WOLFIE'S BLASSTARDISATIONS

Wolf Blass, left, mit frauleins

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ITEM: from a recent seminar in the Barossa, sent by a reader, quoting the great Wolf Blass:

“Wolf also revealed the burden of being one of Australia’s biggest wine businessmen. ‘I used to be six foot when I came here 40 years ago, now I’m only four foot two—talk about bloody knockers in Australia. That bloody Philip Vite and those other writers said I couldn’t do it, but I showed them all and I’m bloody proud of it’.”

This arrived while I happened to be browsing the April 1983 issue of Winestate, which I edited. I had invited Wolf to be a judge at a tasting called “Dry White Blands”. It’s worth perusing some of his quotes:

On the blends then called “riesling and hock” (“riesling” was usually semillon, crouchen, or both, in those days, mixed with only Bacchus remembers what; real riesling was generally called “rhine riesling”):

Blass: “I’m amazed at some of the leading wine companies ... so many winemaking faults that show not only in the bottle here today, but will show in their balance sheet next year and into the future. They’re just not competitive and it will be absolutely detrimental.

“It’s in the media’s hands at the moment to slander the wine industry because we are not truthful enough about what we are putting on our labels.

“I don’t think we should use the word ‘riesling’ – I honestly believe it’s a bastardisation of the real variety. For this style ‘hock’ or simply ‘dry white’ are better.”

On the blends then called “traminer riesling” (which often contained neither gewurztraminer nor riesling, but were blends of semillon and fronti):

Blass: “This has become a very popular blend with wine-makers recently, but it isn’t an easy one to market, so only the fittest and best will survive. To say this is a style of the future is wrong.”

In those days, Wolf was determined to prove that chardonnay would never become popular in Australia. He fought the new chardonnay trend with his Classic Dry White, which was usually colombard and crouchen, sometimes with trebbiano, whacked with overt oak, usually American. Wolf contributed to the following tasting notes:

Wolf Blass Classic Dry White 1982: “A top wine by all standards, showing a ton of fruit amongst the strong wood characters imparted by both American and French oak. The wood has given the palate a lot of flavour without overbalancing the fruit, and when left a few more years the bottle, this one should become a true classic.”

Wolf Blass Classic Dry White 1981: “Another very clean dry white from the Blass stable, showing similar wood treatment to the 1982, but perhaps in restrospect lacking the flavour of chardonnay that the 1982 features. Still, a well-balanced and integrated wine in a style that improves with short-term cellaring.”

And finally, to summarise the class then called “white burgundy”, which could quite literally contain anything:

Blass: “I’m sick and tired of the dishonesty of many companies putting chardonnay on their labels – it’s a bastardisation of the grape variety.

“We cannot make top class burgundies without blending, however I think we need to explore new winegrowing areas and new varieties at this time.”

As I continue perusing such ancient writings from the archive, perhaps I shall occasionally publish Herr Blass’s astute observations here as Blasstardisations.

AND FURTHERMORE:

Wolf Blass’ recent derisory volley, fired, I think, at my repeated suggestion that Australia should be experimenting with new varieties and new flavours, pushed me further back into my old tasting notes.

Wolfie summoned me to a tasting of his Classic Dry Whites in September 1982, delighted to point out how these wines were generally defeating the chardonnays at wine shows.

Always averse to chardonnay and the idiotic marketing extant in those days, he said that day of his white blends “I refuse to call it burgundy or chablis because we’d confuse the marketing issue overseas ... the law will prohibit the use of these words anyway”.

In those days, every company had a burgundy or chablis, made from whatever entered their little crushers. Generally, burgundy meant oak; chablis, none. The oaking was terrible. Wolf used mainly American, a little French, and mainly barrels rather than chips.

“What’s being done with chardonnay in this country is parallel only by the stupidity of the red wine manufacturing in the ’sixties”, he said. “I think the chardonnay belongs in the champagne. There’s a few companies who can make good chardonnay. Those should specialise. But at the moment, every company in Australia, in every region and every state, is trying to bring a chardonnay out. There’s no room on the shelf. The public is so confused that in a couple of years chardonnay is just a joke.

