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"A New World of Wine"
Despite Australia’s reputation as a nation of beer drinkers, on any day there are more than 10,000 wines on sale around the country. What is most remarkable is that almost all of them will be somewhere between good and fantastic.
The Australian wine story goes back as far as the modern nation itself, with grapevines being part of the cargo of the First Fleet which landed in Sydney Cove in 1788. Wine was in commercial production in Sydney and Tasmania by the 1820’s. Today some 750 wineries spread across every state and territory, although South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia have the principal regions. South Australia can lay claim to being Australia’s wine state, producing six out of ten glasses of the national vintage.
Australia has always exported wine. In the peak years up to World War II, more was sent abroad than consumed at home. But in the past generation there has been a revolution in Australian winemaking. Australian winemakers have applied modern technology to the ancient mixture of art and craft involved in transforming ripe grapes into drinks of infinite complexity. This has resulted in the surge in popularity at home and the increasing demand abroad, where Australian wines now rank among the best of what are known as New World wines.
Until this revolution took hold, the typical Australian wine was fortified: sherry, port, muscat and so on. Today, it is a red or whine table wine, usually with an attractive label, fully and accurately detailing what grape varieties were used, where they were grown and often, who made it. Some winemakers have even achieved superstar status.
Australian winemakers still use some generic terms on their labels, which broadly indicate the style of wine - port, sherry, burgundy, chablis. This tradition is rapidly disappearing in favour of varietal descriptions showing the particular grape variety or blend such as riesling, chardonnay, shiraz, cabernet sauvignon or cabernet shiraz, denoting a blend of those two red grapes.
The change to varietal labelling is partly the result of an agreement with the European Union and also attributable to Australian pride and confidence its products can truly stand alone. It has been said that describing wine is about as easy as weighing music,but in essence the reason why Australian wines are so good and so keenly sought after is that they are fresh, clean and bursting with the gamut of grape flavours.
Source ‘Food of Australia’ - Periplus World Cookbooks in assocation with Hilton International Australia - 1995 - Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd
