Ask for a bottle of chardonnay in a London off-licence or supermarket and chances are you’ll be offered an Australian wine. If the global love affair with Australian shiraz continues its present course, it’s highly likely that shiraz will also become synonymous with Australian wine. Thanks to the chardonnay boom of the ‘eighties, shiraz almost became extinct as a quality Australian red wine grape. Little did we realise at the time the magnitude of the crime we perpetrated, as vineyard after vineyard fell victim to the jagged edge of the chain saw. Faithful, low-yielding gnarled old shiraz vines were taken out by the acre, usually for conversion to chardonnay. Australia finally rekindled its affair with shiraz some five years ago, when we finally woke up and realised just what an irreplaceable loss it would be. Instead of trying to woo the world with uniquely Australian wines, we had let dreams of Bordeaux-like cabernet blends and ripe, tropical chardonnays lead us astray from the very grape which possibly makes the best partner for Australian soils and sunshine, shiraz. Furthermore, we have more shiraz than any other country and we can ripen it properly virtually every year, no matter where we grow it. Our only serious competitor with shiraz is the Rhone Valley in France. At Chateauneuf-du-Pape, in the south of the Rhone Valley, shiraz works with another twelve varieties including grenache while northwards, towards Tournon, shiraz is the exclusive grape of the red wines of Hermitage and its surrounding appellation of Crozes-Hermitage. Further north still, near Vienne, is the wonderful but tiny appellation of Cote-Rotie, a steep-sided rock which appears to have risen straight out of the winding Rhone itself. The single vineyard wines from Cote-Rotie have fired the world’s imagination for shiraz, establishing a demand and a cache for the grape that Australia is best placed to exploit. While the best wines from Hermitage, Chateauneuf-du-Pape and Cote-Rotie are extremely rare, tiny in production expensive, Australia made wine from more than 70,000 tonnes of shiraz in 1996. Current and future plantings will dramatically increase Australia’s shiraz crop which, if not all destined for premium wine, will have more value added with each coming vintage. Highly respected English wine critic Robert Joseph was recently in Australia as one of three judges for the Great Australian Shiraz Challenge, an industry-derived event to promote the diversity and quality of Australian shiraz. The other judges were wine critic and Southcorp’s Chief Winemaker Yarra Valley, James Halliday, plus Petaluma’s winemaker and managing director, Brian Croser. Referring to the Barossa Valley’s vine pull scheme of the early 1980s, Robert Joseph finds it fascinating that much of Australia’s best shiraz was at risk of being pulled out. ‘It has had this escape and now a renaissance. Its combination of richness, fruit and spice is utterly unique’, he said. Nothing else gives you the mixture of characteristics that shiraz will give.’ Shiraz is accustomed to being shunned by those who should have known better. Joseph says that it’s not widely known, not even in France, but shiraz used to be blended in to the top wines of Bordeaux – and indeed in Burgundy – to improve them and indeed there was a time when Hermitage used to fetch the same price as the top wines of Bordeaux. ‘There were actually syrah vines (shiraz) growing at Chateau Cos d’Estournel less than 20 or 30 years ago’, he said. The Great Australian Shiraz Challenge was a taste-off of 102 of the best Australian shirazes. The judges unanimously selected the Wirra Wirra RSW Shiraz 1994 as the best wine of the event. From South Australia’s McLaren Vale district, this spotless, sumptuous shiraz was the only wine in the event initially awarded a gold medal by each judge. A polished wine, it is laced with intensely flavoured, spicy berry fruits and smoky, creamy oak. While he would rather not buy some of the wines entered, Joseph believes the average quality was far higher than you would find from 102 red wines taken across the board from anywhere else in the world. ‘There were plenty of wines you would enjoy drinking’, he said. Clearly more a fan of the warmer climate Australian shirazes than those from our cooler regions, Joseph believes it is the classic ripe Australian shirazes from the Hunter and Barossa Valleys which befriended most overseas drinkers to shiraz. ‘There are very few wines in the world which can compete with the characterfulness of those. You may or may not like the style, but they are wines which have made people notice Australia’, he said. Recent years have seen a increasing number of Australian shirazes aged in French oak and made into a more reserved, elegant Rhone-like style. It’s fair to say that Joseph didn’t appreciate those wines as much as the riper, richer wines from the Barossa and McLaren Vale. ‘The more the wines tasted French, the less they worked. The more Australian they tasted, they more I personally liked them. They had the richness. I don’t necessarily prefer them big and ripe, but they do need to be fully ripe’, he said. ‘I’ve noticed a move to make shiraz in cooler climate regions and understand that at least two experimental shirazes from Tasmania were in the tasting. I felt that these were some of the least successful wines, having an unripe flavour. The other side of the coin was that the big company wines proved what an ideal grape shiraz can be for large-scale commercial winemaking, making a complex tasting wine at a relatively lower cost. ‘Why bother making French styles in Australia? There’s a danger of the whole world going down the same track. Australia’s success has always been with wines which are palpably Australian from the beginning. It would be a pity if there was too much of a focus on imitating the wines of the northern Rhone. ‘Don’t develop a cultural cringe late in the day, just after having got rid of one.’ The Great Australian Shiraz Challenge 1996 Top 12 1 Wirra Wirra RSW 1994 McLaren Vale, SA 2 Merrivale Brian Light Reserve 1994 McLaren Vale, SA 3 Mitchelton Victoria 1994 Goulburn Valley, Vic 4 Rosemount Estate Reserve 1994 McLaren Vale, SA 5 Charles Sturt University Reserve 1994 Various regions 5 Saltram No. 1 Shiraz 1994 Barossa Valley, SA 7 Orlando Lawsons 1991 Padthaway, SA 8 Maglieri 1994 McLaren Vale, SA 9 Chatsfield 1994 Great Southern, WA 10 Leasingham Bin 61 1994 Clare Valley, SA 11 Steve Maglieri 1994 McLaren Vale, SA 11 Bethany 1994 Barossa Valley, SA