“If chardonnay of sufficient quantity and quality becomes available, we may replace the tokay [which was actually muscadelle] in the Classic Dry White with it” he concluded.

Also present at this tasting were Brian McGuigan, Brian Barry, Peter Fergusson, Ian Mackay, Paul Lloyd and George Truby, whose scores I have averaged with my own.

The wines were as follows:

77.5 points

Wolf Blass Dry White 1974 - 60% sauvignon blanc; 40% riesling

81.5 points

Wolf Blass Dry White 1975 - 100% trebbiano

75 points

Wolf Blass Dry White 1977 - 40% muscadelle; 30% riesling; 30% crouchen

75 points

Wolf Blass Dry White 1978 - 50% crouchen; 25% muscadelle; 25% sylvaner

79.5 points

Wolf Blass Dry White 1979 - 50% crouchen; 40% colombard; 10% muscadelle

82 points

Wolf Blass Classic Dry White 1980 - 40% colombard; 40% crouchen; 20% muscadelle

86.5 points

Wolf Blass Classic Dry White 1981 - 40% colombard; 40% crouchen; 20% muscadelle

91 points

Wolf Blass Classic Dry White 1982 - 40% colombard; 40% crouchen; 20% muscadelle

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GRUNTY PARKERILLAS CRASH WITH DETROIT

Roberto at Wine Expo more gallons per smile

No Fish Eye Merlot At Wine Expo

By PHILIP WHITE – a version of this story appeared in The Independent Weekly 05 DEC 08

Australia’s invasion of the USA wine gullet was always Quixotic as much as chaotic. Other than the $1000 per bottle gobstoppers like those wine shipper Dan Phillips delivers to Robert Parker Jr., who loves them, the bulk of our ordnance has always been industrial plonk lobbing at the price of bottled Italian water. I’ve left a lot of good work out, but you get my drift.

When capitalism fell over the other day, the Australian blokes responsible for both horns of this wine dilemma, and their bank managers, went out and got cactus, were awful to their wives, and contemplated suicide. The smarter ones then took a tablet, begged their wives for forgiveness, hired a lawyer, and sued their American distributors for payment.

“Expensive Wines Rot On LA Shelves”, Jerry Hirsch trumpeted in the LA Times. “Sales of high-end wine are plummeting ... the Wall Street meltdown is rippling across the alluvial fields of Napa Valley to the chalky limestone vineyards of Champagne in France...”

Note: Jerry has to explain that Champagne’s in France. Either the location of Australia is obviously too difficult to explain (so we missed out), we just don’t count, or American distributors owe Australian winemakers so much money they’ve rubbed us off the map.

Ridiculously expensive wines – even Bob Parker’s personal favourites - are certainly taking the biggest hit. Mouton-Rothschild ’05 has slumped 50% to $549 per bottle in a few months.

“People are still drinking wine”, Jerry continued. “They are just spending less”. He listed a few examples of people who have cut their wine budgets from $20-$30 bottles to $10 jobs, and quoted the owner of a posh wine shop who went to a the supermarket and bought a big swag of commercial cheapies from which he selected two dozen to “offer in the store as ‘recession busters’ starting from $5.99 for a Fish Eye Merlot ... he then demanded a price break from his distributors so that he could match supermarket prices and still make a profit”.

Jerry quoted another favourite retailer whose sales “were off 28% in October compared with a year ago. November sales are running 16% below last year's figures, even after factoring in a bump-up around the presidential election earlier this month ...”

Wondering about all this, I called my maestro, Roberto, Wine Director at Wine Expo in Santa Monica, who was introduced to me by his former neighbour, Dan Phillips. (No expensive gobstoppers or River cheapos at Wine Expo, though. Roberto won’t stock them.) The LA Times generally raves about him and his store, which you should visit on www.wineexpo.com.

”They interviewed me for that story but I guess I was not telling the story they wanted to write this time”, he said. “We are selling MORE bottles to MORE people but at lower price points.

“Those in the Carriage Trade are getting to eat the cake they baked themselves and finding it is frosted with rat poison”, Roberto said.

