Writing as the Air New Zealand Wine Show comes to a close in Auckland, it’s difficult not to reflect on the growing pains faced by young and burgeoning wine industries. Just as Australia cannot squeeze enough shiraz into the bottle for export, New Zealand’s makers are under extreme pressure to provide sauvignon blanc, pinot noir and to a lesser extent, merlot. Growth requires new plantings and new plantings take time to produce their best, even if cropped at levels appropriate for quality wine. Having judged the classes of Kiwi sauvignon blanc, riesling and merlot just coming onto the market, it’s clear that the two cross-Tasman industries are both going to have to focus harder on their quality if they expect to maintain export growth at present levels. I’ve no doubt that the mean standard of Australian red wine has taken a tumble of late. In coming years makers will have every opportunity to pick up otherwise unwanted fruit and turn it into even less desirable wine than much of which already crosses my desk. Similarly, the average New Zealand sauvignon blanc is not what it used to be, for much the same reasons. The Australian wine industry has declared the next ten years ‘The Marketing Decade’. One hopes that such an outlook won’t encourage even more makers to take their eye off their key historical advantage – quality. Congratulations to Steve Pannell and his team for making the Eileen Hardy Shiraz 1998, the OnWine Wine of the Year. It’s exciting to think that despite the enormous number of potential contenders, a wine from one of Australia’s largest makers has been awarded this title. The last decade has seen a remarkable improvement in BRL’s red wine making, something that nobody envisaged back in the late 1980s when their public relations manager sent around to wine writers a box of six wines entitled ‘The Case for Hardys Red’. It was totally unconvincing, and simply served to illustrate how far behind the eightball the company had actually slumped. All credit to the wine production team headed by Peter Dawson.
