Talking up style but missing the point

Doug Neal is not a happy man. While this news might not ordinarily concern most readers of this publication, it should actually bother most of those who skim through this column. Let me explain. Doug has been involved in Australian wine for about two decades. He has served as first lieutenant for Rick Kinzbrunner at Giaconda, one of this country’s signature small wineries. He has also introduced two vintages of his own wines, from Paradise IV in Geelong’s Moorabool Valley, to rave reviews from the critics out there who really understand fine wine. Off the record, Doug has also been instrumental in the crafting of the final blends of many of Australia’s signature wines, especially from cool-climate Victorian regions.

But I still haven’t explained the cause of his unhappiness. Doug, who happens to have one of Australia’s finer palates, is disturbed by the unwillingness of certain Australian winemakers to give anything more than lip service to their so-called quests for elegance, balance and finesse in red wine. In this he is not alone, since it’s been a regular beef of mine for about a decade and a half.

Having spent the better part of the last three weeks travelling through the better wine regions of Australia as well as Hawkes Bay and west Auckland in New Zealand – not to mention the last few years of tasting hundreds of young Australian reds – Doug reckons that while many winemakers are talking up the need for Australia to make more red wines of genuinely international style and focus, not enough are achieving what they set out to do. ‘They’re either excessively ripe, sweet and jammy, or else have become raw, hard and extracted in a bid to become more savoury’, he says. While he was impressed with the wines of people like Larry Cherubino in WA, where he believes a higher proportion of winemakers understand the concepts of balance and suppleness, he finds too many wines mimicking the concepts of quality, rather than achieving them. ‘It’s either one extreme or the other. Not many wines seem to hit the middle ground.’

Again, I agree 100. Australia does not do itself justice as a producer of wines of international quality. Time and again through the history of winemaking in Australia, we have wondered why on earth the rest of the world does not accept what we tell them is first-class. From the green, soupy cabernets of the late ’70s and early ’80s to the fat, blousy, charry chardonnays of the ’80s and early ’90s to the overcooked, porty and Parkerised shirazes of the last decade! do I need to go on? And now it’s happening again.

Whether it’s arrogance or ignorance, it is certainly holding Australian wine back right now. The world is clamouring for savoury, elegant dry red wines of around 13.5 alcohol by volume, so what do we try and sell to them? Barossa and McLaren Vale shiraz packed with sweet fruit, sweet oak, sweet alcohol and a dash of sugar at 15.5 – that’s what! Today we have the potential to craft refined, classically structured reds of style and longevity in many of our regions, but too many of the people who might make them remain locked in a mindset of sweet fruit and blocky oak. All the global trends in cuisine and wine are presently heading towards lightness and elegance, except for those over here.

It might appear that too many Australian winemakers are unaware of the existence of two entirely separate wine markets. People newly introduced to wine are typically seduced by sweetness and concentration of flavour. This is one of the main reasons why Australian wine is so popular amongst emergent and occasional wine drinkers. More experienced wine drinkers tend to prefer wines of more restraint and savoury quality, which also tend to go better with food. The Australian offering in this area remains thin on the ground, to say the least. Recent UK research confirms that in that market, Australian wine tends to be purchased by the former, and not the latter category of consumer. However, most international wine critics and traders would unhesitatingly place themselves amongst the latter group, and so are finding it easier to demean Australian wine today, rather than support it. We are not giving the serious wine drinkers enough of the wines they want to drink.

How, then, is Australia ever to appeal to the serious international wine drinker? For many makers, it’s going to require a profound change in attitude. While they might be feted by sections of the Australian wine media and trade, their wines are typically not greeted with anything approaching similar levels of enthusiasm on the world stage.

With exports around 2.6 billion AUD, Australia is the fourth largest wine exporter. More Australian wine is exported than is drunk domestically. The wine industry’s future depends entirely on its ability to engage with export markets, their opinion leaders and their normal inhabitants for whom wine has become part of their daily lifestyle. We might sell wines with animal labels or jammy young reds on promotion, but Australia won’t succeed as a maker of premium wine without a fundamental change in approach. It’s not rocket science, but it’s enough to make Doug Neal unhappy.

Interestingly, the makers of Australian chardonnay have already figured this out. When Australian wine drinkers began substituting New Zealand sauvignon blanc for Australian chardonnay on their shopping-lists, winemakers suddenly took notice. As a result, Australian chardonnay is a much better species today – thanks to the Australian wine drinkers who said enough rubbish was enough. I’m not sure we have another five years grace to sort out the same problem with our reds. Please login to post comment