“Those of us that have ALWAYS been about alternatives and value for money, travel the world and buy direct, are down somewhat, but not out by a long shot. We want you to be able to buy twice as much wine but spend half as much money with NO compromise in quality and we believe this is not only possible but that it is a lot more fun as well!

“Curiously, with all that ranting about Champagne being dead, we still sell boatloads of high quality farmer fizz in the $40-60 range”, he added.

Australia would have done better selling water to America.

Just one little desal plant, and we could tip the whole of the Gulf St Vincent into California. For a start, they’re short of fresh water. Then, Vince is the patron of schoolgirls as well as viticulturers, and you don’t strike too many California schoolgirls without their bottle of designer water. Call it Great Southern Ocean water. Great Australian Bight Water. Desert Water. Clean Water. Cool Water. Whalesbreath. Shark Bay. To keep ’em thirsty, we could also sell ’em the designer salt we took out of the water. A marketer’s dream!

All the money we wasted on the wine industry – pipelines, perma pine, wire, petrochemicals and refineries - could have gone into maintaining the River.

But we buggered the River by tipping it on the desert sugar quarries we call River vineyards, added some ground-up American oak, some cream of tartar and concentrate, dressed it up in fake aboriginal art, called it something really bloody stupid, and flogged it to America at the smallest margin possible. Brilliant.

There’s a serious challenge here. If our lads can’t tip our bursting wine lake into the USA before the Aussie dollar returns to equity, then they might as well regroup now for the second mighty wave when we flog America our water, unadulterated. I’ll bet Dan Phillips could sell water at $1000 a bottle.

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HONEST BOFFIN TAKES POLISH FROM POLL

-->Another Leo Davis photograph of the beautiful Glenthorne Farm, complete with sheep. Given to the University for viticulture research, the farm is now under threat of housing development...

PHILIP WHITE was invited to discuss Glenthorne Farm with the University's star environmental scientist, Dr. David Paton, on ABC radio. Apart from being a textbook example of how NOT to release an highly contentious poll, it indicates how dangerous it is for the University's communications managers to insist on wheeling their most popular and revered scientists out to make these announcements and defend them. The trouble with great scientists is they tend to tell the truth, and the trouble with wheeling them out like this is they must feel their great reputations wobbling as they speak....

Releasing The Radioactive Sheep

Matthew Abraham: Coming up in a moment: Glenthorne Farm. We’ll talk to the Adelaide University Professor who has big plans for the site.

David Bevan: Glenthorne Farm is one of the last remaining large open spaces in the southern suburbs. If you’ve ever driven up around O’Halloran Hill along South Road and you look to your right as you’re heading south, you look to your right, there’s a big open space there.

Well it was given to the Adelaide University on trust, but the University says ‘well look, let us sell off a portion of it”, and “it’s a relatively small portion, for housing, and with that money, we can then do great things to preserve woodlands right across the Adelaide Hills.

They put out a survey to ask what people in the area consider, and Dr. David Paton, associate professor from Adelaide University, can tell us the results. Good morning David.

Dr. David Paton: Good morning David.

DB: David, what is the result of the survey? How many people did you survey, and what are they telling you?

DP: Well initially we put out 10,000 surveys –these are pamphlets which talked about the large-scale initiatives and also what we proposed to do with Glenthorne and we got good response. We got some 800 of these printed surveys returned; we also had a company, we had Harrisons ran a random phone service for people say within the vicinity of Glenthorne and they surveyed 400 people and both of those came back with something like 69% of those people supported the woodland recovery initiative, and that’s a very strong support for that program, there was also an um ...

DB: Can we, just quickly, before you do that, can we break that down, because it sounds like we’re mixing in there a questionnaire that went out as a leaflet –

DP: That’s right –

DB: ... and the two of them in there –

DP: ... the two almost gave an identical result, which was a surprise to everybody, so –

DB: And okay say 69%. And what is that consisting of?

DP: ... and that was probly something in the vicinity, well 31% were, did not believe that woodland recovery in this issue was not a sensible thing to be doing at present despite that being the only solution for species loss within the Mt. Lofty region.

DB: Right –

DP: ... which amounts to that.

