The allforonewine initiative or drink more Aussie wine

All For One Wine is all about Australians discovering incredible local wines, and celebrating the rich diversity and quality that exists in this country.

Ok, so it’s a little bit of self promotion but if Aussie winemakers don’t blow their own trumpet who will? Well Shiraz will.

The allforonewine pledge is to promise “to drink only local wines from Jan 1st, 2011 until Australia Day, January 26th.” That’s not too much of a burden seeing as we drink Aussie wine probably 70% of the time. Shiraz might even get around to doing the other bit of the pledge which is to “encourage people to share and talk about their favourite Australian wines through social media and to discuss the issues facing us as producers and drinkers.”

But you don’t have to wait for me, there is already a lively debate over on eBob about Aussie wines and their future. Of course the eBobers all have their own opinions as to what has happened to Aussie wine over the last few years and what the future holds, as do most winos I talk to. But a little bit of sanity can be found here and here.

Mark Squires’ Bulletin Board now available only to eRobertParker.com subscribers

At the end of last month Mark Squires' Bulletin Board officially closed its doors to all but those who subscribe to eRobertParker.com. This was met with various pronouncements and opinions on wine blogs like Vinography and Jamie Goode’s blog as well as other wine forums.

Like many I have been subject to the castigation by the all knowledgeable Mr. Squires; in the area of genetics which I am sure Mr Squires, a lawyer, is all knowing and all seeing while I, a PhD in Medicine, obviously know very little, even if I do have peer reviewed publications in the area. I have not posted on the MS Bulletin Board since although I did often visit the site, mostly to read posts on the Social Hall forum. As a paid-up subscriber of eRobertParker.com I will be able to continue to drop in to see how things are progressing and whether the pronouncements of others about the future of the bulletin board come to pass.

My own thoughts are that when the eBob forums were free they served as a highly visible format for those with a serious interest in wine and a vehicle to introduce eRobertParker.com. When Robert Parker expanded his staff to include folks like Antonio Galloni, Neal Martin and others you needed an eBob subscription to access their forums. At that point the writing was on the wall. Through The Wine Advocate Robert Parker has made it clear that the content he generates is not free. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this as its how Parker and his staff derive income. Whether the closing of the bulletin board to the public is the result of significant questions that have been raised about the ethics at The Wine Advocate we will almost certainly never know. My own feeing is that the subscriber base has grown to such a level that its now feasible to make the bulletin board a pay-to-play venue.

So where do you go if you have an interest in wine but don’t fancy being an eBob subscriber? There are numerous other wine forums, some of which have been mentioned at Vinography and by Jamie Goode. My contribution is to provide a couple of links to forums that specialize in Australian wines. Both are run by wine etailers in Australia but don’t let that stop you signing up as there are no hard sales pitches. The AusWine Forum is more focused on Aussie wines than the Star Forum which has a more international flavor. Although both have their own clique of posters there is cross fertilization and more to the point very few Mark Squires! Plus the posters on both sites have considerably more knowledge of the local product than among eBob members (who unfortunately were limited in their exposure by Parker’s view of what Australian wine should be).

Ever wonder how The Wine Advocate reviews wine?

I guess there is something to the complaint in recent weeks that at The Wine Advocate it is common for some of the staff to avoid the written rules; see here

The procedure, contained in The Wine Advocate Rating System, states in part When possible all of my tastings are done in peer-group, single-blind conditions, (meaning that the same types of wines are tasted against each other and the producers' names are not known). The ratings reflect an independent, critical look at the wines. Neither price nor the reputation of the producer/grower affect the rating in any manner.....

The reality is this!

The conditions are clearly not peer-group nor single blind. And the comment that hosts ply him with enormous meals that leave him groggy and overfed is sure to raise the possibility of conflict of interest.

I guess Parker could argue that the text in the TWA Rating System refers to how he reviews and does not apply to his independent contractors like Dr. Jay Miller. But why then do the good Doctor's reviews appear in The Wine Advocate?

