APPELLATION SOUTH AUSTRALIA: NUTS

CARTO GRAPHICS' CLEVER NEW TOPOGRAPHIC MAP FOR BAROSSA GRAPE AND WINE AS SEEN BY THE FIGHTER PILOT ... THE ALTITUDES HERE, HOWEVER, ARE EXAGGERATED FOR EFFECT. CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

Mount Lofty Ranges Regions
Wrong Borders, Wrong Names?
Who's In Charge Of Change?

by PHILIP WHITE - this story originally appeared in THE INDEPENDENT WEEKLY

The Barossa Grape and Wine Association has just released a clever, handsome and revealing topographical map of the viticulture zone called Barossa. This transverse slice of the South Mount Lofty Ranges was delineated by the local vignerons and the Geographical Indications Committee, a subsidiary of the Australian Wine And Brandy Corporation, the Government statutory authority which polices wine law.

The map was made by Carto Graphics. As it was completed, I coincidentally noticed an increase in wineries using Mount Lofty Ranges as their location. The official wine appellation doesn’t suit them.

There are two reasonably distinct ranges that run from the tip of the Fleurieu to Peterborough; South Mount Lofty Ranges from Cape Jervis to around Eudunda; North Mount Lofty Ranges further to the west, running through Clare and Burra to fizzle out in the desert around Peterborough. North and west of them run the Flinders: Southern, then Northern. These names are official topographical names for standard maps, so they can be easily located by people all over the world.

Not so for our official wine appellation boundaries. These are, well, different. There’s a huge slab of country called The Adelaide Superzone, which includes the Barossa, Fleurieu and Mount Lofty Ranges Zones. The latter Zone contains the Adelaide Hills, the Adelaide Plains and the Clare Valley Regions. The Adelaide Hills Region contains the delineated Sub-regions of Lenswood and Piccadilly Valley, as well as other land that extends north to where the appellation abruptly and illogically becomes the Eden Valley Region in the Barossa Zone, as distinct from the Barossa Valley Region to the west.

Like the Barossa Zone, the Adelaide Hills are not on any ordinary map. This is a colloquial and nebulous term for some of the hills in the South Mount Lofty Ranges. Kuitpo, Mount Barker, and Hahndorf are in the Adelaide Hills Region, Harrogate and Kanmantoo are not. Dumb.

What a pity these boundaries were not set on existing place names, or more easily determined geographical and geological features that were on maps for a century before Australian wine appellations were invented! I initially suggested that the Adelaide Superzone was so named because everyone in the wine world was presumed to know of the whereabouts of Adelaide University, which is smug about its wine course. GIC members have since scorned this idea. Because Adelaide proper is not in any hills or ranges, the South Mount Lofty Ranges Superzone would have had more natural clarity, as Adelaide is on their floodplain and piedmont.

Then, the North Mount Lofty Ranges would make more sense as a Zone, as does the Southern Flinders Region, which I had the pleasure to officially open some years back. There’s not much call for a Northern Flinders Region yet, but this may become necessary if those who insist the Earth is cooling prove correct.

When you examine the fine new Barossa map, it becomes very clear that the Barossa is a distinct valley that runs north-south between the Barossa Ranges on the eastern side, and the ridge that runs from Kalimna in the north, south through Greenock to Gomersal on the western side. The enormous, monocultural tax-dodge vineyards recently planted outside the Valley on the western flats around Sandy Creek have nothing to do with the Barossa or its flavours. This should be Adelaide Plains. Similarly, the upland vineyards in the chaotic network of ranges and valleys to the east of the Barossa Range have nothing in common with the Barossa, other than that Valley’s propensity to use their finer fruit to improve its own, which they can still do without losing the precious Barossa moniker. The dodgy intellect of this is revealed by the new map. They made their Barossa far too big. Dumb.

THE HILL OF GRACE VINEYARD, MUCH IMPROVED BY PRUE HENSCHKE SINCE MILTON WORDLEY TOOK THIS PHOTOGRAPH. IS THIS IN THE BAROSSA VALLEY?

The South Mount Lofty Ranges are a continuous geological feature that extends to Cape Jervis, and yet the Southern Fleurieu is not included in the Mount Lofty Ranges Zone, while Clare is. Dumb.