DB: Yeah. And 69% support or –

DP: ... 69% had a very very strong support or some support –

DB: What was the breakdown on that?

DP: Ah, I think is was probly something in the vicinity of 45-24, something in that vicinity.

MA: ... and and how many didn’t care less?

DP: .. ahh, that’d be 31%.

DB: Okay. Now is that support for woodland recovery or is that –

DP: That’s the support for the woodland recovery initiative initially, that’s a big one, and now we come to -

DB: What about the question of housing? How do you support us selling off part of Glenthorne Farm?

DP: Okay. 64% were in support or neutral to the proposal that the University put forward to use some of the land to generate the income to do the large-scale program –

DB: And what was the breakdown of that?

DP: Oh probly something in the vicinity of 44-45% in support of the the farm being used in that way and 20% or so that were were neutral.

MA: And so that the neutrals can go either way. You could also lock them in with the opposed. So you could say you could say that more than 50% were opposed.

DP: You you may say that. The key here to bear in mind is that that the project that the University’s about is that it’s not just something that’s good for the state and this is just the local community within a close vicinity to Glenthorne, so a broader survey is almost certainly going to push those numbers elsewhere if you wish to go to a broader survey –

DB: David, you’ve you’ve spent your life trying to get figures, statistics, to reflect reality and and nobody would question your credentials on that as a biologist ... w, w, do you agree that if you take a cold hard look at the survey in terms of support for housing, you’ve got less than 50% of people actually saying they support selling off part of Glenthorne Farm for housing –

DP: You can also use the other one which is something in the vicinity of 35% or so that were not in favour of ah housing being put onto the property. Now you’ve got to put that in mind with 31% of the people not interested in the woodland recovery issue so the people who were probably against that and I don’t have the figures here in front of me are those who don’t believe that we should be concerned about wildlife losses within the State.

MA: Mmm. Mmm. Er, David we’re going to continue this conversation in a moment ah with Philip White right after the news so you may choose to stay with us; there may be a response that’s needed.

PROMO AND NEWSPORTWEATHER

MA: Just before the news we were talking with Dr. David Paton um from Adelaide University. Now he wants, the Adelaide University want to effectively be released from a er a deed that governs Glen Thorne Farm, the large area of open space at the top of Taps there near the old drive-in and ah they want to sell some of it for housing and use that money to develop woodlands um throughout the Adelaide Hills.

Philip White is the wine writer with The Independent Weekly. He has, um, quite an intimate knowledge of the Glenthorne Farm deed. Philip White good morning ... do you?

Philip White: I was fascinated by –

MA: Oh, sorry, sorry Philip, I just just er, we, good morning to you and what are you fascinated by?

PW: I’m fascinated by the audacity of the University here, and I, I think that is gonna be more of a Victoria Park than a Cheltenham.

Um, the University deed that it signed actually prohibits it undertaking to seek development of the land without Ministerial approval. Now the Government has refused to sign such a thing so far ... ah, I can’t see this government taking the risk of er, of letting this housing go ahead –

MA: So are you saying that just by doing what it is doing at the moment, and that is consulting the community about selling the land, it is breeching its deed?

PW: Yeah, I’m not a lawyer but 4.2.2 of the deed says that it prohibits the University to undertake or permit development or seek to undertake development of the land for uses other than those specified da da da da without the writing – er, without approval by the Minister in writing. And that hasn’t occurred.

AB: Now you’ve sent us a copy of that deed, and that is indeed what is says. Um have you got a response from the Minister? Has he actually said –

PW: The local Member, Leon Bignall, in McLaren Vale, er has said, has said that no such signature has been provided.

DB: So will there be some sort of legal challenge, Philip White? Because you’re talking legalese here aren’t you?

PW: Yeah, but I don’t know. If that’s – I’m just amazed at the audacity of it. And, but I think that, well, you know, there’s some light at the end of this tunnel. I don’t see the government affording another Cheltenham.

And just a fortnight ago we had Minister Holloway, the planning guy, saying there would be no more development of housing in McLaren Vale or the Barossa. Now Glenthorne is inside the Geographical Indicator boundary of McLaren Vale. The boundary was actually drawn around Glenthorne with the University’s knowledge - to include that in the McLaren Vale appellation for viticulture.

