Finally, the success of the Californian winegrowers in the 1976 Judgment of Paris gave Australian winemakers the confidence to ignore French conventions and to aggressively compete on the world market. In fact, as early as 1952, ignoring a culture of six o’clock swill, pioneers such as Max Schubert at Penfolds were already producing some of the world’s greatest wines, unabashedly celebrating the unique and powerful qualities of Australian Shiraz. By 1985, Lindeman’s Bin 65 set the new standard for Chardonnay wines worldwide. Thanks to these pioneers, it was the Australian wine producers, not Monty Python, who would have the last laugh.
While only half a million cases of Australian wine were shipped to the US in 1990, within fourteen years that number had increased to twenty million cases. By the year 2000, for the first time in history, the UK was importing more wine from Australia than from France. Australia is now the world’s fifth largest exporter of wine, and its winemaking results have been impressive, establishing benchmarks for a number of varietals such as Chardonnay and Shiraz. The University of Adelaide has researched and innovated canopy management and other viticultural and winemaking techniques with an emphasis on super-hygienic, ultra-modern, stainless steel efficiency. Australian winemakers have a general attitude toward their work that sets them apart from producers in Europe whom they regard as hide-bound and constrained by tradition. Australian winemakers travel the wine world as highly-skilled seasonal workers, relocating to the northern hemisphere during the off-season at home. They are an important resource in the globalization of wine, and wine critic Matt Kramer notes that “the most powerful influence in wine today” comes from Australia.
Australian Varietals: With no native vines of its own, all Australian wines are made with the strains of Vitis vinifera imported by the Europeans since the 18th century. In addition to the normal top four international varietals—Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay—Australia has also focused on wines from the Southern Rhône Valley—Shiraz (Syrah), Grenache, and Mourvedre. In fact, Australia has become a rival to the Rhône in the production of what are known as GSM wines (Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre). This is a traditional Southern Rhône blend, most famously found in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, in which the Grenache provides the alcohol, warmth, and fruitiness; the Syrah provides the full-body, dark color and tannins, while the Mourvedre contributes elegance, structure, and acidity to the final blend.
Syrah is by far the most widely-grown varietal in Australia but, for whatever reason, the Australians call it Shiraz. In many ways Shiraz became emblematic of Australian wines as they so dramatically burst onto the world stage at the end of the twentieth century, and the extraordinary success of Shiraz has encouraged many Syrah producers around the world, even in Europe, to relabel their wine as “Shiraz.”
Because there is such a wide variety of climate and soil conditions in Australia, and because there are so many recent immigrants from Southern European wine regions including France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Slovenia, and Croatia, it is inevitable that Australians are experimenting and will find eventual success with many other varietals, such as Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Viognier, Sangiovese, and Tempranillo, among others.
Australian Wine Regions
Western Australia: Although long known for the Chenin Blanc wines of the Margaret River area among other fine wines, Western Australia is so remote from the rest of the country—let alone the world—that most of its wines are consumed locally.
Victoria: Used to be the largest wine producer in the nineteenth century, but never recovered from the Phylloxera epidemic at the turn of the century.
New South Wales: Originally this was an important wine-producing region, and the lower Hunter Valley, two hours out of Sydney, is still famous for its Chardonnays and Shiraz wines, while the upper Hunter Valley is becoming known for its Sémillon wines; the region as a whole has long since been eclipsed by South Australia.
South Australia: Known as the “California” of Australian wines, South Australia produces almost 50 percent of the nation’s wine. Centered around the city of Adelaide with its University and the Australian Wine Research Institute, the area is known as a wine “superzone.” The Adelaide Superzone includes the following G.I. subregions (Geographic Indicators) many of which will be recognized by English and American consumers (the subregions are listed from north to south, to the east of Adelaide):
Clare Valley: Poor irrigation – reduces yields but concentrates flavor. Famous for Chardonnays, Sémillons, and Rieslings
Barossa Valley: Oldest and most prestigious wine-producing region. Hot and dry. Famous for Shiraz originally planted by refugees from Silesia in 1842, which miraculously survived Phylloxera. Increasingly developing Rhône style Grenache and Mourvedre.
