UN MAN RECALLS GLENTHORNE GRAPE DEAL

THE HON. ROBERT HILL, AUSTRALIA'S AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS, WAS FEDERAL MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT WHEN HE ASSISTED TRANSFER GLENTHORNE FARM FROM THE CSIRO TO THE ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY AT ABSOLUTELY MINIMAL COST

UN Ambassador Insists No Housing Permitted On Glenthorne Plan

Greedy University Scrambles For Credibility

By PHILIP WHITE

The Hon. Robert Hill, Australia’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, New York, says the whole idea of the CSIRO letting Adelaide University have Glenthorne Farm was to prevent it from being subdivided.

“The land was sold to the State Goverment so that it would be preserved from urban development” Mr. Hill told DRINKSTER.

“They nominated Adelaide University.”

The Adelaide University, however, continues with its push to sell 1,000 housing blocks on the land.

In a demand many consider akin to blackmail, the University says that if allowed to break the Deed it signed in 2001, which very specifically disallowed housing, it would use the money raised to reforest the South Mount Lofty Ranges over the next 100 years.

The University was given the land after winemaker Greg Trott convinced the South Australian government to purchase it from the CSIRO.

Mr. Hill, a Senator for South Australia (1981 – 2006) was Federal Minister for Environment from March 1996 to October 2001. He assisted in ensuring the CSIRO - which could have subdivided the land, as it certainly needed the money - to keep its price down to $7 million.

While the University Council gave authority for the Glenthorne Deed to be signed on the 26 July 1999, the University then took almost two years considering the deal.

Vice-Chancellor Mary O’Kane did not sign the deed and affix the University seal until 24 May 2001. Mr. Hill was Federal Minister for Environment for that duration. He played a key role in assisting the transfer of the land from the CSIRO through the State Government, and Minister for Planning, Di Laidlaw, to the University of Adelaide.

The Deed says “For many years the CSIRO has used the land for purposes of agriculture and as an agricultural research facility.

“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.

“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”, the Deed says.

“Part of the farm was to be planted with grapes for research and as a repository of genetic material”, Mr. Hill said of convenor Greg Trott’s plan for Glenthorne.

“The balance was to be conserved as open space and ultimately rehabilitated.

“It was a unique opportunity, care of CSIRO, to provide a large green space between the suburbs of southern Adelaide”, Mr Hill enthused.

Mr Hill held a number of shadow portfolios in opposition including Justice, Foreign Affairs, Defence, Public Administration, Education and Science and Technology before taking Ministry. He studied law at the Universities of Adelaide and London, where he took his Masters. He lists environmental education among his deepest interests.

The University pledged to forever preserve, conserve and use Glenthorne Farm for agriculture, horticulture, oenology, viticulture, buffer zones and for community recreation.

It further promised to ensure that land was available for project research activities, University research, education activities and operating a wine making facility.

Since the Roseworthy winemaking college was closed, and that college was absorbed by Adelaide University during the determined deputy-chancellorship of Brian Croser, there has been no room at the University’s Waite campus for full-scale industrial winemaking experiments or realistically-scaled viticulture.

The purpose of having Glenthorne passed from the CSIRO to the University was to permit large tracts of land for viticulture research and winemaking, as such facilities were not covered at the jam-packed Waite Campus.

The trial vineyard there is only a couple of acres on the Urrbrae Secondary School campus.

Adelaide University winemaking students are now expected to learn their industrial hands-on knowledge out in the wine industry, which enjoys the cheap labour, but doesn’t supply the space for trials and independent industrial-scale viticultural experimentation which Roseworthy permitted and Glenthorne promised.

I refer to the sort of research no transnational will pay for, especially when grapes are in oversupply and stupidly cheap, and the environment looks dangerously short-term.

The current parlous state of the Australian wine industry reflects the yawning need for such research. (See the following article.)

If our University had been up to speed with issues of drought-resistant viticulture and minimal irrigation procedures, our precious River should still have some water in it, and we should have wines which the world wants to buy at a fair price.

