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New Greater Australia appellation will kill regionality: winemakers
November 12, 2007
Stuart Peskett
The idea of a new Greater Australia Geographical Indication is meeting with serious opposition.
Winemakers claim the move is at odds with the concept of regionality.
The GI, which has been discussed for more than a year, would include Western Australia in the South Eastern Australia GI of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia.
The new GI would ease pressure on producers of SEA-labelled wine, who have seen the country go from a surplus of 900m litres to fears of a deficit, after frosts and drought struck the country during the past year.
Western Australia is the one state not to suffer from shortage of grapes. Pushing through a new appellation that would enable producers countrywide to include WA grapes in their wines would be an advantage to SEA producers.
Robert Mann, senior winemaker at Cape Mentelle in Margaret River, said that the surplus production in Western Australia in 2007 had been 'eagerly snapped up by eastern states producers, with strong demand also for 2008 grapes'.
At present producers can include only 15% of grapes from outside their region.
As the GI takes shape, winemakers against the idea are making their voices heard.
Michael Hope of Hunter Valley-based Hope Estate told decanter.com: 'The message it sends to the UK consumer is that we are one big generic producer. I totally disagree with SEA and Greater Australia. We need to be marketing regionality, not the allowing the homogenisation of our industry.'
Nicole Esdaile, chief winemaker at Rutherglen Estates in Victoria, pointed out that Wine Australia's Directions to 2025 marketing plan, seeks to promote 'wines from somewhere rather than wines from anywhere'.
She said, 'The SEA designation has already diminished Australia's reputation as a premium wine-producing country, and it is possible that this new name for the same idea could make the situation worse.'
A spokeswoman for Wine Australia confirmed that the new GI had been discussed, but 'there is no deal done, and there is no paperwork in front of the GI committee yet.'
Western Australia includes Margaret River, home to Vasse Felix, Voyager Estate, Leeuwin Estate, Cullen, Cape Mentelle and other top-end wineries. It produces 3% of Australia's wine but 20% of the country's premium wines
The name Greater Australia is not set in stone – one possibility for an alternative was 'Southern Australia' but that was met with vehement opposition from South Australia producers. The obvious choice – simply 'Australia' – would be illegal under EU labelling regulations.
Have your say...
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 Surely the major attraction of Australia's wines lies in their regionality - take that away and you have a namby-pamby all-encompassing term for what? Don't we all know the glorious differences that designate 'terroir'. Think again Australia - and stay as you are.
Maggie Beale, Hong Kong
How about going back to Nuits St Wagga Wagga if you want to completly destroy 20 years of hard work?
Patrick W Fegan, Director Chicago wine school, Chicago, USA
One can only suspect that the GI is being driven by the large corporate wineries (foreign owned?) keen to lock in volumes in a market of tight supply. It flies directly against Wine Australia's stated strategies, and one can only hope that common sense, the industry at large and it's producers of quality wine will prevail against corporations selfish interests.
Graham Taylor, Xanadu Fine Wines, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
As a long time believer in the concept of regional attributes,terroir included,and the individuality of the winemakers art,I must say I've never heard such rubbish!
Robin Twist
Is their really that big a difference between the SEA GI and the proposed Greater Australia GI?
SEA is a very large piece of geography already and SEA wines are about as homogenous and generic as it gets. Perhaps the addition of some Western Australia wine to the blend might improve overall quality?
I realize this is not the direction that “Directions to 2025” intends, but will it really hurt smaller producers promoting their regionality?
California produces more wine than Australia, and in the US market, the generic California appellation hasn't hurt sales of regional wine from the likes of Napa, Sonoma, or Santa Barbara. Regionality, sense of place, artisanal, etc. should be a point of difference to separate these producers from the sea of common wine and allow them to sell higher quality at a higher price point.
For both Californian and Australian wines, the UK market is far too skewed to the low end. Instead of worrying about the Greater Australia GI, regional producers, trade bodies, and their marketing agencies should increase their efforts with more trade and consumer events to increase awareness of their points of difference.
Eric Hemer, USA
Are you kidding me!!! Winemakers are worried that an Australian "appellation" will kill regionality... do more damage to Australia's reputation as a premium wine producing country than the existence of a Southeastern Australia "appellation" and the exportation of tens of millions of cases of Yellow Tail and other crap wine to gas stations and bad grocery stores throughout the world... yawn.
Mark Janes, Nevada, USA
Gday Decanter
So lazy wine marketers are proposing a Greater Australian appellation.
Perhaps lazy wine consumers will appreciate the miniscule price saving from not having to differentiate labels with fruit from different regions.
But wine lovers the world over should be horrified by the proposal. The obfuscation of terroir of course diminishes our understanding and enjoyment of wine but, of course, if you simply drink it now, and forget it tomorrow, who cares where it came from? Perhaps they don't realise the potential "hangover" they'll get!
How much of this rot of commodification should set in? And to avoid rot-gut, when rot-gut is put into bottles, we want to know where it's from. Made in Japan was a signal 50 years ago to be prepared for cheaply-made mass-produced low quality goods - it took the Japanese great discipline and diligence and time to transform the quality and image of their goods, and there was a hangover effect in the timing.
And now some lazy wine marketers wanted to plunge the hard-fought image of Oz wine into the abyss of mass consumption, taking us back 30 years. They'll cause a big hangover, indeed, if we allow them!
Dick Friend, South Yarra, VIC, Australia
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