Eden Valley: Henschke Hill of Grace—130 year old Shiraz vines (which also escaped the Phylloxera blight). Also world-famous for limestone flavored Rieslings
Langhorne Creek: Vines grow along Bremer River for the famous (French-owned) Jacob’s Creek Shiraz.
Currency Creek: Cooler temperatures – Whites. Riesling Chardonnay, Sauvignon-Blanc, Sémillon.
McLaren Vale: Wet climate. Soil varies from sand to clay to limestone, therefore offers widest selection of varietals in South Australia, including Sangiovese and Zinfandel.
S. Fleurieu: Gravelly soil similar to Bordeaux; Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Riesling and Viognier.
Kangaroo Island: Bordeaux style reds. Sandy loam and gravelly soil.
McLaren Vale is also the home of Mollydocker, a family-owned winery that produces some of the most powerful red wines in the world. Their most famous wine is The Boxer followed by Two Left Feet, both of which offer alcohol levels well in excess of 15 percent. The Wine Spectator and Robert Parker gave their Carnival of Love an almost unheard of ninety-nine points, though another critic described it as “Amarone gone off the rails.” In any event, for people who enjoy big, swaggering, broad-shouldered reds—the Mollydocker wines are well worth searching for. In the Wine Spectator’s listing of the Top 100 Wines of 2014, a Mollydocker Shiraz won second place.
Chile
The earliest Chilean vineyards were planted by the Spanish Conquistadores and missionaries in the sixteenth century, probably with Spanish vines, known as Pais, brought down via Mexico and Peru. Vineyards in the New World were prohibited by the Spanish Crown who wanted the colonists to drink imported Spanish wines, even though the wines were old and oxidized by the time they crossed the Atlantic. While the Peruvians and Mexicans largely complied—turning their wine into pisco and aguardiente brandy—the Chileans, being more remote from Spain, continued growing their own grapes. As early as the eighteenth century, wealthy Chilean landowners were being influenced by French rather than Spanish winemaking techniques, and would often stopover in Bordeaux on their visits to Europe.
Influenced heavily, like most Chilean vineyards, by Bordeaux winemaking styles, Don Silvestre Errázuriz was the first to import French varietals: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Carménère, Malbec, Sauvignon Blanc, and Sémillon. He hired a French oenologist to oversee his vineyard planting and to produce wine in the Bordeaux style. The Phylloxera epidemic of the mid-nineteenth century, while destroying nearly all French vineyards and decimating the French wine industry, was a boon to Chile’s emerging wine trade, as many French winemakers traveled to South America, bringing their experience and techniques with them. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, when all the European vineyards were suffering from the Phylloxera blight, it was the vineyards of Chile and California that actually supplied the wines for the Europeans to drink. Phylloxera never reached Chile.
Chile is a long, narrow country running from the hot, dry deserts of the north to the cold wet valleys of the south, constantly irrigated by the snow run-off from the Andes and cooled by the cold water of the Pacific Ocean. The valleys of Chile enjoy an ideal combination of soil, sunlight, temperature, and humidity, and C
hilean wines are among the most organic in the world. Due to the dry summer season, Chilean vineyards resist infestation and natural geographic barriers have protected the country from the arrival of Phylloxera and other diseases. The absence of these threats allows producers to grow their vineyards with reduced dependence on chemical agents. For whatever reason, the sandy soil or the dry air, the Phylloxera aphid seems never to have crossed the Andes, and thus Chile boasts some of the oldest and “purest” vines in the world, since they never needed to be grafted and replanted.