The Wine Advocate Does Australia

Jay Miller, Robert Parker's surrogate taster of Australian wines, has come out with his latest set of reviews after his 2008 visit. The wines are reviewed in Issue # 181 of The Wine Advocate. Miller provides reviews of 1072 wines, which I believe is the largest number reviewed so far by The Wine Advocate. But its his introduction, titled Australia 2009: Into the Abyss that will see Parker’s followers, and quite a few others, nodding their heads.

"In my tastings for this report, many, if not most, of the importers with whom I sat down have trimmed their portfolios and/or begun to diversify into what they perceive as more fertile ground, particularly Spain and Argentina. In not much more than a decade the market has gone from boom to bust and to an unsettled future. "– Jay Miller, The Wine Advocate

Miller uses import figures from Oct 2007 to Oct 2008 to show that Aussie wines imported into the USA under $10 have seen double digit growth but wines over $20 have decreased by 50%. He gives a few reasons for this but avoids one that bears consideration and that is that Parker’s focus on South Australia has been the foundation stone for the boom and the bust.

Robert Parker never really saw value in many of the wines outside South Australia. True wines were recommended from a variety of regions but his main focus never really strayed from the Barossa and McLaren Vale for almost a decade. That myopic view lead to too many wines from too many producers that were just too similar. It meant importers like The Grateful Palate could establish virtual wineries producing export only wines for a specific market without regard for regional character. Such wines were nameless and faceless to wine drinkers in Australia and therefore lacked the backing of those who know the countries’ wines best. Such wines could never represent the regional diversity of Australia that is far, far broader than Robert Parler’s palate. Or as one importer told Miller “designer brands with no real core values – no bricks and mortar, no faces and places behind them, no regional expressions” Designed for whom is a question that must be asked.

Miller does seem to appreciate the diversity in Australia better than his boss, so has that changed how The Wine Advocate sees regional Australia? Perhaps not. I’ve not yet had the time to look through all 1072 recommendations but what is a concern is that on the first 2 pages of that 22 page list of scores there are only 5 non-South Australian dry wines (all Victorian) among a mass of South Australians. The great diversity of Australian wine deserves better than that.

Australian Wine - The Critics Web Sites

Blogging is almost always about links. The more links you have in your posts, especially to sites with significant traffic, the better chance you have for search engines to include your blog in searches for that link. There are two important aspects to links. First, they have to be current because the internet is simply not static enough for links to remain permanent. And second, the dynamic nature of the ‘net means that new sites are added all the time, and the best of those need to be added to your repertoire of traffic catchers. But links also serve another purpose because they are often placed outside of a post, such as those on the right-hand side of the page for SHIRAZ. These links qualify simply as resource pages. They allow bloggers to expand the knowledge base of their site by doing nothing more than providing a link. Here, at SHIRAZ, I’ve not blogged about the resource links because like many bloggers I assume that those who visit SHIRAZ will know what resource links are. However checking the OutClicks for SHIRAZ suggests that most don’t take advantage of resource links, so maybe its time to blog about them!

In the next few posts I’ll be covering several categories of web sites as they relate to Australian wine. These lists will not be exhaustive and will often only cover sites in Australia, although some of the more important foreign sites will be included. The first category will be the sites of those who can best be described as critics of Aussie wines, the folks that provide not only assessment of wines but also commentary.

James Halliday – Australian Wine Companion. $34.95/year.
Although thought of as part of the old guard by some, James Halliday reigns supreme as the most experienced and most knowledgeable critic of Australian wine. Halliday has also had enviable exposure to the best wines outside Australia, so his analysis is able to place Australian wine within a world context. Halliday may be the oldest Aussie wine critic but his new web site brings him into the 21st century! This site boats over 45,000 tasting notes, information on wine regions and wineries and commentary on current aspects of the Australian wine industry. There is also free content to entice possible subscribers. All of this is easy to access by pull down menus. Searching the site and especially tasting notes is limited by an inability to search by vintage; for example, you can’t get all of the tasting notes for 2002 Barossa Shiraz in a single search. Halliday does send out emails to subscribers on a regular basis that include a few tasting notes but the majority of his notes come from his annual hardcopy Wine Companion, so current tasting notes are limited.

