Aussie Problems

Americans like Australian wine, especially its lower-priced offerings.

In the last 12 years, Australian wine has sold better in the United States than even the most optimistic projections made in 1995, when a manifesto was being drawn up on how to market wine in the colonies.

Americans quickly understood the generous fruit, soft and plush textures, and the ability of these wines to deliver more flavor for the dollar than most other wines. The reason was simple: Australia is technologically among the top wine nations in the world — if not the top.

Blessed with one of the globe's most wine savvy populations, one of its greatest wine research organizations (the Australian Wine Research Institute) and a beneficent climate, Australia has developed a worldwide reputation for quality wine at virtually all price points.

Spain may have more acres of grapevines than any other nation; France and Italy may make loads more wine than anyone else; and Bordeaux and Napa make some of the priciest stuff on earth. But Australia has two levels of wine, both of which seem to work for Americans.

At the lower price points, the "formula" that works is to craft a wine that has good varietal aroma and fruit flavor, and sell it at low prices.

Two years ago, I flew from Darwin on Australia's northern coast to Melbourne in the south and saw a vast nation that is about as barren as you can imagine.

As we approached Melbourne, a patch of green along a large river appeared as an oasis. Even from tens of thousands of feet, I could see grapevines.

These are some of Australia's largest and warmest wine growing regions, including the likes of Mildura and the Riverland. It is from here that the large Australian wine companies like Penfolds, Lindemans, Hardys, Rosemount and Yellow Tail get the huge amounts of inexpensive grapes they use in making their lower-priced and most reliable wines.

In higher-class Aussie wines (which only a handful of Americans have yet discovered), the secret is keeping a regional identity to the wines.

Outside the major cities are smaller regions with names wine lovers know and covet. But they know these names mainly in multiword phrases that illustrate what Australia does best: make regionally distinct wines.

So we hear of the greatness of Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon, Barossa Shiraz, Clare Valley Riesling, Adelaide Hills Sauvignon Blanc and Hunter Valley Semillon.

That's not to say that McLaren Vale isn't also home to great Cabernet; it is. And so is it possible to find a great Riesling from Coonawarra, a great rose from Mt. Barker, a great Shiraz from Yarra Valley.

But each of the sub-regions of the continent are locally famed for one or two grape varieties, and it is the task of Paul Henry, general manager of market development at Australian Wine and Brandy Corp., to get that message out.

"Paul has a daunting task," said John Angove at lunch the other day. "The 'Regional Heroes' campaign is a great idea, but it may take years before it catches on."

Regional Heroes, just being launched in the United States, is a second phase to Australia's 1996 campaign called Strategy 2025. It had the goal of selling 25 million cases of wine in the United States by 2025.

The Regional Heroes campaign replaces the 1996 plan, which became null and void when, in 2006, it was clear that the 25-million-case goal was imminent!

Now, however, Regional Heroes hits at a time when all of Australia is facing major problems. A drought is now in its seventh year, and many areas of the country were hit by severe frost problems last winter, devastating the crop.

Moreover, the U.S. dollar is at its lowest point in years, meaning that profit margins for imported goods are sliver thin.

Still, Aussie wine remains a great value, including the reasonably priced line of Angove's wines being imported here by Trinchero Family Estates in the Napa Valley.

Among the excellent wines is a 2005 Shiraz from McLaren Vale ($25) and a 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon from Coonawarra ($25), both of which could easily sell for a lot more and still be rated as good values.

Wine of the Week: 2007 Angove's Riesling, Clare Valley ($17) — The aroma is delightful with lime and an earthy, flinty character. It's bone dry and a delight to serve with grilled seafood.

Dan Berger resides in Sonoma County, Calif. Berger publishes a weekly newsletter on wine and can be reached at [e-mail]. To find out more about Dan Berger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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