G’Day, Mate…and good wine, too.

We’re at a wine tasting in Aspen, sitting across the table from Stephen and Prue Henschke, with several glasses of their legendary Hill of Grace Shiraz in front of us.  As I sip through the vintages, I’m blown away for several reasons.  First, the Henschkes on the other side of the table are practically legends or Australian national treasures or something.  Second, their Hill of Grace is one of the most famous wines to come out of Australia (along with the fabled Penfold’s Grange and Clarendon Astralis).  We’re drinking eight different vintages, and since the stuff costs about $350 a bottle, there’s not much chance I’ll ever have any in my cellar.  Third, the wine is arguably one of the purest expressions of what Australian winemaking is all about.

Wine is a cultural artifact, and reflects the general personality of the country and the people who produce it.  I think this is particularly true for the Aussies.  If you’ve ever hung out with any, you know them to be hale and hearty, outrageously sociable, and your best friend right from the first handshake.  Accompanied by a ringing “G’day, Mate,” they’ll give you a slap on the back so hard it knocks you down.  The wines do the same thing.  They’re often characterized as the “in your face” variety.  Sorry for the mixed metaphor, but truer words were never spoken. 

In fact, Americans like the Aussie approach to wine so much that the country will soon be the second largest importer to the US.  Back in 2004, over 20,000,000 cases of Australian wine reached our shores.  In 2006, over 7 million cases of Yellow Tail Chardonnay alone made it to our supermarkets.  The numbers tell the…tale.  (I just had to do that).  For a country that spent much of its winegrowing history making sweet wines, that’s quite an achievement.

Surprisingly, about 60% of the grapes grown in Australia are white:  Chardonnay, Riesling, Semillon and the like.  Around 30% are red, and the rest go in to the “stickies,” or sweet wines.  It is, of course, the big heavy, extracted, fruity reds that capture our attention and interest most vividly.  In fact, the big Shirazes and blends can be so powerful they need to age for eons before you’d dare open the bottle.  (I attended a vertical tasting of Penfold’s Grange a few years ago, and we drank the 1971.  It could have used another 10 years in the cellar).

One of the world's most famous wine labels

It’s also interesting that, considering their winemaking success, the Australians have no native grapes.  Everything grown in the country originated at one time or another from cuttings brought from Europe and South Africa in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries.  The country also leads the world in the mechanization of wine production, especially the grape-picking part.  They never had an abundance of cheap labor, as the Californians did, so necessity was the mother of grape-harvesting invention.

Unlike the French, Italians, and even the Californians, most Aussie wines, even the greatest ones, are blended from fruit that’s sourced from very extensive areas.  Not much single-vineyard designation here, not much talk of “terroir” or the importance of some sacred little piece of land that grows heavenly grapes.  The designated winegrowing regions are enormous, and the grapes that wind up in the bottle come from far and wide.  It would be like Napa winemakers blending in grapes from as far away as Washington state.  They’d sooner slit their wrists.

With Aussie winemakers Sara and Sparky Marquis

About 99% of the winegrowing regions are clustered in the southeast corner of the country, with Margaret River the lone exception, being located all the way over there in the far southwest.  And most of the famous valleys, like Barossa and Coonawarra, are relatively close to cities, making wine tourism a very easy thing to do, as long as you don’t mind driving on the wrong side of the road after a few tasting room visits.  (Of course, you could do that here….)

Another thing that makes Australian wines so much fun is that they like to put puckish and whimsical names on their bottles.  The Monkey Spider.  The Dead Arm.  The Carnival of Love.  Mollydooker.  Two Left Feet.  The Stump Jump (don’t ask….).

Vineyards in the Hunter Valley

But what, you ask, has all this to do with us?  Simply put, we plan to have our Aussie cousins well represented at the Grand Tasting on Saturday, February 28.  Shiraz, of course, even one of the upper-end products from Penfold’s.  Their famous blends will also be on the table, like the characteristic concoction of Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre, commonly known as GSM.  We’re still searching out some whites, but we’ll let you know when we find them.

Until then….g’day, mate!  (They really do say that.)