THE WINE FRONT $39.95/year.
Given birth by one of Australia’s best wine writers, Campbell Mattinson, THE WINE FRONT has now been fused with Gary Walsh’s Winorama which was a very successful free site devoted primarily to tasting notes. Mattinson and Walsh fit into a small group of young Turks hoping to rise to prominence and unseat the “old guard”. I was initially very optimistic about the potential that this partnership could bring to critical analysis of Aussie wines. And although the jury is still out, I have to confess to an initial disappointment with the new THE WINE FRONT. The site does have significant positives. The tasting duo hopes to add several hundred tasting notes each month which makes the content very current in terms of wines available at retail; this is a big advantage over other critics (think Halliday, Parker’s The Wine Advocate) that normally release once per year. The site also boasts a first, at least for Aussie wine reviews, in a free feature called Double Take in which both Mattinson and Walsh independently review the same wine. Plus there is a limited amount of free content as a teaser to potential subscribers. However the search features on the site are archaic at best being limited to categories and a generic text search; a page describing tips for searching using this latter feature would be very helpful. If you want to look at all the tasting notes for 2005 Barossa Shiraz, as an example, you will be disappointed; you just can’t do it. And even when you pull up a search you have to scroll through complete notes, there is no facility to search abbreviated descriptions of individual wines which makes things very hard going. Fortunately its early days for this web site and hopefully it will improve, the potential is certainly there.

Jeremy Oliver $39.95 +GST
A site I do not subscribe to as it gives no free content to judge the quality of the material within. Oliver is highly regarded as a critic of Australian wine, although I doubt his name is known much outside Australia. I’ll continue to give this a miss until some free content appears.

TORBWine Free.
Run by Ric Einstein, an amateur wine critic (i.e. Ric does this in his spare time which he seems to have a lot of!). This site contains wine news, commentary and tasting notes. But the most interesting content is the Tour Diaries. Each Year Ric and a few of his mates visit Australian wine regions, mostly South Australia and Victoria, and taste with dozens of wine makers. The writing is a blend of humorous anecdote mixed with serious descriptions of current wines. Tour Diaries is a great way to find out what is happening on the Aussie wine scene, and its a pity that Ric doesn’t visit more wine regions during the year. You can search the tasting notes under several categories but like the sites above its not a sophisticated search engine. Tasting notes are listed by wine and clicking on the wine description will open up the tasting note but the lists are not alphabetical and so it can be hard work to find what you want.

Wine Pros Free
This is another free site that contains wine news, commentary and tasting notes but much of it is archived material that was provided as content when James Halliday used to contribute to the site. Now that Halliday has gone there is little, if any, current content. But the WinePros archive is now a portal for Visit Vineyards; a very new site that looks at both wine and food. Its a little too early to judge its potential, but it does contain content from several Australia writers as well as the well known English Master of Wine Jancis Robinson

A note on search engines for individual wine sites.
None of the wine sites described above use state of the art search engines and so its almost always a hit and miss affair if you want to extract their descriptions of 2002 Barossa Shiraz, for example. That is a major failing for sites which aim to provide material that their visitors and/or subscribers can search. Its simply not efficient to search these sites. In fact its probably easier to do a Google search for the information you want. There is however one site that does provide a very refined search engine, eRobertParker. This site ($99USD/year) is not limited to Australian wine but a few clicks will get you results for quite complicated searches. Its no problem to find all the 2002 Barossa Shiraz that Parker has reviewed. Under Category Search you simply click on Australia, then select Vintage, click on 2002 and then select Location, select Barossa Valley and then click on Variety, and select Syrah (well nothing is perfect!). You can then display the notes for the 111 wines and sort them by wine name, rating, price or maturity. Clicking on an individual wine opens up the tasting note. Now that is a search facility!

Major Importer of Australian Wines Trimming its Portfolio?

