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Discovering the culture of Australian Wine

Anon

Coldstream Hills

Along with opal jewellery and craft, wine is one of the few disciplines where Australia has a world renowned high culture. In England, the world's most objective wine market, Australia has until very recently been the undisputed market leader. Furthermore, Australian wine has been experienced great international expansion at a time when other wine-making countries have been suffering contraction.

From 1990 to 2001 Australia's annual exports increased from 38 million litres worth $121 million to around 354 million litres worth $1.7 billion. This was a 10 fold increase in volume and a 14 fold increase in value. 

Science has been the secret to Australia's success, and the focus on science most clearly differentiates Australia from France, Australia's chief competitor. In Australia, winemakers must go to university and learn the science of winemaking. After graduation, they are expected to make wine in a foreign country in order to further develop their abilities. Once acquiring a vast body of knowledge, they return to Australia and further contribute to the local knowledge pool. The winemaker's knowledge is then tested in a variety of national wine shows where blind tastings are used to assess quality and award prizes.

Whereas Australian winemaking culture is anchored in science and allows the freedom to use it, French winemaking culture revolves around inflexible classification systems that define wineries as inferior and superior and make innovation redundant. In 1855, Bordeaux wineries were ranked in classes titled First Growth, Second Growth, Third Growth, Fourth Growth and Fifth growth. In 150 years, only Mouton Rothschild has been able to change its rank. In 1973, it was promoted from Second to First growth.

The Appellation label is another classification system designed to protect established French brands. The Appellation label was created in 1935 and has strict rules about permitted grape varieties, yields, alcohol content, cultivation, maturation practices, and labelling procedures. If a winemaker follows the rules of their respective Appellation, then they are allowed to use the Appellation label. If they don't follow the rules then they can't use the label.

By forcing all winemakers in a specific region to make wine in the same way, it becomes much easier for the region to become famous for a specific style. If the region is famous, then all the winemakers in the region also benefit. Furthermore, if each region is famous for a particular style, then different regions of France have no need to compete with each other. It is very much a group-first philosophy that allows all individuals in the group to benefit from the group's success.

Although the Appellation system helps marketing, the side effect is that it reduces quality. The system is incredibly harsh on innovation, and leaves no freedom for the winemaker to adapt techniques to deal with microclimatic variances from year to year. Basically, the French winemaker is nothing more than a robot following inflexible rules. There is no need for them to be educated. There is no need to learn new theories. No need to experiment. No need to worry about competition. In fact, there isn't even a need for French winemakers to clean their vats. The lack of cleanliness is reflected in many French wines, which taste of an extremely dirty winery.

Due to obvious problems with the Appellation label, in 1979 the French created the less restrictive Vin De Pays label. Although the VDP label allows some freedom for winemaking expertise, in the eyes of the French consumer, a Vin De Pay wine signals that the wine is of inferior quality. (Entrenched interests in the French industry work hard to maintain that perception.) Consequently, the Vin De Pay wine sells for a low price and so further reinforces negative perceptions about the label - to the delight of those who use the Appellation label.

Unlike Australia, France does not have a culture of national wine shows that allow new wineries to gain recognition. As a result, French wine bottles never display awards as do Australian wine bottles. Plain and simply, French wineries have no way of going up in status.

Faced with criticism that its winemakers are morons, and their classification systems are restrictive, the French downplay the role of expertise. They argue that the wine will be good as long as the grapes are good. Furthermore, they argue that France has the best environment for growing grapes. Admittedly, there is some truth in the boast. Good wine can't be made from bad grapes and over the centuries the French have learnt where specific varieties of grapes grow well. On the downside, France often suffers from rain during vintage. This causes the grapes to swell with water and become weak in flavour. Consequently, French winemakers are often forced to add sugar just so the wine can be made. In addition, France has a small range of growing conditions.

While France has significant problems with rain during vintage and a relatively narrow range of growing conditions, Australia has ideal and diverse environments for growing grapes. These include the Hunter Valley, Barossa Valley, the Coonawarra, Tamar valley, Margaret River.

Even though the Australia's wine is superior to the French, marketing problems have sometimes prevented this superiority being recognised. One of the marketing problems has been with labelling. As recently as the 1990s, Australian Shiraz was sold under the label Hermitage in order to associate it with the region in France. Likewise, Hunter Semillon, sold under the label of Rhine Riesling in order to associate it with German whites. By labelling Australian wines after European regions, the Australians were elevating the European regions as the benchmark to emulate. By implication, the Australian wine was ranked by how closely it matched the European wines. It could never be superior, it could only be similar.

In the early 90s, the European Union forced the Australian industry to stop trading off European names. Although some Australian winemakers were against the change, in hindsight it was the best thing that could have happened to the industry. Once the change was made, Australians started refining their winemaking culture. Not only did this lead to an increase in quality, it also allowed Australians to build reputations of their own.

Another marketing problem is Australia’s lack of a high cultural image that can help sell wine in new markets. Even though a great deal of French, Italian and Spanish wine is undrinkable, they still sell well in Asian countries because they carry with them the romantic and cultural image of the countries they come from. This image is as appealing to many wine buyers as the wine itself.  On the other hand, Australia’s attempts to sell wine with scientific arguments doesn’t appeal to a market that is buying the wine for romantic reasons. In some ways, its counterproductive.

Reprinted with permission from ConvictCreations.com, the hidden story of Australia's missing links

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