by Martin Field
According to reports emanating from the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation, some 60,000 tonnes of wine grapes from Australia’s 2006 vintage will be left to rot in the vineyards. That’s the equivalent of 55 million bottles of wine down the gurgler, enough to provide for the average annual consumption of one and a half million Australian adults.
Production costs for one tonne of grapes are estimated at up to five hundred dollars, so growers will carry a loss of maybe $30m. And don’t even mention lost profits.
You’d think there was a crisis in the industry, yet plantings of new vineyards proceed unchecked, figures indicating that new wineries are being created at a rate of two or more per week. What are these investors thinking?
No wonder cleanskin shops continue to proliferate and thrive, selling quaffable bottles of overflow wine at near giveaway prices.
Grange glut?
And it looks like price stagnation due to grape oversupply may have achieved a trickle upward effect. For the first time in my memory a just-released Grange (2001 vintage, $400 to $500 the bottle – possibly up to 108,000 bottles released) has been advertised (at $445) by a discounter in the daily paper. In contrast, previous vintages of this iconic red have sold out within the first 10 minutes of release.
And apparently the secondary market for Grange is flat. I see in an advertisement in the Age that Get Wines Direct is selling the ’96 Grange for $350.00, reduced from $495.00, and the ’89 for $295.00. Grange speculators who have bought the wine over the years hoping for spectacular returns are no doubt already shedding tears into their flutes of Krug.
Other wines in the May 1 Penfolds super premium release are the Yattarna Chardonnay 2003; RWT Barossa Valley Shiraz 2003 (see review below); Magill Estate Shiraz 2003 and the St Henri Shiraz 2002. Penfolds have announced that there will be no Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon released from the 2003 vintage.
Waiter, this wine is porked!
This is an actual conversation I had last week.
‘Hey Martin! Have you seen this wine review in theage(melbourne)magazine(sic)?’
‘Run it past me.’
‘Listen, this bit says, “…Sweet chewy cherries, cedary too, with bacon fat and toast…†What d’ya reckon about the bacon?’
‘I reckon that the writer is neither vegetarian nor Jewish.’
Long Live the screwcap!
I was given a cache of cheap wines that had been stored undisturbed in a lounge room cupboard for decades. All but one of them were undrinkable.
The exception was a screwcapped bottle of 1983 Hardys Old Castle Riesling (11% alcohol), which had lain there since about 1984.
There was no ullage in the bottle. The wine was a bright golden yellow, similar enough to the hue of botrytised whites. The nose showed no oxidation at all – just typical aged Australian riesling character, with faint lemon and lime, a hint of hydrocarbon, and spiced baked apples.
The palate was soft and smooth, with more of the spicy apples, fading lemon zest and mild acid in the off-dry finish. Quite a delicious drink, given its age.
Back then screwcaps appeared only on el cheapo bottles. The brand – which I believe is now extinct – was a well-made but cheap commercial white designed for the drink-now market and certainly not for long term cellaring.
One can only imagine what the wine would have been like with a cork closure.
A case of the best Oz wines in 1968
A number of people have suggested putting together a premium mixed dozen based on the Australian wine writers’ Desert Island Wines in the previous E-vine. I’ll leave that to some enterprising wine merchant. But I was intrigued to read, in Charles Gent’s Mixed Dozen, of a selection of ‘…the best commercially available Australian wines…’ chosen by eminent wine identities in 1968 for a former equerry of Prince Charles.
Curiously, only ten of the dozen are listed (page 221) in the book. They are (slightly paraphrased), Orlando Moselle (riesling)1967; Henschke Riesling 1967; Tyrrell’s Hunter Riesling (semillon) 1967; Kaiser Stuhl Late-Picked Riesling 1961; Wynns Cinsault Rosé; Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 1965; [Chateau?] Reynella Claret 1965; Ingoldby Hermitage (shiraz) 1965; Stonyfell Claret (shiraz) 1965; Chateau Tahbilk Hermitage 1965.
I wonder what wines would comprise today’s dozen of the best.
Mixed Dozen – The story of Australian winemaking since 1788, by Charles Gent. Pictures by Patrick Cook. Duffy and Snellgrove, Sydney, 2003. Paperback, 344 pages, RRP $30.
A scientific project – try it at home
Take a glass test tube (wine bottle), fill it with a complex chemical solution (wine) seal it with a bit of (possibly contaminated) tree (cork) leave it for an indeterminate period in an uncontrolled environment (maturation). Hope for the best.