Australia’s cold front

Our image of Australian wine tends to be intimately connected to sunshine and a barbie. Back in the 1980s Australia changed wine for a whole generation of new wine drinkers. For the first time you didn’t need a degree in foreign languages and a library of books to choose a bottle of wine. Australian names were easy to pronounce and the grape variety was displayed on the label. Consumers could, therefore, have a rough idea of what kind of wine they were buying. Some even gave information on a back label. This may seem obvious now, but back then it was quite revolutionary.

Australia brought us the famous “glass of sunshine” and we lapped it up. Sales boomed, and a generation was brought into wine through chardonnay and shiraz instead of Chablis and Fleurie.

In Ireland Australian wines outsold those of every other country. Keeping things simple worked well, particularly for less expensive wines. But like many European countries, Australia has a range of unique and original wines, some with a pedigree stretching back over a century or longer. The difficulty has always been explaining and selling these wines to a public who saw Australian wines as cheap and cheerful. In particular, some of the cooler regions, which produce wines that are more elegant, have a problem explaining to the public why their wines aren’t rich and full-bodied.

The economic crisis saw exports of Australian wines fall in many markets. At the same time, the Australian dollar, buoyed by exports of coal and iron ore to China, strengthened against other currencies, making the wines a lot more expensive.

I recently attended the Savour Australia conference in Adelaide, partly an exercise in navel-gazing for producers, but also a chance for Australia to show the world what it can do. Several masterclass tastings I attended proved beyond doubt that Australia can produce world class wines that age as well as any other country.

I then spent a week revisiting some of the cooler climates of Australia, two close to Melbourne, the other a 45-minute flight south over the Bass Strait. All three regions have built a reputation for pinot noir and chardonnay, with a few other specialities thrown in. All make wines that would fall into the light and elegant category.

Melbourne has always fancied itself as more European than Sydney. Certainly it has a vibrant arts scene and nightlife with plenty of wonderful casual wine bars.

To the north and south of Melbourne lie the Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula. These are popular destinations for locals and visitors alike. Most wineries have visitor centres and some very high-quality restaurants.

The Yarra has three legendary producers – Mount Mary, Yarra Yering and Yerinberg – that are still responsible for some of the greatest wines. Sadly I don’t think any are currently available in Ireland. The same goes for de Bertoli, Domaine Chandon (Moët & Chandon’s impressive winery) Oakridge, Yering Station and others besides. However, Innocent Bystander, made in Phil Sexton’s hip winery/brewery/cheese dairy/restaurant in Healseville, is available, as is his Giant Steps.

The Yarra Valley produces some very impressive cabernet sauvignon, shiraz (often labeled syrah here) but is probably best-known for its pinot noir and chardonnay.

The Mornington Peninsula, which forms the southern arm of Port Phillip Bay, has a cool maritime climate and is a favourite weekend retreat for Melbourne residents. Again chardonnay and pinot noir are the favoured varieties; there are some excellent examples of the latter. Climate and soil vary enormously over the small area so discovering what works well is all still a work in progress. There are however some excellent wines.

A short flight from Melbourne, Tasmania is one of the fastest-moving stories in the Australian wine scene. Although vines were planted here in the 19th century, the current wine industry really only started in the 1980s. Having worked my way through flights of sparkling wine, pinot noir, chardonnay and riesling, I would argue that all four have a very bright future in Tasmania.

Already the Australian mainland realizes that this small island produces some of the best juice for both sparkling wine and still whites, including Penfold’s which uses a substantial proportion of Tasmanian chardonnay in their iconic Yattarna (RRP €100 per bottle). I suspect pinot noir will soon join them as a Tasmanian classic.