Wine Culture Magazine
Wine Culture Magazine
Australia’s beautiful McLaren Vale is famous for its old vines and premium Shiraz; it also grows exciting Italian varieties. iStock / Getty Images Plus / MarkPiovesan photo
Canada has always had a bit of a love affair with Australian wine, but it is a somewhat fickle relationship and one that can be tumultuous at times.
Although Canada is Australia’s fourth largest export market by value, numbers have been dipping over the years. Last year, sales were down by 24 per cent in terms of dollars. Yet exports to Canada by volume actually increased—likely as more bulk Aussie wine is shipped north to appear silently in “Cellared in Canada” wines.
Canadians have embraced Australia’s bold, fruity wines, a superficial bond mainly extending to bulk-produced, big-brand wines. But producers feel that Canadians show little interest in the finer, cool-climate terroirs dotted throughout Australia’s 65 wine-growing regions.
Aussies also get a little bit frustrated when Canadians refer simply to “Australian” wine without recognizing the size and complexity of the country’s different regions and climates. In fact, if you were to drop the Australian land mass on top of Europe, it would cover a region expanding from Portugal through Spain, France, Italy and Germany. And we know those countries aren’t simply producing “European” wine.
Australian producers have always had a little beef with Canadians that they don’t import enough of the good stuff, just the cheaper “Australian” wine. But Aussies haven’t always been the best partner, either.
Canadians have long enjoyed Australia’s big, fruity and affordable bulk wines, but the country offers a huge range of styles and regions to discover. iStock / Getty Images Plus / Brycia James photo
In 2018, Australia put a complaint to the World Trade Organization against Canadian provinces, having a little strop that the market wasn’t fair with all the distribution, licensing and sales measures such as product markups, market access and listing policies, as well as duties and taxes on wine applied at the federal and provincial level.
The result: Canadian wineries have had to start paying the excise taxes they had previously been exempt from and their wines lost many preferential treatments across the country.
But Aussie winegrowers have had a tough time in recent years. Like every country, climate change has dealt its blows, but for a country that exports around 60 per cent of its production, most of the mayhem has been caused by changes to the playing field beyond their control.
Winemakers are still reeling from a spat with China that saw tariffs of between 116 to 218 per cent slapped on Aussie wine in 2021—after having had a zero-per-cent rate since 2015. In March of this year, the tariffs were repealed, but in the meantime, this was a lethal setback. In 2020, China comprised 18 per cent of Aussie export volumes and 40 per cent of its value. The tariffs dropped sales from US$866.4 million in 2019 to a meager US$5.79 million three years later in 2022.
So what happens to all the wine that was already made, packaged and destined for China? Priced out of the market, the wine has been stockpiling in warehouses or offered at bargain prices to Aussies. Full tanks at wineries have meant grape prices in bulk regions have plummeted, with growers complaining that prices are lower per ton than they received in the 1980s and below what it costs them to farm. Hundreds of thousands of vines have been ripped out. Now China’s change in policy has given Australian producers hope, though it will be too late for some.
Australia has also not been immune to the struggles of a softening global wine industry. We’ve all felt the impact of inflation, high interest rates and a more health-conscious mentality, with the resulting decline in sales as wine drinkers consume less and give up premium bottles to pay for rent and ever more expensive groceries.
This all sounds negative, but, as is often the case, interesting things start to happen in adversity, and winegrowers have been given the chance to do things differently.
The Hunter Valley in New South Wales is the birthplace of Australian wine and a renowned gourmet destination. iStock / Getty Images Plus / FiledIMAGE photo
There are lots of interesting and exciting things happening in Australia, led by a new generation of winemakers.
Stereotypical examples of Shiraz, Cabernet or Chardonnay are being replaced by Italian varieties like Fiano, Vermentino, Barbera and Sangiovese, as well as Spanish Tempranillo. These alternative varieties are proving well suited to the dry, sunny, drought-prone conditions in many Australian wine regions. They hold natural acidity and often require less water, not to mention pair well with Australian cuisine.
Meanwhile, natural wines and styles that fly in the face of uniformity are popping up in wine stores across Australia.
Many grapes from the large inland regions that used to disappear anonymously into bulk blends are popping up as exciting new small-production brands. Producers such as Alpha Box & Dice, Ochota Barrels, Koerner and Delinquente are revolutionizing Aussie wine. Alpha Box & Dice say they are embarking on an alphabet of wine, a different unique wine for every letter of the alphabet. Delinquente is making small-batch, minimal-intervention wines with fun labels and clever stories, using organically grown southern Italian varieties from Riverland, a region in South Australia historically considered more suitable only for bulk production.
The cool-climate regions that Aussies have been trying for decades to get the world to notice amid a sea of “sunshine in a bottle” haven’t gone away either. They just don’t get imported to Canada enough for us to enjoy them. There are some agents working hard to bring us a taste of these wines. Cool-climate Aussie Shiraz is typically peppery and meaty, a far cry from the jammy wines many expect. Cool-climate Aussie Chardonnay has also never been better. Think minerality, restrained and subtle use of oak, and plenty of freshness.
And there are the classics, underappreciated and underrepresented, but always delivering: racy, mineral-driven dry Riesling; the elegant yet ripe Cabernet from the terra rossa soils of Coonawarra; Tasmanian traditional method sparkling wine that rivals Champagne; Margaret River Chardonnay; and Yarra Valley Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
Of course there is more, much more to explore. Agents like Pete Marshall of Sur Lie are bringing in some of Australia’s most interesting wines, so ask for these in your favourite wine store.
This diverse country the size of Europe produces an amazing array of wines. If you look for them, you’ll find something to rekindle your love affair for Australia wine.
(Yarra Valley, Australia, $43) Seamless integration of lemon, wet stones,lees, nut, nectarine.
(Riverland, South Australia, $33) Damson plum, dried flowers, pepper with a silky texture.
Hollick 2019 Old Vines Cabernet Sauvignon
(Coonawarra, Australia, $38) Cassis, iron, eucalyptus with fine dusty tannin.
Rhys Pender is a Master of Wine who combines his time writing, judging, teaching, consulting and dirtying his boots at his four-acre vineyard and winery, Little Farm Winery, in the Similkameen Valley.
Rhys Pender is a Master of Wine who combines his time writing, judging, teaching, consulting and dirtying his boots at his four-acre vineyard and winery, Little Farm Winery, in the Similkameen Valley.
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