The McLaren Vale Region is part of the Fleurieu Zone. It sensibly drew most of its boundary according to its geology and topography, following the escarpment formed by the Willunga fault line from the Victory pub to Kangarilla. The western boundary is sensibly the sea. Part of the reason this region stretches north across the Onkaparinga to include Glenthorne Farm and Chateau Reynella is to protect them from housing development. Which will look really dumb if governments and owners continue with their nefarious villa rash. Which the intellectually decrepit Rann government has just permitted to occur in letting Constellation Brands rip out John Reynell's heritage vineyard which had been in full premium wine production for 161 years. Forty-one tiny apartments will replace it. The winemakers of McLaren Vale can take a deep bow for permitting this to happen. And Onkaparinga Mayor Lorraine Rosenberg, who will eventually fall on her own fork. Show Lorraine a hill, and she'll immediately want somebody to put a shed on it.

In the meantime, there's an unholy row brewing between Jane "Spock" Lomax-Smith, the Minister for Tourism, and the McLaren Vale Grape Wine And Tourism Association over the naming of the Fleurieu, the Peninsula which McLaren Vale sits upon. The McLVGWATA should not really be claiming any holier-than-thou rights to naming intelligence until it cleans that idiotic acronym up. But the winesmiths of the Vales want the Fleurieu name officially changed to Fleurieu and McLaren Vale, which J-Lo the Vulcan will not abide.

Consider Doug Govan of The Victory Hotel. His two tiny Rudderless Vineyards behind his mighty pub sit astride the boundary separating McLaren Vale from Southern Fleurieu. This line should logically follow the creek, flowing just south of his pub down through Cactus Gulch to the Gulf. Instead, the appellation line actually divides one of his three tiny Lots, as delineated on the Hundred and Section maps determining ownership.

Doug’s dog Swahili could have worked that one out.

Just as we constantly adjust electoral boundaries to suit demographic changes, and rename electorates, surely we can begin correcting some of this really stupid mess.

VICTORY HOTEL PUBLICAN, DOUG GOVAN, TOOK THIS PHOTOGRAPH OF HIS BELOVED SWAHILI, WHO IS CONSIDERING THE BOUNDARY OF McLAREN VALE AND FLEURIEU. SWAHILI IS IN McLAREN VALE. THE COOPERS SIGN IS IN SOUTHERN FLEURIEU.

HELLISH HEAT AND HEARTBREAK HITS OZ

MCLAREN VALE VINE LEAVES WILTING BEFORE THE GRAPES HAVE FULLY COLOURED ... CLICK ON PIC TO GO TO JAMES HOOK'S SOBER VITI BLOG

Austral Records And Ambitions Tumble As Mercury Soars

Oversupply Suddenly A Thing Of The Past?

by PHILIP WHITE

The winemakers of south-eastern Australia are at home in the aircon, desperately drinking freezing beer, avoiding the bank manager. If indeed they still have an electricity supply.

Widespread blackouts have added to the forlorn misery of the savage heatwave which is literally frying the grapes of vintage 2009.

Railways are closing as tracks buckle and carriages derail. The Indian Pacific is returning to Adelaide to hide in the shade. The whole electricity grid is collapsing. Streets and highways are empty. Twenty three people have died in Adelaide today, from what the whitecoats politely call “sudden death”. They mean impossible heat.

Adelaide, the capital of Australia’s wine industry, had just endured its fourth successive day with temperatures over 40 degrees Celcius (104°F). It was 43.1°C today, and 45.7° on Wednesday, when one householder reported 54.5°C (130°F) at Strathalbyn, just over the range from here. That thermometer was in the shade beneath a verandah under a leafy tree. Last night we recorded our highest ever minimum temperature, 33.9°C. It is expected the next few days will continue in such blister zones, with a cool change coming on Tuesday, when the max is expected to fall to a merciful 38°C.

But then it goes on and on and on.

Vineyards are frying; leaves dramatically yellowing and collapsing; and grapes which were just beginning veraison (colouring) have suddenly changed their phenolic manufacture to put on heat shield toughness in their skins. Provided their leaves hold up.

Mercifully, acids seem to be holding in the cooler regions, as vines go into shock mode, but leaf damage is heartbreaking.

Only the fittest, healthiest, best-balanced vineyards can survive this.

McLaren Vale, the Barossa, Clare – even Coonawarra – are generally cactus. The Murray Valley is pretty much post nuclear.

