Having just returned from a lunch at which I tasted three of the 2000 vintage of Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais, I am supremely confident that I’m in the best possible position from which to comment on the Demise of the Light Australian Red. Thanks to the way our wines are currently viewed around the world, there could be little more oxymoronic to many drinkers of our wine than the concept of the Light Australian Red, but I wish that wasn’t entirely the case. For the reality is that there is no local equivalent to a decent cru Beaujolais, nothing that matches its combination of intensity, brightness, fineness and integrity. Twenty years ago, when Australian winemakers were genuinely exploring the idea that there was such a thing as a decent Light Australian Red, wines like Cab Mac by the Hickinbothams bordered on cult status. The trade and the media relentlessly pursued the concept that the Australian climate and culture were ideally suited towards a lighter, summery, al fresco sort of red, but nobody quite cracked a match-winning combination of region, variety, flavour, image and price. Shortly thereafter the industry threw in the towel, simply releasing a plethora of ordinary wines labelled ‘Beaujolais’. It wasn’t long afterwards, when the French successfully brought that practice to an overdue end, that we discovered pinot noir. Not altogether unsurprisingly, most Australian pinot noir was grossly sub-standard and cordial-like, so the number of people attempting to make genuine Light Australian Red with other grapes declined even further. Right now there’s a vacuum of gastronomic proportions. Today there are a few attempts at a Light Australian Red, made from grapes like pinot meunier, sangiovese, dolcetto, grenache and even gamay. Few, however, offer the vitality, freshness and fine-grained savoury quality of half-decent Beaujolais, especially at cru level. Many are sweet, ripe and jammy, but finish like a boiled lolly. Others don’t taste at all bad, but are priced about twice the French equivalent, which in a nutshell means they’re about twice as expensive as they should be if quality was the only factor. It’s not remotely trendy to suggest it these days, but wouldn’t some of us actually choose to drink a decent Light Australian Red if there was one?
