It’s been a big year for the Australian wine industry. The second biggest vintage ever fell short of demand, especially in premium red wine. Exports reached an all time high. Domestic consumption, especially of bottled red and white grew strongly. And, in face, of shortage, prices continued to climb.
Premium riesling, so long the bargain of […]
Grenache, one of the world’s most widely planted red grape varieties, produces delicious but mainly frivolous and fruity wines from Spain, to Sardinia to Southern France to California to Australia.
It can and does make reds of substance, sometimes in its own right but especially in tandem with shiraz, mourvedre or, in Spain, with tempranillo.
In 1996 […]
Australia’s current vineyard explosion, should it continue as envisaged through to 2025, could add more vines to the continent than were planted in the first two hundred years of white settlement.
The pace of change is too rapid for anyone to accurately monitor in any single region, let alone across the whole continent. A sustained expansion […]
Without Brown Bros there may not be a King Valley wine industry today. A seeming permanence on the landscape since 1889, sheer size, wide consumer recognition, an early acceptance of new grape-growing ventures in the south of the valley and apparent prosperity made them the biggest player in the region and keeps them well ahead […]
Australia’s wine exports may eventually be just the tip of the iceberg of success as our amazingly successful, vigorous wine makers go global. As well as wine, we now export technology, equipment and even viticultural skills to the rest of the world. And the next, perhaps biggest, part of the industry’s globalisation, may be in […]
In last week’s column we looked at the increasing phenomenon of Australian wine makers acquiring or developing overseas interests. Spreading risk, increasing total capacity, appealing to a wider audience, hedging against exchange-rate variations, taking advantage of lower production costs and catering for the parochial factor are just some of the driving forces behind the increasing […]
This third and final of three articles on the recent expansion of overseas wine interests by Australian producers starts with one of the earliest ventures and ends with two of the newest.
In 1990 when the then family-owned Thomas Hardy and Sons acquired Domaine de la Baume in France’s Languedoc-Roussillon region, Australia’s wine industry knew little […]
In 1996, Foster’s-owned Mildara Blass acquired Rothbury Estate, just four years after it went public.
Foster’s advances had not been welcomed by Rothbury Chairman, Len Evans. Many small shareholders shared Len’s wariness. With a soft spot for Len’s exuberance and fond memories of the wine-loving origins of the venture, they wondered where the hostile takeover might […]
Last week we looked back over Rothbury Estate’s origins, from its idealistic start in 1968, at its early struggles, at enforced pragmatism that saw production focus shift from Hunter Valley shiraz to Cowra
chardonnay, at its public float and, finally at its takeover by Mildara Blass and the fresh breeze blowing through what now appears to […]
The enjoyment of two new-release, elegant, slightly-austere Coonawarra red wines (Redmans Cabernet Sauvignon 1996 and Shiraz 1996) has me pondering the direction of (some) Australian red-wine making.
Are too many Australian reds becoming too big, too bold and too oaky? Is regional and varietal character being swamped and blurred by oak, tannin and forbiddingly-high alcohol content?
Many […]
Despite the massive re-shaping of Australia’s wine landscape now under way, South Australia remains — and looks set to remain — not just our biggest wine producer, but our biggest premium-wine producer.
The massive explosion of vine planting and re-writing of our wine map shows in preliminary data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), indicating […]
New Zealand’s wine industry has undergone profound changes in the last thirty years. Forced by a shift from fortified to table-wine production, its centre of gravity has moved south away from Auckland.
Unlike in Australia — where major growing areas like South Australia’s Riverland, the Barossa and McLaren Vale were able to shift fairly easily from […]
When I first toured New Zealand’s wine regions in 1984, viticultural Marlborough was just eleven years old, yet its unique, pungent sauvignon blancs were already on the way to international success; crook wines were easy to find; and dozens of enthusiasts, reflecting the trend in California and Australia, were spreading the vine into every likely […]
Marlborough, New Zealand, rates amongst the world’s great wine growing regions even though it was first planted to vines just twenty five years ago.
Its great specialty — pungent, in-your-face whites made from the sauvignon blanc grape — enjoy an international following, shading even France’s Pouilly-sur-Loire and Sancerre, the wines on which they were modelled.
If you’ve […]