Vines which were out of balance, with little leaf and large crops, are literally collapsing. New plantings are dying, regardless of how much water viticulturers apply. If, indeed, they have any.

Thredbo, the main resort in the snow country of the Australian Alps, has had its hottest day on record, at 32°C.

Melbourne, the infamously chilly capital of Victoria, expects a major respite with a predicted maximum of just 37°C tomorrow. It has just endured its hottest week in two centuries.

Melburnians have endured three successive days of temperatures above 43°C for the first time in recorded history. The mercury reached 45.1°C, 44.3 yesterday, and 43.4 on Wednesday.

Today’s 45.1°C at 4.27pm was the second highest temperature ever recorded in Melbourne, behind only the 45.6 recorded on Black Friday, 13 January 1939.

Melbourne's most sustained heatwave occurred in January 1908 when temperatures reached 39.9 (15th January), 42.8 (16th), 44.2 (17th), 40.0 (18th), 41.1 (19th) and 42.7 (20th).

Fireys extinguished over 750 fires in the tiny state in the last two days; the Strzlecki Ranges remain ablaze.

Geelong, on the very cool Bellarine Peninsula, today recorded 45.3°C.

Even Champagne-cool Tasmania saw an all-time record today – it was 42.2°C at Scamander.

This is another year of absolute heartbreak for grapegrowers and winemakers in south-eastern Australia.

COMMENT

Unfortunately you've nailed the current state of affairs in our battered vineyards.

Just over a week ago I was looking at relatively healthy and happy vines with nicely developing fruit. Tonight I went to turn on the irrigation and took a look at my raisined Grenache which being a slightly later ripening variety hadn't had the time to kick into its darker shade yet and so the green berries have been slaughtered by mother natures blast furnace.

The Shiraz vines are still hanging in there but the fruit is somewhat confused about whether it is acidic or cooked jam so I don't know where this will leave us.

Not good at all and just another nail in the coffin.

As if the global issues and ever present pressure from wineries wasn't bad enough, now the growers may not have anything to show for their efforts.

Paul Petagna signing in for all my fellow Blow Torch victims. Hang in there however you can.

January 30, 2009 11:40 PM

SA BUG BOARD ADMITS TO YARRA OUTBREAK

CHAMPION BICYCLIST LANCE ARMSTRONG HAS A WELL-EARNED WINE: WILL ANY OF THE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF VICTORIAN FANS HE ATTRACTS TO SOUTH AUSTRALIA'S TOUR DOWN UNDER BRING PHYLLOXERA WITH THEM? HOW WILL WE KNOW IF THEY DO?



Another Phylloxera Statement Emerges
Who Writes These Things? To Whom are they Sent?
by PHILIP WHITE

DRINKSTER now has receipt of a second “Press Release” from the Phylloxera And Grape Industry Board Of South Australia from Friday 16^th January.

This one actually mentions the Yarra Valley phylloxera outbreak, but not the Tour Down Under, which has attracted thousands of Victorian visitors to South Australian vineyards. Thousands more are expected during the next week.

Nobody knows how many of these people, or their vehicles, have recently been in phylloxera-infected country.

The statement from Alan Nankivell – CEO of the Phylloxera Board – says “there have been no further detections found since mid December 2008”.

Laced with confounding acronyms and gobbledegook, this statement simply adds to the litany of confusions of communication the current Yarra Valley phylloxera outbreak has triggered in the wine industry regulatory bodies.

However, it seems a Victorian regulatory body – mysteriously called only “DPI-Vic” -- will “issue permits to allow growers to send whole grapes from the extended PIZ to the rest of Yarra Valley GI for processing.

"Such grapes cannot move outside the Yarra Valley GI”.

These permits declare that all properties within the declared phylloxera zone must be surveyed and found free of phylloxera before they can send grapes outside of that zone for processing.

All such fruit must be packed in bins which are “free of soil and plant material”.

These bins must be “loaded into transport vehicles on a hard surface and not within the vineyard”.

The vehicles must be “cleaned free of soil and organic matter and conveyed along a route approved by an inspector”.

Each load “must be accompanied by a copy of the permit”.

Then, in one last impenetrable lump of unexplained acronyms, “Whole grapes must be processed at a facility, which must be accredited by DPI-Vic and the grape marc returned to the consigning property within the PIZ”.

