Australia is on the cusp of international recognition as a producer of ultra-fine wines, leading wine authority Andrew Caillard believes.
'The general fine wine market will at some stage in the not too distant future see Australia as a producer of first growth and grand cru type wines,' Caillard, Langton's Fine Wines auctioneer, said this week.
Caillard said that that Australia had been producing wines of this quality 'for decades'.
He was commenting on international criticism of Australian fine wines as 'boring and not showing clear regional definition'.
He was speaking after teaching at last week's Wine Australia-run 'Landmark tutorial' attended by 12 overseas sommeliers, marketers and wine educators and writers.
The event, he said, had highlighted that perception was a problem.
Australia's quality wines were well known at home but by limited numbers of overseas wine enthusiasts and consumers.
The tutorial, held in the Barossa Valley, show-cased about 260 fine wines in 11 sessions by leading winemakers and wine authorities.
It had, Caillard said, been 'like an epiphany' for the participants.
Co-tutor Michael Hill Smith, of Shaw and Smith, echoed the comments, saying that Australian fine wines were under-rated.
'In every session they (the participants) were really surprised at the depth of quality they were seeing,' he said.
'An extension of that is that you've got people who are really wine literate who still perhaps are not very familiar with the whole Australian fine wine section.
'A lot of it is because much of our promotion has been about how many cases we're doing and how many million litres we're doing. In part perhaps the Australian fine wine message has been slightly masked by that.'
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Australian wines are french wines imitations.
Manuel Durán
Australia's problem - and that of many other wine producing countries and regions - is an over-estimation of even some of the most "wine literate" consumers' interest and dedication to wine on a global scale. It's rather like regretting well-informed opera fans' lack of knowlege of, and sympathy for jazz. So, there are plenty of very well-informed drinkers of French wines who have yet to discover Priorat and the Douro - regions that have not spoiled their chances by talking of the number of cases they have sold. The world is fuller than it has ever been of wines that suit the requirements of the pople who buy them - from Yellow Tail to the earthiest biodynamic effort from hidden corners of Tursan or Tasmania. As someone once usefully said "So you think you make a really good product..? Get over it". There are plenty of really good products - and mediocre products that satisfy their buyers. The challenge today lies in proving that one has a valuable point of difference. Whatever Australia does, Mr Dur"n, the one thing it doesn't do is copy France. The region that has most unashamedly done that is California. And some might argue that - within the highly profitable US market at least - this has done its producers no harm...
Robert Joseph
Interesting story. Maybe this is a glimpse of what might become the so-called '5th Era' for the Australian wine industry as predicted by Phil Ruthven at the 2004 Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference in Melbourne!
Mark Gishen, Australia
Australia's big problem is that it has been so successful in marketing bland, sweet wines produced in vast acreages of bland, irrigated land at low cost that it has undermined its finer districts and finer wines. But as anyone who has experimented with wines from Coonawarra or even the older styles from Barossa or the superb, interesting wines from West Australia will attest, the best Australian wines reflect both great Terroir and great quality. It's the corporate wine makers sitting in board rooms making wines in laboratories that are sadly to blame. Some would say, but look at all the wonderful cheap wine produced for consumers. But here is the result: quality wines undermined, as is the Australian Industry's reputation. What I would say is no, if you lower standards you can always get an audience. The trick is to get an audience with quality, something the emerging New Zealand wine industry seems to be doing in a smaller but more successful way.
Glenn Standring, New Zealand
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