Why do Australian wine journalists talk up foreign wines when ours are often of a higher quality and better value for money?
— P.P., Annandale, NSW
Sadly, it’s often a symptom of a kind of snobbery: “I’m writing my column this week about obscure, skin-contacted, ‘amber’ wine fermented in an earthenware vessel buried in the ground in the Jura, just to demonstrate that I’m ahead of the game.”
Or: “Oh, you mean you haven’t heard about the smashable, crunchy trousseau grape? I mean, like, where have you been all this time? LOL.”
It’s not always snobbery: there’s a real fascination with “discovery” wines and the genuine desire to tell others about their pleasures. But it’s also true that those readers who are bored with Barossa shiraz and Coonawarra cabernet could turn their attention to their own backyard; there are hundreds of other interesting wines in this vast country.
First, some context. There are, at a rough guess, 10,000 grape varieties worldwide. In their grape-variety bible, Wine Grapes (Penguin, 2012), Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding and José Vouillamoz describe 1368 varieties used for winemaking, most of them not grown in Australia. (Imagine factoring in all the wineries in all the wine regions in all the wine-producing countries: there are an estimated 100,000 wineries worldwide.)
The more Australians travel, the more they discover about the wines and foods of the wider world and the more they want to be able to enjoy them at home. Wine Australia says imports grew from 82 million litres in 2014 to 106 million litres in 2023. That’s nearly 3 per cent a year.
When I began writing about wine 42 years ago, Australians drank a tiny percentage of imported wine: Mateus Rosé, Blue Nun, Black Tower, chianti in straw-covered flasks … Now foreign wine is a much larger share of the market and we get all the good stuff as well as the run-of-the-mill. That’s because there’s demand for it. I don’t see much wrong with that.
However, I do believe that wine writers need to strike a balance, and that probably means writing more about local wine than imported.
Got a drinks question for Huon Hooke? thefullbottle@goodweekend.com.au
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