Lexus," Casella said to Businessweek. "Someone buying $12 wine doesn't buy $6 wine."

Casella also recently entered into an agreement with Coca-Cola to make a premium beer venture. 

(Photo Casella Modified: Flickr/FDelventhal/CC 4.0)