Martyn Evans, boss of Community Engagement at the University, recently summoned me to a tour on which he tensely struggled to prove there was no need for real-scale vineyards or winemaking, considering the excellence of the laboratory research facilities at the Waite, which he seemed to regard as part of his vast estate.

I agreed that the facilities are very impressive, surpassed only by the bright diligence and tenacity of the staff there.

However, I couldn't help feeling that the great minds which had been briefed for my visit were holding a preset spin line: that indeed the University needed no ground for full-scale independent viticulture research or winemaking.

Ask a winemaker/viticulturer if free land is neeeded for tests and experiments, and I know what you'll be told, especially if the land is perfect for the job and a quick 20 minute drive away.

Powers that be at the University seem to have decided long ago to sit on Glenthorne until all those original promises were forgotten, and then go for the money with a subdivision.

They seem genuinely surprised that anybody remembers the details of the arrangement, let alone objects intelligently to their audacious intention to scrap the solemn agreement which got them the gift of this priceless land to be protected and maintained in perpetuity.

Evans looked incredulous when I asked him why he hadn’t considered subdividing the reserve Peter Waite bequeathed to the University in 1914 – land which has increased with further gifts and purchases. There is 147 hectares of prime land there now, beside Brownhill Creek, immediately behind the new laboratories and greenhouses.

Being in the ranges, and not maritime coastal, this property is obviously more appropriate for the nursery work the University says it will conduct on the undeveloped land at Glenthorne in order to reforest the South Mount Lofty Ranges.

And of course this Hills Face Zone would be worth much more as housing land than any of Glenthorne.

“You are obviously more respectful of the citizens of Mitcham and Springfield than you are of those of Hackham”, I suggested to Mr. Evans.

I told him that I believe in moral exactitude, which seemed to leave him dumbfounded.

Neither Mr. Evans, nor the popular environmentalist, Dr. David paton, whom the University habitually wheels out to defend and announce its intentions, have ever laid eyes on the Deed.

The late Greg Trott, visionary environmentalist and founder of Wirra Wirra, carefully engineered this Deed so that Glenthorne could be used for the research of dryland viticulture, which would be essential at this time of climate change, drought, and consequent industry collapse.

Trott imagined the revegetation of the creeklines and headlands, and the rest of the land used for trialling premium-quality minimal-irrigation drought-resistant vine types that had never before been tested in Australia.

There are at least 10,000 grape varieties yet to be planted here.

Some of the best hot climate dry-land red wines on Earth, for example, right now come from from Greece, which has always been a laughing stock wine producer in Australia. We don't even know what these varieties are.

Trott was keen to see Glenthorne used for such things, and biodynamic and organic viticulture trials. He was particularly interested in developing natural bird management techniques without shotguns or noisy scaring devices.

To fund his idea, Trott struck a deal with Stephen Millar, the boss of BRL-Hardy, to participate in these trials and ensure his company bought the grapes not used by University students.

BRL-Hardy immediately sought to plant a large frontignac vineyard.

“Fronti” of high quality would have brought the earliest possible monetary return to both partners, as BRL-Hardy sought to use it to make a low-alcohol, high quality Moscato d’Asti-style sparkling wine, then barely known in Australia.

This would have provided the company with a premium low-alcohol product at a time of increasing wowserism, and quickly provided funds to assist the University trial other types of minimal-irrigation or completely dry-grown viticulture.

Industry sources say Deputy-Chancellor Croser wanted chardonnay and not frontignac.

BRL-Hardy said Australia had far too much chardonnay of the quality Glenthorne would provide, but no quality frontignac.

Eventually BRL-Hardy found the University’s approach unworkable, and withdrew from the arrangement.

The University interprets this as the site being “not viable” for viticulture. It also imagines this as being "full consultation with the wine industry."

