Mr Clarke told shareholders at the annual meeting in Melbourne the solid progress in the first five-and-a-half months of the first half has been driven by the switch of the release of high-end Penfolds wines to October from the previous May 1 date, and reinvestment behind the major wine brands.

He also signalled that Treasury is close to finalising some changes in the troublesome United States business, where it will slim down its commercial brand portfolio.

"We are exploring some imminent opportunities to address the non-priority commercial brand portfolio," he said.

This segment in the US represents between 1 to 2 million cases of lower-priced wines which he described as a "significant drag on our core portfolio".

Mr Clarke also said the company is looking closely at ways of strengthening its balance sheet further and improving investment returns. Five weeks ago, it announced that it would close the small Ryecroft winery in South Australia's McLaren Vale.

He also outlined that of Treasury's 80-plus brands, about 15 have the potential to be what he calls "global umbrella brands" capable of being solid performers on the world stage.

Treasury chairman Paul Rayner told shareholders he believed the board had done the right thing in terminating talks with private equity bidders earlier this year, with "clear feedback" from almost every major shareholder that a price of $5.20 a share undervalued the company.

"I am confident that [what] we did was right at every step of the process," Mr Rayner said.

Treasury Wine's annual meeting is usually held in late October but was rescheduled months ago on the expectation it would coincide with a shareholder vote on one of the two private equity takeover proposals the company had received.

But the Treasury board on September 29 announced that it had ended with private equity suitors about a proposed $3.4 billion buyout after months of due diligence.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, with junior partner Rhone Capital, made an indicative proposal of $5.20 a share, and this was matched by rival bidder TPG.

Both bidders were granted full access to the inner workings of the company but, in the end, the board scrapped discussions, with the bidders unable to pay what the board thought the company was worth.

Mr Clarke, a former chief executive of British food group Premier Foods, joined Treasury on March 31 and immediately instituted a series of changes.

Under his strategy, the Penfolds brand in particular is receiving more investment spending to try and turn it into a global luxury brand, with the release date of new vintages for the flagship Grange and other high-priced Penfolds labels switched to mid-October to cash in on the pre-Christmas market.

Mr Clarke has also axed 175 administrative positions to prune costs.

Treasury Wine was split off from the former Foster's Group in May, 2011 to become a separate entity, with wine brands including Penfolds, Wolf Blass, Rosemount and Lindemans, plus the large US wine business led by the Beringer brand.

On its first day of trading on the Australian Securities Exchange in May 2011, its share price was $3.45.

The shares rose as high as $6.47 in mid-May 2013, before its troubles began with an oversupply of commercial wine in the United States, triggering heavy write-downs and a profit downgrade which claimed the scalp of former chief executive David Dearie.

Treasury destroyed 240,000 cases of low-end wine in the US to remove it from the supply chain, after originally revealing that it planned to smash 600,000 cases of wine in third-party distributors' warehouses to end a glut.