Recent figures relating to Australian wine exports underpin an emerging concern that our winemakers need to reinforce the quality and value messages of their products. As of August 1998 Australian wine exports were increasing at a healthy moving annual total rate (MAT) of 25%. While 700,000 bottles of Australian wine are now opened overseas daily, the MAT is now just 14%, reflecting a stagnation of exports to a consistent MAT level of around 195 million litres over the last five months. The Australian Wine Export Council (AWEC) attributes this declining growth rate to a slower rate of growth in four major destinations for Australian wine, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, the United States and Canada. Decreases in sales volumes have occurred in Hong Kong, Norway, Sweden and Taiwan. But at a time when Australia simply must increase the volume and value of its wine exports, a steadily increasing number of international wine critics are making similar claims concerning the soundness of our wines. Whether you accept the claims or not, English writer Andrew Jefford has joined American critic Robert Parker in questioning the soundness of day-to-day Australian wine. In the November issue of the English magazine ‘Decanter’, he writes that during a recent trip to Australia he found it difficult to drink more than two glasses of wine per day. While suggesting it might have something to do with his own failing digestion, Jefford also makes the point that wine making, generally believed to be Australia’s ace card, is in fact becoming Australia’s biggest handicap. He continues: ‘If you play about with the fundamental balance of wine by adjusting acidity, alcohol and tannin, and by plastering wines with bourbon-like American oak, you will inevitably erode or annihilate regional style and vintage differences. Sounds familiar? Robert Parker recently described many cheaper Australian wine as ‘industrial swill that has been excessively acidified, infused with too much oak’. What are we to make of this? Has Australian wine become something of a new tall poppy on the international market? Or is there some truth behind these claims themselves? Certainly Australian winemakers regularly adjust acidity and tannins in cheaper wines. It is European wine, however, that is excessively modified with respect to alcohol, since chapitalisation is legal in most European winemaking countries. Australian makers can add grape juice concentrate before or during fermentation, but that is a very expensive way to increase potential alcohol, especially for budget-priced wine labels. However, it is my view that there’s a complacency around the edges of Australian winemaking today. There is a genuine concern, regularly voiced by leading UK critics, that many of our wine producers think it’s simply enough today for a wine to sport the words ‘Product of Australia’ to become an instant overseas sell-out. The more I think about it, the more I come to the view that there is a far stronger chance of my head feeling somewhat painful the morning after if it was cheap wine I took on board the day before. It may well be a new sensitivity of my particular system, but the splintery oak dissolved in a cheaper local red is still likely to be rattling around inside my skull the next day. I know for a fact that the preservatives in cheap white wine will inflict equal harm. Can I, or should I generalise about these truths? Probably not, so I won’t. But I do know I’m not alone in harbouring these concerns. Brian Croser also highlights another potentially damaging reality. While Australian wines have earned their overseas success on the basis of quality and value, Croser observes that the supply balance is moving too rapidly in the direction of the hot inland regions. The overall standard of our wine simply has to fall. Can we afford that?
