AUSTRALIA SOUTH
For the last couple of weeks we’ve been taking a look at Australia and its wine regions. To once again emphasize why we’re doing this; it’s because as early as four years ago, these wines were widely available in the US, but due to a rising Aussie dollar, a falling reputation for quality and exceedingly poor brand management; the good wines of Australia have almost disappeared from shelves in the US.
This happened as insipid wine companies (I refuse to call them wineries) produced insipid wines in mass quantities that they then shipped off to us. Probably the best example is Yellow Tail wines. These piles of rat droppings were shipping us 112,000 cases in 2001 and by 2005; that number had grown to 7.5 million cases. Why? Because we bought it.
The other major event that occurred at this time was Fosters brewing went on a giant wine buying blitz. They bought Penfolds, Lindeman’s, and Rosemount; all which were huge wineries, but still created some absolutely outstanding juice. Well, Fosters was more interested in quantity than quality and soon, they started building a reputation as a Yellow Tail competitor (and the rising AU dollar didn’t help). Soon, Fosters figured out it had no business being in wine, so they took a huge write off and the spun the wine business off into a new company called Treasury Wine Estates. They haven’t been much better at managing these brands; in fact, they recently (and very controversially) took a $160 million dollar write down and destroyed tens of thousands of bottles of wine inventory (cheap swill won’t last more than a year or two).
But, as I stated last week, now; the Aussie dollar has retreated back to its historical rate against the US dollar and they’re starting to return to quality wines. I’m now seeing a lot more in the shops than I have on a long time. So, with all that said, lets continue our travels through the land of Oz; this time with South Australia, the home of Coonawarra and Nuriootpa.
As you can tell, the Aussies are about as creative as you can get when it comes to names of places. Actually, it’s the Aboriginals (the indigenous people of the country) that named them and Lord do they have a strange dialect! So what did the Aussies name the state that these areas exist within? South Australia. Yep the Abos have all the creativity in names, but boy can the Aussies get creative when it comes to winemaking.
South Australia is the most important of the states when it comes to wine. It’s responsible for over 50% of the country’s wine and has some of the most renowned appellations and most of them surround the state capital, Adelaide.
Arguably the most important of these is the Barossa Valley. Situated 35 miles to the northwest of Adelaide with the town of Nuriootpa being the main town, it is the home to Penfolds and Henschke, two of the country’s most prestigious producers and here, Shiraz is king. The grape here produces rich, chocolaty, spicy wines that are some of my favorites. On the other hand, Barossa also produces some of Australia’s best rieslings too.
Directly to the east is the Eden Valley and here, Riesling is the most planted grape. Now, when most of us think of Riesling, we think of slightly sweet, flabby wines; but in Australia, nothing could be further from reality. The Aussies make their Rieslings bone dry, with a hint of minerality and a tint of lime – delicious.
Farther to the north is the Clare Valley and Riesling is even more important here. Winemakers such as Tim Knappstein, Petaluma and Pikes have set up operations here and also make some wonderful Shirazes and Cabs.
Then, just south and east of Adelaide, we hit two more classic wine regions – McLaren Vale and the Adelaide Hills. McLaren Vale is slightly cooler than Barossa due to its closeness to the ocean and they grow just about everything here, but one grape truly shines here – Sauvignon Blanc. Shaw & Smith and Lenswood are two of my favorites that if you see them, buy them! Quite a few Cabs and Shirazes come out of here as well and Rosemount sources their Balmoral Syrah out of McLaren Vale.
To the north of McLaren Vale are the Adelaide Hills, another great spot for Sauv Blanc and becoming quite the spot for Aussie pinot noir, due to its cool climate,
Finally, if we travel southeast to the Victorian border we run into probably the second most important growing region in South Australia – Coonawarra. It’s only 9 miles long, quite narrow and is the coolest growing area in South Australia. It’s known mostly for its incredible Cabernets.
That’s pretty much it for South Australia, next week we’ll look into the rest of the country.
That’s it for this week, so until next time; wine a bit, you’ll feel better!
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