Eric, thanks for traveling to Oz. The Aussie wine we get stateside (perhaps it doesn't survive crossing the equator too well) is not very representative, so it's good you got to try it at the source. Australia has been producing good wine in a restrained style for around 15 years now. I recall around about 2004 that cold climate Shirazes (from Victoria, ACT and cooler parts of South Australia) were really taking off. There's also some excellent good white wine from Oz - riesling, semillon, chardonnay and marsanne - most of which age very well and are hard to find here.
You really missed Tasmania!
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I've been drinking good wine since 1964, when I bought a half case of 1959 Chateau Lafite Rothschild Carruades for $86. ($86. For 6 bottles. That is not a typo.) Just out of graduate school, we had no furniture except a bed, two folding lawn lounges, a folding table and chairs. Our first meal in that apartment was pepper steak subs and Ch. Lafite in plastic cups.
I was drinking fine French wines for under $8 a bottle for some years until America discovered them and the prices skyrocketed. The best of them I sold at auction in 2005, including two Chateau d'Yquem from the 60's that fetched $600 each -- well over ten times their purchase price.
In my search for good wines that I can afford in retirement, I found the Australian offerings. My rule is at least 89 points by Wine Advocate (Robert Parker's place, until he sold it) or Wine Spectator, and under $20. The Aussies produce exactly what I need; been buying them, and the occasional Argentine or Chile offering, for ten years. Tonight: The Stump Jump Shiraz.
To the authors of this accolade: Please Stop! The last thing I want to encounter now is Australian wine prices going the way of French wine prices in the early 80's. Don't do that to me, I can't afford it.
Bon appetit! Or, in keeping with the subject of this piece, "Cheers!"
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Dunno, we mostly drink New Zealand wines down here.
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My wife and I spent a couple weeks in Australia one year ago, right now. We drank wines from nearby wherever we were at the time and enjoyed it all. We also found the wines very approachable and balanced. In New South Wales we had many from the Orange wine region.
We spent a week in the Adelaide, Kangaroo Island and Mclaren Vale area and were lucky enough to run into a local wine writer at our first dinner who steered us away from the more commercial cellar doors, to some really interesting family run operations. Oliver’s Taranaga is a 6th generation family Grange grower with a female winemaker who produces really nice wines. We brought home a couple of bottles of Shiraz from here and Samuel’s Gorge to lay down for years. We really enjoyed the whites from Kangaroo Island- Dudley and Bay of Shoals.
What a joy to see this report on the Aussie wine world.
Having lived and worked in Australia for eighteen months between 2016-18 (my first extended visit to Oz was for four months in 2009), I got to visit several of the country's wine regions.
Whereas Mr. Asimov visited the Yarra Valley, an hour's drive northeast of Melbourne, I chose instead to go southeast to the Burgundian area of Mornington Peninsula. I can recommend wineries from that appellation such as Moorooduc and Crittenden, both of whom make stirling Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays.
I also spent four days in Margaret River, visiting Cullen and Vasse Felix, both spotlighted by Mr. Asimov in his story. If you get the opportunity to visit Margaret River (a three-hour drive south of Perth), do make it a point to visit Leeuwin Estate, which, in my opinion, makes the country's best Chardonnay, Leeuwin Art Series, readily available in the U.S. market (it retails for about $80). The winery also has a fantastic restaurant open for both lunch and dinner.
I've also sampled extensively from three regions in the country's state of New South Wales (where Sydney sits) -- Orange, Mudgee (purported to be the country's oldest wine region) and the Hunter Valley (a rare part of the wine world where the French grape Semillon is bottled as a single varietal).
If you cannot make the lengthy trip to this wine mecca of the Southern Hemisphere, you can find a few gems from the country on a wine website called southernwines.com.
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When visiting Australia many years ago and curious about the wine scene down under, I visited a large local wine store. I was amazed to see a large wooden tun - a big wooden barrel sitting on a large wooden cradle = with a guy filling large unlabeled bottle with a screw top. When I asked how that was possible. A clerk standing near said, you must be a yank - here we make good wine and lots of it.