DB: Mmm. Okay. So where does this go next? Will you and the people that you are a part of Philip, who are opposing this development, will you be getting together soon; will you be considering some sort of court action, or are you just going to keep up a political campaign?

PW: Well I think you can feel, a, a brewing brew-ha-ha with the McLaren Vale winemakers who certainly have never been consulted with this, over this.

The University sort of indicated that the wine industry pulled out of the deed because of er, various reasons, one of which – this is a good story – ask Dr. Paton about the radioactive sheep.

SILENCE

MA: Well, er, he’s listening. You’d better tell us David Paton –

DB: Suppressed laughter; giggling.

MA: Are there, are there sheep glowin’ in them thar hills? Radioactive sheep?

DB: giggling: Dr. David Paton:

DP: There is some, some rumour I think that er some of the sheep I think from Maralinga were buried on the property, um, there’s been some surveys done looking for um you know, high spikes in radioactivity er radioactive material coming off the property at present. Nobody’s found where they are. Nobody’s actually knows where they’re buried so it may just be rumour.

But there are concerns, um, let’s say, out there, about these things and the University, if it was going to go ahead with doing anything, um you know, we’d argue that that why is the thing being used as a farm if there’s radioactive material interred.

MA: Well why would you be using it as a housing estate if there was –

DP: Exactly.

MA: Sheep that would possibly have, plutonium? Er plutonium waste?

DP: I have, I have no idea what the actual material is and as I say nobody actually seems to know where they are if they were actually were buried on the on the property where they actually are so other than doing surveys that’s all we can do at this stage but at present the surveys have been done so um levels below um or level two that’s normal backgrounds you’d expect for these sorts of areas so obviously it’s fine at this stage -

DB: So David Paton is it correct to say Adelaide University has gone looking for radioactive sheep but hasn’t found any?

DP: Eh-heh. We’ve had other other organisations which are looking at looking at using the site for say the desalination pipeline, they’ve done broad surveys across the er the er property to determine whether or not there’s a risk for them to put the pipeline across so, er I don’t think they’d be thinking about doing that if they weren’t comfortable that there was no risk.

MA: Course, er, plutonium would not show up in background radiation, would it? It has a very long half-life – about 1,600 years – but, ah, a plutonium particle cannot penetrate for instance a piece of cigarette paper; the thickness of a cigarette paper, but if if, it, it gets into your body in any way it will give you cancer. It will.

DP: Look I can’t actually talk about the actual processes - the other people have been doing that - but if there’s a farm going that’s being used as a commercial farm, which it currently is being used for, then you’d argue that that’s a risk as well.

MA: Yeah.

DB: Mmm. What about the other point that Philip White has raised a number of times and that is that under the deed the university shouldn’t even be sounding people out regarding a development, without first getting Ministerial approval?

DP: Oh look that er, that’s in a that’s in a deed document to which I’m not privy to and the details for, um, I think something I mean which is meant to be kept confidential, or at least I thought it was meant to be kept confidential – so I haven’t seen it – look if there are those issues then fine, perhaps the University has stepped over the line here, but I think that the issue here is, the key issue, that, the if the community changes its mind about how it wants to see an area used, then um we need to take that on board, and not be sitting back on something that was decided, under duress, back in 1998 or so when there was er hurried arrangements between the Federal and State governments and the University to, um find a solution for Glenthorne.

MA: Brenda from Hackham has called. Um, hullo, Brenda.

BfH: Good morning. I’m absolutely furious about the University’s suggestions for Glenthorne Farm. Glenthorne Farm is the lungs of the south. Why should we have more housing down here to beautify the woodlands in the Adelaide Hills, where they’ve got their trees already? The houses that would go on there would be the same as the houses down at Seaford on small blocks that don’t even have enough room to grow a decent solid tree! I think that if this goes ahead the words “In Trust” should be deleted because they have no more value.

DB: Ah, Brenda from Hackham, thankyou. And look thankyou Dr. David Paton for coming on and also to Philip White, wine writer for the Independent Weekly. David Paton is associate professor at the Adelaide University.