Just a week or two before we left for vacation in July I was offered deep discounts on wines from several Australian producers including J P Belle Terroir, Kay Bros, and Rusden. The reason given for the deep discounts was that the distributor was dropping these wines. I bought a few 6-packs and thought nothing more about it. Then today a thread on eRobert Parker’s Bulletin Board has become embroiled in a discussion about how many producers Dan Philips’ Grateful Palate, a significant importer of Australian wines, is dropping from its portfolio. Guess who imports J P Belle Terroir, Kay Bros, and Rusden?

The discussion on eBob suggests that some 18 brands would be dropped from the Grateful Palate (GP) portfolio. At present its anyone’s guess as to which brands are being cut but the non-GP brands being kept likely include Kalleske, Kays, Tscharke, Noon, Greenock Creek, and Majella. There may be others as well as the Grateful Palate portfolio of Australian producers imported by Dan Philips is long and includes many small wineries that make some outstanding wines. A sampling includes Burge Family, Glaymond, Tim Smith, Scarpantoni Estate, Shirvington, Samuel's Gorge, The Willows, Tim Smith Wines, as well those mentioned above.

The reason for this possible slashing of products is not clear, but both Michael Opdahl (Joshua Tree Imports) and John Gorman (Southern Starz) have contributed lengthy posts on the current difficulties being experienced by those trying to sell Australian wine into the US market; “Australia is one seriously screwed up wine category right now and desperately in need of a major make over.” John Gorman.

I certainly agree with some of the major concerns including the influence of the dramatic increase in the value of the Australian dollar against the greenback over the last 4-5 years and the confusion produced by the sameness of many Australian wines especially those in the $25-50USD price range. Another important concern, reflected somewhat in the sameness of many wines, is the limited exposure of the US market to the diversity of Australian wine. There many be millions of cases of Australian wine brought into the US each year but much of it comes either from the amorphous wine region called South Eastern Australia and/or reflects the lack of knowledge about Australian wine by the American wine consumer. Educating and refining the wine palates of a population as large as the US is a daunting task. For example, here is simple question. How many wine regions (called geographical indicators, GI) are there in Australia? Ten, twenty, thirty? Try 64! Next question – How many can you name?

Wine Australia has made some attempt to expand knowledge of the diversity of Australian wine with their Regional Heroes program but the audience that has some knowledge of how this works is abysmally small. More importantly even if consumers can describe the most important varietal or style from a region and its recognizable characteristics they may still be unconvinced as to why they should pay $50 for a Barossa Shiraz when they can get a Shiraz for $10 from South Eastern Australia. What is needed are clear definitions of why some wines are superior to others. A good example of how this can be achieved is the definition of wine styles for Rutherglen Muscat. If you appreciate this type of wine (as I do) then just a little reading makes very clear to you what defines a Rutherglen Muscat versus a Rare Rutherglen Muscat. A similar type of definition (and code of practice) could be applied to other wine styles. For example the spectrum of Barossa Shiraz could include generic Shiraz that comes from multiple vineyards versus that from single vineyard sites. The age of the vines could also be used to further refine the style. Selection of parcels of grapes or certain barrels could be used to highlight wines that are a wineries’ best exemplar of the region.

A good example of how selection of vineyards and barrels can be used to identify wines of increasing superiority is that used by Wayne Dutschke of Dutschke Wines. The St. Jakobi Shiraz is a single vineyard wine, the "Oscar Semmler" is a blend of the best structured and most mouth filling parcels of Shiraz from the St Jakobi vineyard and represents "the best of the vintage”, while the “Single Barrel Shiraz” is the best barrel from the harvest of the St Jakobi vineyard. That is an easy system to understand both in terms of what each wine represents and why each is priced differently. And no where near as confusing as the R wines of the Grateful Palate.

W. Blake Gray, A Chronicle Staff Writer in Need of an Education in Wine Scoring

It happens all too frequently, and I’m only too happy to point it out. Yet another journalist has written on the 100 point scoring system and given all the credit for its creation to Robert Parker, Jr. In his article titled “Are ratings pointless? The highs -- and lows -- of the 100-point scale.” W. Blake Gray, a Staff Writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, states “The 100-point rating scale, created by wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr. in the mid-1970s, was a great innovation that has done a world of good for wine lovers.”

