The Second Glass

Each year - particularly since the 1970s - Australian wine has been growing in popularity With Mediterranean-like climates, the continent has ideal growing conditions. The wine- growing regions of Australia are ideal for bearing structured cabs, creamy chards, and, most importantly, jam-filled shirazes that will make one’s mouth water. Though the Australian wine industry is flourishing today, this didn’t occur without a few kinks in the road.

Australia’s wine history begins in the late 18th century when English immigrants acquired some land, wanted some booze, and had access to grape vines from South Africa. The immigrants started planting in New South Wales, but sadly the hot and humid environment killed the vines. Confident in their ignorance, they persuaded some immigrants with more viniculture knowledge to shack up farther inland. Today, the area is known as the Hunter Valley. Around the year1850, the vines began to flourish and planting quickly spread throughout Southeastern Australia. There was so much growing potential, and too small a population to drink the wine, so Australia began exporting.

At this point, everything was on the up-and-up for the wine-growing Aussies. They had all the wine they could drink and they were making some coin. Life was good, at least until 1877 when phylloxera, a tiny aphid that eats grape vine roots, was found in Victoria. It brought the wine-making world to its knees in the late part of the 1800’s.

In Australia this tiny pest threatened the vines in Victoria and even spread into other states. The vineyards hit by the pest, like the vineyards of Europe, had to replant with tolerant rootstocks brought over from America. Most of the Aussie wineries, in an attempt recoup the expenses and lost profits from this replanting, started making cheap wines that were drinkable immediately. They also tried planting vineyards further inland where the climate is more inhospitable. The dark ages of Australian wine had begun. Few wines worthy of mention were made until the 1960s when new technology and economics influenced a trend towards dry table wines.

Virtually all of Australia’s fruit-saturated wines come from southeastern Australia. The chief wine making states are South Australia, New South Wales, and Victoria. Beware of wine labels that say “southeastern Australia,” however; this means that they can source grapes from anywhere in that whole quadrant of the country to make their wine.

South Australia is home to the continent’s most renowned wine districts: the Barossa Valley, and Coonawarra. Their porous, reddish, limestone-infused soil is notorious for producing big, berry-infused shiraz and cabs.

New South Wales’ most notable district is the Hunter Valley. Hunter Valley is the oldest wine producing area in Australia. Its clay soil and super hot and humid atmosphere turns out Australia’s best Chardonnays.

Victoria has not had as much success with dry wines as the previous two states. Victoria has had more success with perfecting sweet and fortified wines. Victoria’s sweet muscats, to kays, and port-like wines will win the hearts of dessert wine lovers.

In addition to giving us unique wines in their approachability, Australian wines taste even better when one realizes one has enough money to buy two bottles. Australian wines are super inexpensive because of availability, volume, and cost of production. Last year Australian wineries - or should I say “wine manufacturers” - crushed nearly two million tons of grapes, exporting $2.7 billion (US) worth of wine - about 35% of which comes to the States - and keeping about $2 billion in business for themselves . That’s a lot of $8 bottles of Little Penguin. To put it into perspective, in 2005 Australia produced a little over 1.4 billion bottles of wine. Perhaps “bottles” isn’t the right measurement because most wine sold within Australia is box wine. No wonder these guys get so anxious to wrestle crocodiles.

Now the question occurs, “How on Earth do they make all this wine? Doesn’t Australia’s population consist of Mick Dundee, his mates and a few koalas? Aren’t the Aussies too busy playing rugby and slipping an extra shrimp on the barbie to pick all those grapes?” The answer is simple: machines. Imagine for a second that the viticulture technology in the United States is equivalent to Arnold in the first Terminator movie. Keeping with the analogy, Australia’s technology would be that of the T2000 in Terminator 2 - it’s that ridiculous. In Australia, almost all the pruning, picking, trimming, and pest control is done by machine, making even the most industrial wineries able to run on with the help of a hand full of blokes.

Australian wines are very buyer-friendly. Customers don’t have to know a lot to get a decent bottle. Since the climate is even from year to year, one hardly ever has to worry about buying a wine from a bad vintage. In fact, the only real concern of the Aussie wine maker is the number of vines that will be eaten by kangaroos. Seriously. So the next time a chardonnay is needed to go with a dish with a heavy cream sauce, or a red wine to go with barbeque or a pepper-rubbed steak, skip the more expensive European wines, and try a bottle from Down Under.