...and here it is:

DEED BETWEEN THE MINISTER FOR TRANSPORT AND URBAN PLANNING

and

THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE

essential ingredients

RECITALS

B. For many years the CSIRO has used the land for purposes of agriculture and as an agricultural research facility.

D. The CSIRO has only agreed to sell the Land on the proviso that the Land will be preserved and conserved for agriculture and other related activities and will not be used for urban development.

E. The University, as the person nominated by the State, has agreed to purchase the Land from the CSIRO , to preserve and conserve the Land for other related activities and not use, develop or permit the Land to be used or developed for urban development.

4. OBLIGATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY

4.1 The University covenants with the Minister that it will, subject to obtaining all necessary statutory approvals, do all reasonably necessary things to ensure that the Land is

4.1.1 preserved, conserved and used for Agriculture, Horticulture, Oenology, Viticulture, Buffer Zones and as Community Recreation Area, and

4.1.2 is available for Project Research Activities, University Research Activities, Education Activities and operating a Wine Making Facility.

4.2 The University covenants with the Minister that it will not at any time hereafter:

4.2.1 use or permit the Land to be used other than as provided for in subclause 4.1 unless such other use is approved in writing by a Minister acting as agent of the Crown,

4.2.2 undertake or permit Development or seek to undertake Development of the Land for uses other than those specified in subclause 4.1 unless such other use or Development (excluding Urban Development which will not be approved) is approved in writing by a Minister acting as agent of the Crown.

4.4 The University covenants with the Minister that it will not at any time hereafter sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of the whole or any portion of the Land unless it shall first procure from the purchaser or transferee a binding undertaking either to be bound by this Deed or to enter into a Deed with the Minister on the same terms as are contained in this Deed.

8. ASSIGNMENT

The University covenants not to assign its obligations under this Deed without the prior written consent of the Minister.

THE COMMON SEAL OF THE MINISTER FOR TRANSPORT AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT was affixed and signed by Di Laidlaw, Minister, in the presence of Tim Quinn, witness, on 22 May 2001.

THE SEAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE was signed by Susan Graebner, Officer who affixed the seal, and witnessed and signed by Mary O’Kane, Custodian of the Seal, on 24 May 2001.

BY authority of the Council given on the 26 July 1999.

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THUS SPRACH THE LORD

Tony Lord photographed in Chesser Cellars by Philip White 1982

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by PHILIP WHITE - Interview in WINESTATE July 1982

Tony Lord is the editor of the prestigious British wine magazine, Decanter. In Australia recently, on his way home from New Zealand, Lord delivered some scathing criticisms on the way Australian wine marketing is conducted abroad, especially in London itself.

Lord believes that since the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation closed the Australian Wine Centre in London, an invaluable twenty years of effort in promoting Australian wines there has been almost entirely wasted.

Pointing out that the number of cases of Australian wine imported into Britain escalated steadily from 11,000 in 1977/78, to 48,000 cases in 79/80, Lord is particularly reproachful of the fact that this figure dropped to 33,000 cases in 80/81, neatly comparing the situation to the number of Californian cases imported: that figure has jumped from 40,000 cases to 400,000 in two years.

Explaining that the established European wine producers are almost operating at their maximum production levels, with very little room for expansion, Lord believes these suppliers have little choice other than to charge higher prices for their shrinking market share, and is adamant that the gap will be filled by wines from the New World countries, like Australia, California, South Africa and New Zealand.

However, Lord explains, Australia, unlike the others, appears now to be disproportionately focusing its attention on the much more difficult markets of the USA and Canada, both areas requiring relatively massive investments for the slightest market share.

A jovial expatriate Australian, Lord displayed a rare and irreverent candour when confronted with the Winestate microphone, and fairly large chunks of his dissertation proved far too spicy for these pages. A pity, but there’s plenty here:

Will we have to send our best wine to Britain to establish a market?

It’s always better to start at the top and work down, but given the quality of the wine selling there now, the wines like the ones Yalumba are shipping are very good flagbearers.