I’m sure that Parker does wish he had created the 100 point scoring system. But, as has been noted on this blog before, all Parker did was develop his own version of a 100 point scoring system. The use of 100 points to score wines had been in use for a quarter of a century before Robert Parker, Jr. came on the scene.

When will we see an article by someone who actually knows what they are talking about?

Not Again. Oh, Yawn.

I’ve posted before that Robert Parker did not invent, introduce, or in any way originate the use of 100 points in the scoring of wine. He simply made popular something that existed at least a quarter of a century before he began the Wine Advocate.

But recently there have been two more people who seem to think that Parker has to be credited with the 100 point system. First is PaulGregutt.com who wrote “The man credited with having invented the 100 point scale is Robert Parker,”

And now over at Slate, Mike Steinberger writes “as the critic who conceived the 100-point system, Parker has a special obligation”

Wouldn’t it nice if there were some wine writers out there in cyberspace who actually knew what they are writing about when it comes to the origins of the use of 100 points in the scoring of wine?

Parkerizing New Zealand. Yeah Right!

New Zealand is not a producer of quality wine, well at least according to Robert Parker, Jr. It’s a bold statement, even if it does come from one considered to be the dominant exponent of wine swirling, sniffing, slurping, spitting and scoring. But what is Parker’s assertion based upon? What is his experience with New Zealand wine? Only one way to really find out and that is to surf across to eRobertParker.com and explore his wine data base to see what New Zealand wines he has tasted.

Of the 20 countries listed in the database New Zealand ranks 12th, ahead of Greece (58 wines), Japan (48 wines), Ukraine (7 wines), Algeria (2 wines), Morocco (2 wines), Hungary (1 wine), Israel (1 wine), and Lebanon (1 wine). There are 191 wine reviews listed for New Zealand, but that number is deceptive because it represents the number of wines recommended; there may well have been several fold more than 191 tasted. What is a recommended wine? Usually it scores 85 or above on the 100 point scale. In the case of the 191 wines this is correct as 34 were rated between 90-95 and 155 between 80-89. However none of the wines had scores below 85; there were 2 wines where the score was not recorded.

Thirty-four wines scored 90-95 points, or outstanding. What Robert Parker, Jr describes as a “wine of exceptional complexity and character.” But no wines were rated as extraordinary, that is scored greater than 95 points. These are wines of “profound and complex character displaying all the attributes expected of a classic wine of its variety.” Does that say anything about the overall quality of New Zealand wine as assessed by The Wine Advocate? Its difficult to judge given that there is no indication of the total number of wines tasted. Parker usually recommends around 30% of Australian wines, and if that was the case for New Zealand then he may have tasted as many as 636 wines. But as he seems not to favor New Zealand wine all that much the percentage of recommended wines may be lower, let’s say its 10%. That would put the quantity of tasted wines closer to 1200. Seems like quite a sizeable number! How does it compare with the total number of wines produced in New Zealand? Michael Cooper, in his 2007 Buyer’s Guide to New Zealand Wines, notes that there are some 550 wineries producing a total of 3,000 wines, and he tasted and rated 2,740 for his annual review. But Parker’s reviews are not from a single year, nor are they from just a few vintages, they span 1990 to 2004. The greatest number of wines recommended was for the 1999 vintage with 40 wines, followed by 2002 (38 wines), 2001 (23 wines), 1998 (20 wines), 2003 (19 wines), 2000 (11 wines), 2004 (10 wines), 1991 (6 wines), 1996 (5 wines), 1997 (4 wines), 1990 (2 wines) and one wine for each vintage between 1992-1995. Do they represent an adequate sampling of the wines of New Zealand? Well, a decade ago there were 200 wineries and 1,000 wines. So finding less than 10 wines to recommend from any vintage in the early to mid-mid-1990s suggests that a small number of wines were tasted or that Parker was finding very little to recommend! Lets look at two of the years where he scored the most wines and see if there has been improvement in the scores with time. In 1999 he recommended 40 wines, 36 of which were in the 80-89 point range. In 2002 he recommended 38 wines and 26 were in the 80-89 point group. Over that short period more wines have made it into the Outstanding group and more red wines have been recommended than in 1999; 15 as opposed to 6. But these are small numbers and without knowing the actual number of wines tasted its hard to draw any firm conclusions.