The statement concludes thus:

“If any South Australian grape growers or wineries have contact with the Yarra Valley, the Phylloxera And Grape Industry Board strongly recommends that the National Phylloxera Management Protocols be adhered to.”

These should be at www.gwrdc.com.au/nvhscphylloxera .

DRINKSTER remains mystified by the following dilemma: if this is what must be done to limit the disease to the Yarra, and tens of thousands of Victorians are being encouraged to visit South Australia, sit in the vineyards, and watch Lance Armstrong and 130 other blokes riding pushbikes around this phylloxera-free state, why won’t they ensure these visitors don’t bring one single example of these microscopic critters in on their boots, carrots, or cars?

To whom are these “Press Releases” sent? Most grape-growers wouldn’t understand them, let alone journalists in busy city newsrooms.

I’ve been writing about wine and viticulture for thirty years, and I don’t understand the abbreviations and acronyms.

Neither have I been directly sent a “Press Release”.

Bird flu, horse flu, anthrax, terrorism ... are these better managed?

Obviously not.

While the Tour Down Under has presented the South Australian government and the wine industry councils a perfect opportunity to perfect a real-time “fire drill” in the face of a very real threat, and many have responded within the best of their abilities, or maybe a little better, it’s obvious that the communication systems at the top are simply not up to dealing with the realities.

.

Cork Wars: Australian Putsch Bottles Up Portuguese Rear

by PHILIP WHITE - This story appeared in The Independent Weekly as "Cork Comes Unscrewed" on 3 October 08

If I suddenly disappear, it’ll probably be the Portuguese. Silly buggers haven’t learnt much in our thirty years of warfare.

When José Lopez, of the Portuguese company, Amorim, opened fire on my recent spray against cork on The Independent Weekly website his first shot was a complete fizzer. Amorim’s the world’s biggest rubber and cork trader. José suggested I’m on the take from the screwcappers. Read The Olympics Were Corked in the September archive below and you’ll get the whole grim PR disaster.

The screwcappers have no reason to pay me. I support them for free. Screwcaps are a zillion percent better for keeping wine fresh, and my responsibility is to my readers, who deserve the best. So I hate cork. I hate its trichloranisole taint, which arises when the chlorine used to beautify and sanitise it reacts with microbes living naturally within it. And I dislike the way cork lets wine oxidise.

I’ve been this dangerously subversive since Coca Cola abandoned the cork wafers beneath its crown seals in the ’sixties. The pharmaceutical business soon followed suit. Corky soft drink and cough medicine may still be available in Portugal, but we’ve had none here for thirty years. Although Adelaideans smell TCA most times they take a shower, thanks probably to chlorination.

There was more incoming. Mai Nygaard lobbed a big grenade, but forgot to say she’s Business Development Manager of Normacorc. Then I thought they’d subbed Carlos the Jackal to wipe me, but it turned out to be Carlos de Jesus, José’s boss at Amorim, with a glib disclaimer. Perhaps he’d read up a touch of Australian libel law, or remembered that Amorim had for years employed Brian Croser (deputy chancellor of the University of Adelaide, which runs our wine education and research) and Len Evans, who was chairman of Croser’s Petaluma. Both were doyens of Australia’s wine show system for decades.

Some synthetic plugs are improvements on cork, but they still don’t get it. I want to carry a corkscrew/bottle opener everywhere about as much as a friggin crank handle. Even the Portuguese sardine industry worked out decades ago that they couldn’t expect fish lovers to carry a special tool around just to get the fish out of the tin. Aussie brewers were next to abandon the tool kit.

If you’re a blingster who just loves something clunky to jangle on your keys, I reckon the Diam compound cork is the best excuse to carry a mechanical tugger. In many thousands, I’ve found only a few Diams to be duds, and this was mainly due to irregularities in the bottle neck. Much stiffer than corks, Diam plugs sit tight, but don’t swell as well to fill depressions or seams within imperfect necks, so wine gets out and oxygen gets in. And they’re so hard to get off the worm, somebody should invent another gadget to help with that.

Of course TCA comes from sources other than corks. Pat Conlon’s new trams smelled corked when they were new, probably something to do with the aircon filters being sanitised with chlorine. The international entry lounge at Darwin airport was corked for thirty years, probably due to well-intentioned cleaners ensuring there was no tropical mould in the carpet. I always thought of Portugal when I came through. Some cheese is corky, too. Chlorine is used to sanitise cheese factories, and the French wrapping used to package white rind cheese is often bleached with chlorine compounds.

