It’s now five years since the first OnWine Report. Dated August 1996, the first issue of OnWine shows in retrospect just how frenetic the Australian wine industry’s rollercoaster ride has been over the past five years. Aside from featuring a photographic depiction of myself which in dim light could almost be described as hairy, the range of material it covered almost seems quaint and antiquated from today’s perspective. Off the Press featured news of James Halliday and Len Evans, each of whom had just sold their wine producing businesses to large companies. Coldstream Hills had become part of the Southcorp empire, with Halliday remaining as winemaker. Evans had become rich, selling the Rothbury Estate to what was then Mildara Blass. Five years on and Evans has created Tower Estate and Tower Lodge in the Hunter Valley while remaining as tenaciously active in the industry as ever before. Halliday has climbed the corporate ladder at Southcorp, taking on substantial roles with major brands such as Lindemans, before winding back to his present front of house and educative responsibilities for the Coldstream Hills brand. Both are presently heavily involved in the Winepros website. The main feature in the first OnWine was entitled ‘The Greed for Grange’, and tracked the wine’s progress from ugly duckling to international icon. It coincided with the release of the 1991 vintage and its instantaneous price rise to A$300 per bottle. Oddly enough, Grange had just about run its pricing race by that time, and other wines, like those from the cult Barossa vineyards, have since taken over the price-breaking mantle. Nobody was talking about Greenock Creek, Three Rivers or Torbreck back then. But I admit my Issue No. 1 did profile Veritas, but that was before it and its wines were Parkerised. Clonakilla was profiled as a discovery – has this star risen that quickly? – while the back cover featured a story on Domaine Chandon’s first ten years. The OnWine Report has undergone several changes since its first issue. It will shortly be available as a fully downloadable file on the Internet, where it will join a ‘live’ and searchable Internet edition of its sister publication, The OnWine Australian Wine Annual. The OnWine site at www.onwine.com.au will also feature a fully searchable database of thousands of my articles and tasting notes, and will be closely linked with an exciting new Internet-based development of Liquid Assets. These facilities should be launched in October this year. This edition profiles a number of Barossa benchmarks. Thank you for your support of this newsletter.