Chile has always focused more on fine wines for the wealthy local market, unlike neighboring Argentina, which focused on bulk wines for the working class. Chilean wines long had a good reputation internationally until the Second World War, when the industry entered a period of decline which lasted until the late 1980s. During this period, the wine industry was affected dramatically by the tax levied on wine and social uncertainties due to political instability and change. It was not until the restoration of democracy that, with an influx of foreign investment, the Chilean wine industry really started to expand. International interest increased following the 1976 Judgment of Paris. As soon as Baron Phillippe de Rothschild had accepted that his flagship wine had been defeated by an unknown Californian wine, he sent his daughter down to Chile, where she formed a significant and successful fifty-fifty partnership with Concha y Toro, the country’s leading wine producer. In the 1990s, flying winemakers from Australia and California introduced new technology and styles that helped Chilean wineries produce more internationally-recognized wine styles. Gradually, the wineries began to convert to French and American oak or stainless steel tanks for aging. Financial investment resulted in the form of European and American winemakers opening up their own wineries, or collaborating with existing Chilean wineries to produce new brands. These include:
Robert Mondavi, collaboration with Viña Errázuriz to produce Seña
Château Lafite Rothschild, collaboration with Los Vascos
Bruno Prats and Paul Pontallier of Château Margaux, opened Domaine Paul Bruno
Château Mouton Rothschild, partnered with Concha y Toro Winery to produce Almaviva
Because the modern Chilean wine industry has been treated as a well-funded, long-term serious business venture with big players and international goals, it has always invested in the best and most modern equipment and employed the world’s leading experts. Most importantly, the Chilean wine-producers made an important, early decision: to endure financial losses for several years while they established their wines in the international markets. For more than a decade, Chilean wines have been noted for their high quality and low price. Now that the excellent quality of their wines has been clearly established, Chilean producers are able to gradually raise prices. Such a strategy is only possible when the investors have the patience and financial resources to maintain it. Brazil is an example of a country taking the opposite approach. The Brazilian winegrowers appear to think that by charging high prices for their product, consumers will automatically assume that the quality is good. It is not.
The only problem with Chile’s strategy was that it was dominated by bankers and investors, limited to the tried and true, not by passionate visionaries willing to take risks. Chilean wines were accepted as solid and dependable, but also as dull. An English writer, Tim Atkin, had famously described Chilean wine as “the Volvo of the wine world … safe but boring.”
In 2004, winemaker Eduardo Chadwick of Viña Errázuriz made history in Berlin. His Viñedo Chadwick 2000 took first place in a blind tasting of sixteen wines from France, Italy, and Chile. Second place went to another Chilean wine, Mondavi and Errázuriz’s Seña 2001. Following in third place was Rothschild’s fabled Château Lafite 2000 from Bordeaux, and forth place Château Margaux 2001. Finally, it was recognized that Chilean wines were not only about value, but about true quality and excitement as well. The Volvo had become a Ferrari!
Chilean Varietals: For most of its history prior to the twenty-first century, the most widely-planted grape in Chile was the Pais grape, the same grape known in California as ‘Mission’. This was the grape first brought to the Americas by the Conquistadores in the sixteenth century, and is a direct descendant of the Andalusian Palomino grape used to make Sherry.
Otherwise, the varietals in Chile reflect French Bordeaux, rather than a Spanish influence, and the most-widely planted vine is Cabernet Sauvignon, followed by Merlot and Carménère. The most common white grape is Sauvignon Blanc, followed by Sémillon. Most wines are made in the “New World” style, and it would take an expert to tell the difference between a Chilean varietal and one from California or Australia, though the Cabernets show more of a distinctive “Chilean” style than the other varietals, having softer tannins and being designed for easier drinking.
The most unique Chilean varietal, however, is Carménère, which was originally grown in the Bordeaux region and was part of the traditional six-grape blend for making Bordeaux’s claret. Following the Phylloxera blight of the late nineteenth century, it was believed that the Carménère grape had become extinct, and so it was never replanted. Recent DNA testing of what was thought to be Chilean Merlot has shown it, in fact, to be the long-lost Carménère varietal. Because Chile is unique in never having suffered from Phylloxera, the original vines imported from France by Don Silvestre Errázuriz in the nineteenth century, including Carménère, are still surviving. Recognizing a good marketing opportunity, Chilean wine producers are promoting Carménère as a unique Chilean varietal. Another way that Chileans are seeking to develop a unique national style is by blending their original varietal of Pais with other varietals to create a distinctive Chilean flavor and taste.