Cork lovers who preach about natural always being better should abandon the chlorine completely and leave the poor old cork trees alone. Respect the sacred ecology of the natural microfauna in the bark. Get straight back to the old wine skin. Pig is best. You seal ’em with a leather thong. I don’t know whether St. Matthew was a practising Jew, but remember his advice from God’s Word: “Neither do men put new wine into old skins: else the skins break, and the wine runneth out”.

Dislike overt sulphur? Anyone who seals a wine high in sulphur beneath screwcaps will soon learn they’re so effective they preserve faults as well as attributes. Want cork because you desire the sort of oxidation cork permits? Winemakers who seek oxidation should permit a little oxygen in the headspace below whichever closure they choose. But for me, polymerisation without oxidation, please. Screw it!

When me old China suggested Australia's "a proven failure as a wine producer, producing a soda kind of drink", I almost sympathised. Like China, we still use table grapes for wine production. And as for China being "the milenar culture which privileges natural material for the food product whose consumption is developing most in the last years is indeed a deep, intelligent one"? Mate, pull out the cork and have a nice big glass of milk, there's a dear.

.

The Olympics were corked

by PHILIP WHITE - This was published as "Put A Cork In It" in The Independent Weekly on 29 August 2008

Amorim, the transnational rubber trader which ships more cork bark than anyone else, is smarting. Having lost Australia’s wine market to the superior screw cap - meaning the dominoes of Britain and the USA will also inevitably fall - the fat Portuguese outfit used the Olympics in a desperate attempt to secure the Chinese wine market.

Obsessed with European tradition it can copy, if not simply purchase, the fledgling Chinese wine industry still loves the romance of cork. Exporters of Australian wines must step backwards to enter China: wines sold safely under screwcaps in the rest of the world are not acceptable to the Chinese unless they’re corked. Which is temporary, given China’s incredible advancements in the packaging of other foods and beverages.

China grows more grapes than Australia. If it finds the water to replace our evaporating Chateau Murray-Darling, China will soon be selling cheap wine to Australia. It will then learn the advantages of screw caps, because we won’t want cork unless it’s in platform shoes.

Our heroic Coles is teaching this lesson to the Old World, by purchasing larger volumes of wine provided it’s under screw. The best value sangiovese available here is Vintage Cellars’ “Chalk Board” $15 chianti - the first wine from that huge region to be screwcapped. To reward the producer’s investment in the bottling technology, the opening order was 2000 dozen. Similarly, the first Rioja screwcaps are on the water. This is just the beginning.

Amorim did a sweaty deal with China, through its biggest winery, Great Wall, to ensure all wine served at the Olympics was sealed with “natural cork”. Swarming, no doubt, with all manner of completely natural greeblies, cork being the spongiform bark of the oak, Quercus suber, which structurally resembles a multi-story five-star hotel for microscopic vermin. Unless, of course, the cork is chlorine-bleached, which converts some of those tiny varmints to the dreaded cat-piss/rat’s nest cork taint appropriately called trichloranisole. Amorim consistently claims to have put an end to this infection, but none of the corked wines and whiskies I taste swab clean.

Amorim claims cork is an environmental triumph, preaching on TV ads and the internet that screwcaps threaten the arcadian bliss of the cork groves of the western Mediterranean, and the serene, pristine peasants who tend them. Not to mention the sacred habitat of the blessed lesser-spotted cork dotterel and the freckled pigmy plug sloth.

“One of the world’s greatest examples of sustainable development” Amorim calls the cork racket.... “wine producers looking to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions can address these aspects as a matter of priority”. So screw caps trigger farting? Pull the other one. Given Portugal’s history of specialization in such delicacies as conquering and colonisation, one may wonder whether Amorim envies China’s attitude to human rights and censorship.

The beer industry used the Olympics to stage a collision of the great tectonic plates of suds. Anheuser-Busch is America’s biggest brewer. It makes 48.5 percent of US beer, and owns Budweiser, the world’s biggest-selling beer. Not to mention 50 percent of Grupo Modelo, Mexico's biggest brewer (with Corona, number five globally), and 27 percent of Tsingtao, China’s biggest. Budweiser was a major Olympics sponsor. Like Chinese beer, Bud’s made from rice as much as barley, so it’s lighter and simpler and suited to markets that accept only corked wines or beer you can’t drink without jamming a chunk of lemon down its neck.