If you look at what’s happening in Australia at the moment, you’ve got a glut of wine and you’ve got price discounting. Everybody’s moaning about there being no profitability in wine, but those companies that are exporting are making money. Any company that’s built up a substantial export base, even on a modest scale, at least they’re getting some reasonable profitability with their wines, which may help the subsidise the furtherance of what they’re doing.

I was talking to Max Lake the other day, and he’s firmly committed to exports, and he said ‘It might be that I do have to cut down the amount of wine that I release in Australia’, but, he said, ‘I just can’t rely on the Australian market for my livelihood if we’re starting to get these price discounting problems with people undercutting and stuff selling for a buck a bottle’.

All the smart people in this industry are the ones who are exporting. In the future, and I’m certain that in the not-too-distant future, there’ll be a huge wine glut in this country again, and in the next minute we’ll see Boeings full of Ockers coming over to London and trying to offload what they’ve got in their warehouses, with little regard for the poor bloody importer who wants continuity of supply, and this time the people in Britain certainly already know what they can expect. They’re not gonna touch these guys with a bargepole. But they will go for the companies like Yalumba and Rothbury and Petaluma, and those companies that have been in Britain for five or six years, and all release a certain quantity of wine to that market each year.

See, that’s very important. The poor bloody importer. I just heard the other day about two companies from Australia that have been exporting to Britain and have decided not to send them any more wine. They’re getting top dollar over here, but when they’re not getting top dollar, they’ll be back over there, and that’s stupid short-sightedness. It really is.

Is there any way around the problem of trying to attack a big market like that with four or five pallets of cabernet?

If the maker finds a good importer and he’s prepared to say ‘Yes, I’ll let you have a thousand cases each year”, and if they’re honest about it ... you see Whitey there’s far more possibility for consistency here because of the climate, if for no other reason.

If the importer gets a duff one, he’s gonna make a decision what he’s gonna do about it. The first and foremost problem is that most of the poor buggers who are in London trying to sell Australian wines – and there are some of them who are putting far more effort into it than their profitability would ever justify – what they want to know is that they are going to get wine. I mean, one of the people who have pulled out rang up the UK importer and said ‘Look I can’t let you have any wine for the next two years’. Well now, what is the importer expected to say? He’d been building this thing up, and he’d had the winemaker over. He’d been holding lunches. He’d been getting press coverage, and then he gets this telephone call. He only wanted two or three hundred cases!

But you need about two or three thousand cases there to start with, to make any sense in terms of profitability, and there are very few wineries here that are even prepared to let an export market have that much wine. And they’re silly. The Californians will let you have as much as you want. They realise what the future is! The South Africans will let you have as much as you want.

The New Zealand industry thinks far better about the future than the bloody Australians!

See what they don’t realise is that London’s a prestige market. The Californians aren’t there to make a noticeable profit within five years. It’s a prestige market. They’ve got to see you represented. Every decent wine merchant in the world goes to London, if only because it’s the stop-off before you go to France. But they see your wine, you’re talked about, and the West Germans feed off it, the Belg feed off it, the Scandinavians feed off it, and the Dutch feed off it. And it’s a very big deal to be there.

The north-west Americans feed off it very heavily, too. But the Australians have got tunnel vision. And this is where I ... well, for a highly-placed person in an Australian wine corporation to say, effectively, that Poms wouldn’t know a good bottle if it hit them over the head, is just the end. If they think it privately, keep it to themselves but you don’t go saying it where it’s going to be quoted back at you in an influential trade publication. If the wombat’s doing these things, you bury him in a very large hole!

There are no marketing skills within the industry that apply to the international market that I’ve ever seen. If you’re dealing with Canada, you must have somebody who understands that market. If you’re dealing with America, you’re dealing with a totally different market, and you need somebody who understands that market. And ditto for Germany and the UK. But what we have here is a Coca-Cola salesman who goes around and thinks he can apply Australian marketing techniques in four totally disparate markets. And what he’s doing is – they open the door and they see this turkey coming from ’way back.

