Who? K+ARimports is a liquor agent and distributor actively marketing, facilitating the sales as well as managing the importation and domestic distribution of wine from Victorian wineries in the marketplace of British Columbia. K+ARimports is run by expatriate Australians from Victoria, Kate and Andrew Rowe. Andrew, who oversees the sales, marketing and distribution works alongside consultants and sales representatives with experience and established connections within the hospitality and liquor industry. What? K+ARimports only select family-owned wineries, who produce well-made estate-grown wines, expressing their very particular Victorian terroir. We only present wines we are proud of, would serve to discerning friends and would drink ourselves. We aim to present a portfolio which represents a balanced ‘cross section’ of Victoria’s wine regions, varieties and styles from honest producers, committed to quality and the enjoyment of one of life’s great blessings – wine.

Why?

If you’re tired of the overblown, food trampling, iron-fisted, meal-in-a-glass Australian wines – then we’ve got the wines for you.
K+ARimports is focused on Australian, and more specifically, Victorian wines. If you haven’t tasted Victorian wine, it’s about time we showed you why we’re so passionate about it. With 6 zones, 21 regions and over 850 wineries –no other state in Australia can boast a collection of wine as colourful or compelling.

Having lived in Victoria, we have passion, expertise and experience with Victorian wine, its styles and regions and want to introduce British Columbia and the wine-public to what we know and love. Quality Victorian wines are also under-represented in exports - and the Australian wine reputation has suffered for it. Victoria produces a huge range of styles and wine varieties, but the vast majority of regions are cool climates, with refined and subtle styles of the highest quality.

How?

In the protected market of British Columbia, at the budget end of the scale Australian wines are being out-done dollar for dollar by Chilean and Argentinean competition. In the medium to high price ranges (C$25+) Australian wines are as complex and refined as the best of their local Canadian, South American and old-world counterparts of the same price. The real point though, is that the people who are really in the business of food and wine, know how good Australian boutique and premium wines can be, and how difficult it is to find the best of the small producers here in BC.

This observation, along with extensive contacts in the hospitality industry here is what has lead us our approach, and why we believe we can grow the sales of ‘boutique’ Victorian producers in the BC marketplace.

In our marketing approach, we aim to match each wine to the right restaurant, taking into account their cuisine, price and wine list, starting with the premium or good-value medium range wines. In addition to restaurants, we target specialty liquor stores to carry the wines in the retail channel and allow follow up sales to occur after someone has tasted the wine in a restaurant. We stimulate the retail channel by invited product launches and tastings that we conduct through the year.

If you’re a family-owned Victorian winery producing quality, estate-grown wine with interest in exporting to BC, please contact us.