On a greenbucks clutch equal to Amorim’s, Budweiser boasts of being the world's largest recycler of aluminum cans. It’s like Banrock Station saving the Murray. I’m green, therefore I deserve.

InBev, the Belgian brewer which set up shop in 1366, is the biggest global brewer, with over 200 brands, like Stella Artois, Beck’s, Leffe, Hoegaarden, Skol, Quilmes, Brahma, Staropramen, Sibirskaya Korona, Chernigivske, Sedrin, Cass, Jupiler and whatnot. It’s now adding Anheuser-Busch to its list. Anheuser-Busch Inbev will own the thirst of China, USA, Russia, Brazil and Germany.

While Beck’s is brewed here by Lion Nathan (whose foray into the wine business is not completely cool), Stella is brewed by Fosters. Like the local Heineken, they’re not European at all. So scour the atlas of the new leviathan’s holdings. Jeez, look Ma, there’s a great big hole here called Australia! Since it was still Interbrew, years ago, InBev has ogled the Fosters apple. So why would you let Fosters make your prime product taste like Melbourne beer when you could simply buy it - Fosters - whip up its dull suds, and ensure your Aussie Stella tastes more like a racy Belgian premium?

If/when Anheuser-Busch Inbev buys Fosters, which it may well do on its way home from China, it will reverse our dumb brewers’ disastrous forays into wine. There’ll be feathers all over the chookhouse when Fosters’ wineries hit the block.

COMMENTS

These comments were left on The Independent Weekly site. You can add comments direct to this blog by hitting the comment button below.

How much this "writer" has received from the screw cap producers? For me this is not an exempt article. Related to the sustainability matters i prefer to "save Miguel". You can "save Miguel" to in http://www.savemiguel.com/ Miguel is cork oak tree, go and see.

Posted by José Lopes on 4/09/2008 12:36:45 AM

(Jose Lopes works for Amorim.)

Brilliant article! Though not the perfect solution, screw caps are the best closure currently available. Patrick Stowe Rimu Grove Winery

Posted by pinotman10 on 4/09/2008 10:03:25 AM

There sure will becasue Constellation's wineries will hit the block first. Maybe the resulting rerating of the production facilities values might make wine profitable again....

Posted by MiketheWineGuy on 4/09/2008 11:29:10 AM

Thanks Jose for that carefully worded and intelligent comment and accusation. Another smart move by Amorim!

Posted by AndrewG on 4/09/2008 12:15:41 PM

I love it when someone like Philip White lays it into these bark floggers - the idea that cork is tradition and that tradition is good; ergo bark is good needs to be laid to rest. Cork bark belongs with other grand traditions like drowning witches, stonings and absolute monarchs. Using cork bark to stopper a bottle is like burning coal to make power, whereas a screwcap is akin to a nice clean and modern solar panel.

Posted by Awinelover on 4/09/2008 12:44:30 PM

Without any reference to AWRI taste trials or other objective measures, this rant completely ignores the Australian invention - Pro Cork. This closure uses the benefits of cork in aging wines and the prophylactic properties of a cellulose barrier to prevent TCA. A great closure and market appreciated all in one. Get up to scratch Mr White!

Posted by Bachanaussie on 4/09/2008 1:13:17 PM

yesterday we opened a bottle of expensive Chardonnay under a Diam cork, a glued together product, it was as badly cork tainted as I have seen - the sooner we get over corks the better. Perhaps we could save Miguel's ancestors by going all the way back to sticking a wax soaked stick in the bottle!

Posted by Gazza in vic on 4/09/2008 5:49:29 PM

Independent weekly? Pfft.. don't kid me!! "Superior screwcaps" yes, that's a very independent statement. "The cork racket"?!?! What is cork some kind of mob deal? Obviously Philip White is well paid by Stelvin and The Independent Weekly is not quite as independent as it thought.