Let’s look at the 191 wines a few other ways. Where have they come from? Has Parker at least found wines to recommend in the major wine growing regions? Marlborough is the big winner with 106 wines recommended, followed by Hawkes Bay (24 wines), Wairarapa (16 wines), Otago (7 wines), Nelson (6 wines), South Island (1 wine), Waiheke Island (1 wine), and then Unclassified (30 wines). These numbers are not all that inconsistent with wine production if you consider the regions in terms of the most recent percentage of national production; Marlborough (47.7%), Hawke’s Bay (20.0%), Gisborne (8.3%), Otago (5.5%), Canterbury (4.1%), Wairarapa (3.4%), Nelson, (3.2%), Auckland (incl. Waiheke Isl) (2.4%), Waikato/Bay of Plenty (0.6%). Perhaps Gisborne has missed out, but then one might argue that if you don’t make the list that may be a good thing!

What about varieties? Clearly Sauvignon Blanc, with 79 wines, is the favorite but most wineries have at least one and sometimes multiple SBs. Next comes Pinot Noir (30 wines), followed by Chardonnay (27 wines). Nothing too unexpected there, but it is interesting to note that Parker’s critique of New Zealand wine scolds these three varietals, the three that he has recommended the most. I find that just a little odd.

Next came Riesling (25 wines), over half (14 wines) coming from Marlborough. Then came Proprietary Blends (17 wines) of which three were white (Selaks Ice Wine). The other red varietals, apart from Pinot Noir, were Cabernet Sauvignon (4 wines), Syrah (3 wines), Cabernet Franc (2 wines), and Merlot (2 wines). Single examples of Pinot Gris and Viognier also made the list.

It just does not seem all that impressive an experience, does it? The numbers just don’t support an extensive experience of New Zealand wine at The Wine Advocate. And its difficult to argue otherwise because if that is the case then the last time that Ata Rangi made decent Pinot was 1995-6, Felton Road 1997, and Martinborough Vineyard and Villa Maria only got it right in 2000. And Cloudy Bay only ever made Sauvignon Blanc worth recommending in 1990? No, Parker’s recommendations hint at a lack of exposure to the wines of New Zealand.

What about other reviewers? How does the Wine Spectator see New Zealand wine? In 2006 they rated 184 wines. None of the wines received scores between 95-100, 20% scored between 90-94, 56%, between 85-89, 18% between 80-84, and 6% found their way into the 50-79 point group. By comparison 862 Australian wines were rated with 1% in the 95-100 point group and 26% received 90-94 points, 61%, between 85-89, 10% between 80-84, and 2% found their way into the 50-79 point group. Those percentages seen very similar and certainly a lot better than Argentina with 18% in the 50-79 point group.

Now somewhere at the back of the room I can hear a murmur complaining “All this is just about Parker and points. Who cares?” Well the take home message is quite simple. When you think of New Zealand wine, what comes to mind?

“Not Robert Parker!”
“Sauvignon Blanc.”
“Yes, and Pinot Noir.”

Correct, and isn’t it interesting that New Zealand wine has established an international standing, particularly for Sauvignon Blanc, without the help of the lawyer from Maryland! If they can be left alone long enough maybe we’ll get other wines that speak of New Zealand - Pinot Noir and Syrah and Riesling, and…….

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Come on New Zealand own up, just what did you do to Robert Parker, Jr.? It must have been something out of the ordinary to deserve this.

New Zealand
The cool-climate wines of New Zealand have long been popular with wine critics. But to me, the pinot noirs are often too vegetal and green, the sauvignon blancs reminiscent of cat pee, and the chardonnays grotesquely over-oaked. This is a country of young wine producers where everything remains a work in progress, but for now the prices of these wines do not translate to quality in the bottle. Robert parker, Business Week online, February 7th, 2007.

