Wine Enthusiast Magazine
SubscribeWIADE: Australian Wines in Trouble, or Vice Versa?
by Joe Czerwinski
Australian wines have been taking a beating recently. Sales have been off, and the press has been all over the story, including such luminaries as Jancis Robinson and Eric Asimov. While I have no doubt that low-end Australian wines have made consumers wary of purchasing some of that country’s better stuff, I also think that many Australian wines can represent excellent value.
Take last night, for instance. I was fortunate enough to try a couple of $150 Napa Valley Cabernets that a new producer sent in to be reviewed. (The official Wine Enthusiast reviews of the 2005 Vice and 2005 Versa, by Contributing Editor Steve Heimoff, were published in the March issue.) The vineyard sourcing is impeccable: Vice comes from Beckstoffer’s To Kalon Vineyard in Oakville and Versa from the Stagecoach Vineyard on Atlas Peak. To judge by the taste, the oak is expensive and French. The winemaker is Paul Hobbs. Both are entirely without obvious flaws, yet both left me rather underwhelmed.
To check my palate, I contrasted these wines with a couple of open bottles of Australian Cabernet I had brought home on Friday. Both the 2006 Two Hands Coach House Block from Barossa Valley ($120) and the 2006 Tapestry Fifteen Barrels from McLaren Vale ($50) remained–even after several days on the kitchen counter–better wines. Both were more expressive on the nose and possessed richer textures and longer finishes.
Articles and blogs about how Australian wines sales have dropped off and why may be interesting business stories, but they really don’t help consumers find the Australian wines that are worth buying–and isn’t that why readers turn to wine writers?
Filed under: Industry Issues, Wine Recommendations
2 Comments
2 Responses to “WIADE: Australian Wines in Trouble, or Vice Versa?”
Please Wait
April 8th, 2009 at 2:24:18 PM
Joe,
A very prescient point of view. Although the Aussie wine industry has suffered in the recent past, and not just from reduced sales, there is still a deep lack of appreciation of the diversity of Australian wine in Europe and especially the US. There are several thousand wineries in Australia which means there are many thousands of wines produced, the vast majority of which never leave the shores of the island continent. So even though exported Aussie wines have fallen out of favor and are now selling at significant discounts they are still the same wines that gained favor from the international media. Its going to take quite a bit of time and effort to change that scenario and at least part of it will require wine writers going to the source.
Mike
April 9th, 2009 at 7:15:31 PM
As Mike so accurately describes, Australia is about more than just Barossa Shiraz. The challenge is that, particularly in the US, Australian wine is viewed as either ripe, simple & perfunctory, or ripe, monilithic & near undrinkable.
The reality is that most of the wines that Australians consume are far removed from these stereotypes. Indeed Yellowtail sells at a trickle ‘down here’ and most of the Parkerised reds have little to no profile on their home soil.
Again, as Mike says, more international critics need to look beyond the stereotypes and actually try some of the ‘other’ wines that Australia produces.
Andrew