Posted by Luke on 4/09/2008 7:41:18 PM

Regarding the postings on your website commenting an article referring Amorim, we want to immediately clarify that it is not Amorim & Irmaos position that the opinions – albeit misinformed – expressed by the article’s author are anything more than just that. The author is, of course, entitled to his views and to express them freely, and the same applies to any of the postings’ authors. If indeed any of our thousands of employees made a comment on this site, that will be a representation of his or hers private views. It cannot and should not be interpreted as anything resembling the company’s official views. Carlos de Jesus Director, Marketing & Communications Amorim & Irmaos SA

Posted by Carlos de Jesus on 4/09/2008 9:31:33 PM

Jose, what the writer has received from screw cap producers is untainted wine, which is far more environmentally friendly than having to send twice the amount of sample stock.

Posted by Christophe P on 5/09/2008 11:45:11 AM

Its amazing how emotional this debate is! What happened to objective and sound information based on technical facts?! It would be good to see White focus on what really counts - how to ensure the end consumer receives the wine in perfect condition! A good closure solution should provide a consistent and taint free seal and be suitable for the wine style. This includes ensuring oxygen ingress over the closure match the intended sensory profile of the wine. Alternative closures are becoming increasingly popular in todays wine world as they have a lot to offer, but its interesting to note that on a global scale more wines are sealed with synthetic closures than with screw caps.

Posted by Mai Nygaard on 5/09/2008 12:40:14 PM

(Mai Nygaard is Business Development Manager at Nomacorc LLC)

Phil, Get an education before you try to pontificate, maybe even do some research. Your ignorant perception of how TCA is formed is matched by your ignorance of the Chinese wine market. For examples, Great Wall is not the 'biggest Chinese winery'...Changyu is much bigger. Secondly, China only grows more wine grapes than Australia if you include all the table varieties as used for wine, which Chinese winemakers do, so you are only technically correct. And most grapes are grown in places even less suitable than the Hunter Valley, where it regularly pisses down just before vintage, so mouldy grapes are the norm. The only thing they do right is insist on cork, which is environmentally a more responsible closure than screw caps, no matter which way you try to spin it. Screw caps cannot match natural cork for regulated oxygenation during maturation in the bottle, essential to develop complexity in a quality red wine, and unattainable with a metal widget.

Posted by Dingo on 5/09/2008 1:35:02 PM

Phil, TCA is present in water. Drink some Adelaide water and let me know what you think about it. Put the fault in cork is very easy. To be clear, I don't care about the closure. I drink wine because like the experience, the brand the stlye, etc, not because of the closure. Corks have problems, as screwcap have. What is your reaction when you open a bottle of white wine and you feel a strong suphides odour coming out ? Do you complaint about the screwcap ?

Posted by Abagail korouplis on 8/09/2008 1:03:37 PM

The comments from Abagail Korouplis and Gazza from Vic relate to each other in that TCA in wine can have other sources than just the cork. The chlorine component of TCA can come from water or any number of chemical compounds present in the environment which might have somehow got in contact with the wine at any point during the production process from the vineyard on. On at least some occasions cork might be unfairly getting the blame for tainted wine. On wine maturation, wines can mature and develop perfectly well under screwcap, but when a cork does what is is supposed to it can be considered part of the aging process in itself, like a barrel, making a unique contribution to the aged wine.

Posted by TM on 10/09/2008 10:25:03 AM

Dear Phillip White, First, I would like to know how much is the screwcaps lobby paying you. It is not that what you have written is mostly bullshit and non-scientifically based, but the tone in which you write must mean that even being paid, you are powerless against nature. Yes, because there is a war being faught between alternative closures (not substitues) and natural ones. ALWAYS PREFER WHAT IS NATURAL! So, if you defend your positions that fiercly (even though they are false), I wonder how much is your reputation worth in dollars... Unfortunately, you also do not know anything at all about China: the milenar culture which privileges natural material for the food product whose consumption is developing most in the last years is indeed a deep, intelligent one. Even at humannity's highest level like Olympics, this has been recognised. How can you argue with that? Poor you, frustrated writer without any level at all... Thanks God Australia is a proven failure as a wine producer in the World, keep producing your soda kind of drink, and let the world enjoy the real pleasures in life. Ah, and again: get a job and a life, Mr. White!

Posted by The the on 17/09/2008 12:37:40 AM

Anonymous said... If you want to see how desperate the corkistas are becoming with all this environment nonsense, have a look at this "unbiased" BBC report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7623912.stm ...It seems to me the environment would be very well without men going about tearing the bark from trees.