From what I saw, the locals drank lots of beer and they dressed up a bit for an evening out on the tiles - NO SAND SHOES. Went to some very good restaurants in Cairns and virtually nobody drank wine - just beer. The wine bit was great then in CA, NY and Commander's Palace in NO LA. Typically then a restaurant trying to make lots of money on wine doubled the retail price. So very few tables had wine on them. Today it has changed.
One (very tiny) criticism - from the article, it appears that the high country Granite Belt wine region in south-east Queensland has ceased to exist?
@PhilC
It still exists...and you see spare bottles from this region on restaurant wine lists.
In my four work trips to Australia, I was based each time in QLD, the city of Gold Coast.
I have sampled a few Granite Belt wines but cannot say I am versed in that region like I am in Margaret River and Barossa Valley labels.
@PhilC The map only shows the winemaking areas the author visited. There are,of course, many more.
Anyone know—are Australians making any wines in this more restrained style today with varietals other than the very widely made Sauv Blanc/Riesling/Cabernet/Syrah/etc.? (I’m talking anything like Ribolla Gialla, Chenin, Valdigué, Cinsault, etc.)
Yes, though I'm not sure how much winds up on the export market. Even in my local district, I'm surprised by the sheer variety of less well known grapes being used to make wine, and I'm still finding varieties I've never heard of whenever I look in the "other whites" and "other reds" section in wine stores that are all grown around Australia.
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@Kel Good to know — although such a bummer to hear it none of it might be making it to the rest of the world!
@1st-Generation Chinese-American
There is a fair bit of “alternative varieties” if you will available from Oz here in the US. Producers such as Ricca Terra, Unico Zelo, First Drop, Somos Wines, Brash Higgins and many many others.
Listed some decent stuff. And Bindi is good, but missed Macedon’s Curly Flat...I could go on, this should be ten articles if it was 3 weeks of wine touring :)
Next time visit Tasmania for its wines.
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@Miguel Belmar
As well as the Wangaratta region, just on the Victorian side of the border with New South Wales on the route from Sydney to Melbourne.
It was great to read to see what an American perspective on Australian wine is. I suppose it's a similar perspective to what I see when I look through the few varieties from the old world that I can buy here - and the range of American wines is pitiful. So if I'm in the mood to try a different variety, it usually means trying what an Aussie winemaker has made in that style, and supplementing that by trying whatever unusual imports I see on restaurant menus.
The good thing about Australia's size and the varieties of wine regions that it brings, is there's more than enough variety in local wine that it feels like we're being catered for no matter our tastes.
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Great writing, but...
Most of these wines are not available in fly-over country.
And, no mention of prices is just not acceptable.
@davebarnes - I’m sorry but you are incorrect there of where the wines are available. The vast majority of the producers featured and listed are available throughout “fly-over country”. I have seen most of these wines in places like Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Montana, and many other places.
As for prices? That also varies on location in a decent manner.
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@Aaron Meeker, I bought wines from two those the vineyards listed in Tucson AZ in Feb - and I might say for less than I buy them here in Australia!
Great piece!
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I find the wines from Clonakilla (Canberra) to be almost Burgundian (except made from Shiraz/Viognier). I was able to test this idea at the Matter of Taste event a few months back. People were amazed at the elegance of these Australian wines.
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@ Lisa New York
I must be a very poor wine lover. In my view, most of the "American wines are the California rocket juice", "New York State mucilage", and the Australian wines are but
"cheap commodities like Yellow Tail".
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@Tuvw Xyz
Yes, Yellow Tail has a lot to answer for in that they are not a good representation of Australian wines,similar to Jacobs Creek that invaded London some 30 years ago. JC is now producing excellent wines as are other wines produced by the owners of Yello Tail. Unfortunately when we export cheap wines they ultimately reflect poorly on other top wines as experienced by the journalist. (Perhaps in showing my ignorance I am very fond of Zinfandel from the Napa Valley)
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@Tuvw Xyz
I believe the big producers put the garbage on a pallet marked “US/UK”.
Aust has superb wine of many varietals and at great prices...even though I think there’s a 29% tax rate.
American wine has also definitely matured, although from my experience perhaps not to the level of Aust :)
I generally go French or Italian at US restaurants - from experience the Australian offerings are either poor or exotically priced
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