Let me see if I can picture it. Ah yes, the images are forming readily in my mind as I write. Parker, on his way from his last encounter with big bruising Barossa Shiraz decides to stop off in New Zealand for a little R&R. The international port of call would have to be Auckland, and someone (we are never likely to know whom) decides to take the all seeing, all knowing master critic of Bordeaux to Waiheke Island to taste New Zealand Bordeaux. That, of course, would be the first mistake. But then, with Parker’s penchant for paying his own way, insult is heaped upon insult as he finds himself paying outrageous sums of money (OK, so its only NZ $s) just for a taste of what seems to be barely above vin ordinaire. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and as our critic wings his way eastward, back to the safety of fortress America, his fingers flash across the keyboard of his laptop. “The cool climate wines of New Zealand………..

The Wine Advocate and Regional Australia

When Issue 167 of Robert Parker’s The Wine Advocate was released to the public on October 31st I thought the American wine critic had beaten his Australian counterparts to an obvious improvement in reviewing wines from the land downunder. The section of Issue 167 containing the Aussie reviews is headed Australia (Part 1 – Barossa, McLaren Vale, and Clare Valley). When I saw this I believed, almost immediately, that Parker was moving away from a generic Australian listing to a more regional organization of his tasting notes. The idea made perfect sense considering the discussions on premium wine marketing that have popped up on wine websites and wine forums, including the Mark Squires' Wine Bulletin Board hosted on eRobertParker.com, in recent months.

But alas, it was not to be. TWA #167 is a simple alphabetical listing of wineries in the Barossa, McLaren Vale, and Clare Valley producing wines that received scores meritorious enough to allow them to be recommended. There are 712 in total, including two that received no rating. The rest of the recommended Australian wines will appear in the next (December) issue.

Is the idea of wine reviews grouped according to region so bad for Australia? Wine Spectator does this for France, Germany, Spain, etc. And its particularly useful. I can quickly chase up notes on how wines have faired in the Pfalz, without having to first gather a list of wineries and hunt and peck them out alphabetically. Yes, there may be a problem for those Australian wines that are blends of fruit from different regions, but they could simply be grouped under “Multiregional”. And there should be no problem in having a producer listed multiple times, for example as a maker of wines in the Barossa Valley and Multiregional. In fact it would help many, less familiar with Australian wines, appreciate the diversity of wines made by some of the larger producers in Australia.

The real reason for a regional list of wine reviews is to demonstrate the regional differences that exist within “Brand Australia”. As has been discussed on the websites and wine forums mentioned above, too many wine drinkers perceive Australian wine as coming from Southeastern Australia. Its a generic location that appears on many inexpensive Australian wines that have flooded both local and overseas markets. While its true that wines like [yellow tail] have introduced countless thousands to cheap Australian wine, the question is how do you get these folks to become more passionate about wine. How do you get them to seek out the higher quality wines from smaller producers that display regional characteristics?

Well, in my opinion, one of the best ways is education. One excellent way would be a publication with tasting notes organized by wine regions. Unfortunately the major reviewer of Australian wines James Halliday does not do this in his Australian Wine Companion. Halliday does have a map with regions indicated by number and the region of each winery is noted within the text but you have to go back and forth between the two to figure out where you are. Inefficient. Campbell Mattinson’s recent Collected Reviews is just an alphabetical listing. You can do much better Campbell. The only other Aussie review I have is Robin Bradley’s Australian Wine Vintages. It suffers from the same problems as Halliday’s book.

The one book in my wine library that comes any where near close to providing material on regional differences in Australian wines is John Beeston’s The Wine Regions of Australia. First published in 1999, its now beginning to show its age and many new wineries are naturally not listed. But it is an excellent primer on regional geography, history, and there is even the odd note on varietal characteristics for some regions. (A second edition was publised in 2002.)

Perhaps what is needed is an enterprising internet site along the lines of Appellation America. There are small attempts at sites like Wine Diva. But the site needs to be user friendly, a place where the uninitiated can come to learn. Unfortunately wine forums have a habit of being a little too cliquey; otherwise they would be ideal locations to host education about and discussion on Regional Australia.