There’s an advertising agency in Toronto who are I bet are still laughing at the rip-off they got over Kelvin the Koala. Jesus, they must be bloody in hysterics! “Half a million in your pocket? Great, we can do you a beaut one!’ And, of course, what everybody forgot was by putting this French-speaking koala on the market was that they immediately alienated all the English-speaking Canadians who thought they had a strong bond with Australia through the old Commonwealth. And I mean that’s just a fundamental marketing mistake.

If they can’t see such elementary mistakes, God knows what happens when they get down to the fine print with dealing with these Americans who are so bloody sharp that they’ll eat you before breakfast. In fact, that’s probably when they got this bastard, before breakfast, and tied him up then. You know, while he was still half asleep. They’ve all had a jog and a shower and a jacuzzi and a screw and they’re into the office at seven-thirty in the morning, bouncing and raring to go.

You know me, and any Pom I know, we stagger and say ‘Jeez, I need a glass of good bloody Champagne!’ And you know, these Americans: ‘While you’re signing the documents we’ll open the Deutz, Sir’.

What do people in Britain look for on an Australian wine label?

Well, the varietal name. Area definition, and perhaps a little back label information about the product. It’s getting to the point now with these bloody EEC bureaucrats that by the time you’ve got all the crap that they want on the label, you’re lucky to be able to fit the producer’s name.

Fundamentally, what they want is attractive labelling, and like every other market, there’s just ... well you take a Wolf Blass label. There’s eye-catching shelf appeal, with the varietal name, and the area information, and the vintage. Varietal name and vintage are the key things at the moment because they imply immediately that this wine is quality wine.

It doesn’t necessarily follow-through in the bottle, but, at the moment, anything that hasn’t got a vintage date or a varietal name in Britain is considered real cheapo junk.

But what about an indication of style?

There’s a fine balance in Britain now. You’ll find that, say compared to ten years ago, there’s far more descriptive stuff on labels. “Dry red’, ‘medium white’: very much more indication to tell the consumer what’s inside. People make automatic assumptions in Britain now that if they buy cabernet they expect a certain style of wine. 99.9% of the time they’ll get it. But if it’s a blended wine, like say cabernet-shiraz, you can do that on the back label. But the only thing you don’t want to happen is to go to the California extreme where they literally tell you what socks the winemaker was wearing when he made the wine. I think that’s the sign of a fairly unsophisticated wine-drinking market.

The primary considerations must be shelf-appeal. Eye-catching visual stuff. The South Africans, say, might just call it ‘premium dry red’. We’re not allowed to use the pejorative name in England, but you can in some other markets. You know, in Belfast the soldiers think it’s a good day if they get hit on the head by a bottle that says ‘premium’.

What about the state of Australian wine writing?

I think the wine writers here pussyfoot around a bit too much. There should be much more criticism, because no industry’s going to really top if it’s not criticised, and if it’s not criticised constructively.

There’s this stupid Australian insularity problem. Australians know they’re making good wine. Some of them mistakenly think they’re making brilliant wine. There’s a person I went to university with who’s now a winemaker, and he’s going to charge $14 a bottle for his next release of cabernet sauvignon. Now, this guy’s a doctor. Well, he’s a butcher at medicine, and his winemaking’s even more execrable.

Now it’s awkward. I’m a magazine editor, like you, and we’ve been criticised because we don’t mention bad wines. But a newspaper journalist who has no problem with that sort of thing can come out and say ‘Look, this wine’s been released at $14 but in my humble opinion it’s just not worth the money ... I went down to Chesser Cellars and bought a bottle of Lindeman’s riesling as well as a bottle of so-and-so for under $14 and I think the money was better spent’.

They can’t do anything about that.

What can we, as an industry, do to correct some of these problems?

I’d like to see a lot more of the Wine Board bringing down good journalists and good people from around the world, who know what they’re talking about when they’re talking about wine. More scribes and trade people from different countries. You know, you should be saying ‘OK, the biggest wine buyer from the biggest wine chain in Germany is coming to town, and if anyone in the trade wants to come and meet him for lunch, come along, because he’s going to talk about how to sell wine in Germany’. That’s the sort of thing you should be doing more of, instead of giving your boys first class air tickets to go and whoop it up in the ritziest hotel in New York, wasting growers’ money, when they bloody well need it back here.

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