Chilean Wine Regions: The first vineyards in Chile were planted around the capital of Santiago. To the east they climbed into the foothills of the Andes, and to the west they reached the Pacific port of Valparaiso.
Maipo: This Central Valley around Santiago is still the heart of the Chilean wine industry and has been compared to California’s Napa Valley; it is famous for its Cabernet Sauvignons, such as the well-known Santa Rita. The Maipo region’s flagship wine, Almaviva, comes from the Puente Alto vineyard, and is a joint venture between Concha y Toro and Bordeaux’s Château Mouton Rothschild. Almaviva has been one of the country’s most important benchmark reds since its first successful vintage in 1996—exactly twenty years after Mouton Rothschild’s defeat in the Judgment of Paris!
Casablanca Valley: Running east-west from Valparaiso, Casablanca is famous for its Sauvignon Blancs and Pinot Noirs due to the cooling effects of the Pacific Coast fog and the thick cloud cover—similar to conditions in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and also New Zealand, which are both famous for the same two varietals. The first vineyards were only planted here after the restoration of democracy in the 1990s, when the wine industry started to expand.
Rapel/Colchagua: As new vineyards are planted, they open new regions, moving south towards cooler climates. The reds of Colchagua are all made in the Bordeaux style—not surprisingly, since one of the most famous vineyards, Viña Los Vascos, is owned by Bordeaux’s Rothschild family.
Since the start of the twenty-first century, the number of wineries in Chile has grown from twelve to over seventy. Chile is now the ninth-largest wine producer in the world, and the fourth largest exporter. Although the price of Chilean wines is starting to rise, they still offer a high-quality for a very reasonable price.
China
Strictly speaking, China is not part of the “New World.” Indeed, it is one of the oldest wine-producing countries on the planet. However, wine has not been an important aspect of Chinese culture until very recently. Already within the first two decades of the new century, China has become not only a major producer but also a major consumer of wine. Within the next decade, China could prove itself one of the leading players in the world of wine.
Although grape wine has been consumed in China
for at least 4,600 years, a stronger version containing up to 20 percent alcohol, called Huangjiu, or “yellow-wine,” made from fermented rice and cereals, has always been more popular. Additionally, the Chinese have always consumed a distilled version called Baijiu, which has a 40-60 percent alcohol content. Alcohol in China is typically consumed in the form of toasts, drunk in small shot glasses and tossed to the back of the throat—the complete opposite of everything described in Chapter One of this book.
Modern Vitis vinifera grapes were probably first introduced by the Greeks, led by Alexander the Great in the third century BC, and planted in the extreme west of China in what is today’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Marco Polo referred to the local wines when he passed through this area in the thirteenth century. This Uighur populated province (ironically the most Islamic part of China) is still the major wine-producing region in the nation, even though it clings to the edge of the Gobi Desert. One of the vineyards covers twenty-five thousand acres at 262 feet below sea level!
Following Deng Xiaoping’s Economic Reforms in the early 1980s, agricultural land was de-collectivized, private entrepreneurs were permitted to develop vineyards, and foreign investment was encouraged. At the same time, a growing middle class was becoming exposed to the outside world, traveling to Europe and bringing back knowledge about foreign cultures—including wine.
The French brandy house, Remy Martin/Cointreau, established a joint venture in 1980 which eventually became Dynasty Wines, producing over one hundred types of wine products in China. Initially, Chinese wines were limited to the export market, but with the growing wealth of the domestic market in the twenty-first century and a fast evolving appreciation for wine, 90 percent of Chinese wine is now consumed domestically. While the disposable income of the growing middle class accounts for the consumption of home-grown Chinese wine, it is only the extreme wealth of the Chinese billionaire class that can account for an obsessive consumption of French, especially Bordeaux, wines. The Chinese love of Bordeaux wine is delightfully explored in the 2013 movie Red Obsession.
The Booklovers' Guide to Wine Page 22