What Australia gets right about wine
While backpacking across the east coast of Australia on my gap year in 1993, my uncle suggested that I might be interested in taking a trip to the Lower Hunter Valley, the wine-growing region three hours drive north of Sydney. Little did he know his suggestion would lead to my future career and a lifelong love of Australian wine.
It was Captain Arthur Phillip’s “first fleet” of marines, convicts and free settlers that transported the initial vines to Australia in 1786, but all of these small vineyard plantings were unsuccessful and perished. Despite this initial setback, it took those early producers less than 40 years to start producing wine commercially.
In 1822, James Blaxland was the first to export to London — a wine awarded a silver medal from the Royal Society of Arts for its quality.
Today, Australia has forged a reputation in quantity and quality; the country has 55 recognised wine regions, from the Granite Belt in the Great Dividing Range of Queensland to the Tamar Ridge across the Bass Straight in Tasmania. Due to Australia’s high temperatures, the majority of wine-producing regions are in the southern and oceanic parts of the country.
Measuring by quantity, production in 2020 exceeded more than 1 billion litres of wine annually, of which just over 65 per cent was exported around the world. As a global share of wine, Australia accounts for roughly five per cent, which is significant but still less than a third of the production of monoliths such as Italy or Spain.
Since those first tastings of Hunter Valley Semillons and Shiraz nearly thirty years ago, I have tried a lot of Australian wines; Penfold’s Grange, Henschke’s Hill of Grace and Cullen’s the Diana Madalene — wines of quality that rival the best the rest of the world can offer.
My favourite, however, is Australia’s mid-range Cabernet Shiraz blends: These two French varieties have flourished in the antipodes to produce a rich signature style of luscious blackcurrant, blackberry and plum.
Australian wines to try:
Penfolds Rawsons Retreat Shiraz Cabernet – £8.89 per bottle
Wynns Coonawarra Estate Shiraz 2019/20 – £9.99 per bottle (as part of a mixed 6)
Jim Barry Riesling ‘Mckay’s Single Vineyard’ Clare Valley 2018 – £20.95 per bottle