Oh dear. The oenological space race is on again. Oddbins auctions and Southcorp are crowing at the news that (presumably) an overseas buyer parted with A$71,040 for a six-litre bottle (an Imperial) of the 1998 Grange. The sum paid is around 50% higher than the A$54,480 paid for an identical bottle on the only other occasion this wine was put up for sale. Rather than to accept the trumpetings from those involved in this patently meaningless occurrence – which of course is an Australian record for a bottle of wine – I’d suggest that it’s about as meaningful to the Australian wine industry and to drinkers of Australian wine at large as a thump in the head. The fact that somebody (but not necessarily an Australian) can afford to pay telephone numbers for a very, very big bottle of what will undoubtedly become a landmark vintage of Grange should surprise nobody. These people are out there; we all knew that. Just because this particular bottle has attracted this sort of money shouldn’t alter by one iota the way any thinking person regards the actual wine. Yes, Parker loves it. He gave it 99 out of 100, as Southcorp reminded the Australian wine media last Friday. I happen to like it very much as well, and so do many others. But Parker likes the Greenock Creek Roennfeldt’s Road Shiraz from 1996 even more. So should the maker of that wine, Michael Waugh, now auction off an Imperial of wine just to push the bar up even further? I daresay there’s somebody out there who’d cough up A$80,000 for ten minutes of fame. Would that contribute anything further to Australian wine? Would it mean anything? Of course not. But then, Penfolds could auction a bigger bottle for even more. The Wild Duck Creek could sell a twelve-litre hand-made duck-shaped twelve-bottle-sized Salmanazar of Duck Muck and Torbreck could ultimately flog off an entire glassed-in tank of RunRig! So what?!