While Dudley Brown, Chairman of McLaren Vale Wine Grape And Tourism, says nobody in his region has been consulted by the University over the issue, the University claims it has widely consulted the wine industry, which it claims says Glenthorne is not viable for vineyard, partly because there’s insufficient water.

The University obviously has no problem finding water for the 1,000 houses it wants, and cannot produce any wine industry operative who will publicly state the land is not viable for viticulture.

“It’s bloody perfect for viticulture” McLaren Vale winemaker Jock Harvey said before handing the Chairmanship of the McLaren Vale Vale Wine Grape And Tourism to Mr. Brown.

“Experimental vineyards; community fruit and vegetable gardens, native reveg, box gums .... all the things we need to be doing except building more of the crap housing government seems to expect us to accept in this district."

In response to attitudes like this, Patrick Conlon, Minister for Infrastructure, has courted winemakers' concerns over Bowering Hill, another piece of contentious McLaren Vale land which had been deemed due for subdivision by planning Minister Paul Holloway.

Mr. Conlon recently declared his government "has no intention to use the [Bowering] land for housing.

"This land is unique given its location and potential importance to the wine industry and tourism", he said, "and their input into the future potential and nature of development in this area, along with the broader community, will be important."

Immediately upon taking the McLaren Vale Chairmanship, Mr. Brown issued a statement saying his organisation expected the University to stick to its vows in the Glenthorne Deed. His statement suggested the organisation would be delighted to have its first consultation with the University, but that the University should keep all the promises it made in the Deed.

To make matters worse for the University, Planning Minister Holloway recently announced an end to rampant urban development in the gazetted wine districts of Barossa and McLaren Vale.

To ensure there would be no housing on Glenthorne Farm, the Mclaren Vale winemakers drew their appellation boundary around the farm’s northern fenceline some years back, with the full knowledge of the University.

“Look it’s simple common sense”, Mr. Holloway said. “Why would you want to encroach on areas that are important to the economy because of the significant contribution that they make to the state’s economy through the wine industry and the tourism industry?

“Clearly that would be put at threat if we allowed rampant urban development within those areas.”

So, Mr. Conlon. Is this little matter of 1,000 houses rampant urban development?

As Glenthorne is truly the gateway to the McLaren Vale, through which all tourists approach, and there is the little, ahem, matter of this Deed and the solemn vows contained therein, would you bow to the sly developers at the University of Adelaide?

If they expect the community to let them break a vow they made eight short years ago, in exchange for a priceless spread of land which we bought for them, and entrusted them with, why should we now trust their offer of a hundred years of reforestation of a huge range many kilometres distant?

A Deed with seals and signatures is the heaviest piece of pledge/vow/oath this society has. Monarchs have run entire countries on such terse, unbreakable solemnities for thousands of years. Modern republics and states use them.

What do we have to replace this? The word of a politician? The solemn promise of the current staff of the University of Adelaide?

FOR DETAILS OF THE UNIVERSITY’S PUBLIC OPINION POLLING, CLICK

Honest Boffin Takes Polish Off Glenthorne Poll

PEAK OZ BODY REEK: WINE BIZ ON THE NOSE

GREENOCK CREEK ROENNFELDT ROAD VINEYARD AT HARVEST: BUGGER-ALL IRRIGATION; NEVER MORE THAN A TONNE PER ACRE; HAND-MADE; ONE OR TWO BARRELS A YEAR; $190 A BOTTLE; HUNDREDS OF PARKER POINTS; ALWAYS SELLS OUT - SUSTAINABLE? INDUSTRIAL? LEO DAVIS PHOTO

Australian Wine Industry Goes Off In Summer Break
Sudden Sicko Revelations On New Year's Eve

by PHILIP WHITE

“Wine industry grapples for new hook” croaked the Sydney Morning Herald on December 31.

Precisely who it was that decided to run this piece of deep misery on the last day of the year, when most readers are too full of the fruits of the wine biz to remember anything, let alone read, remains to be seen.

I’m sure it was dumped, like the unseemly crock it is, by somebody who hoped it would just sort of gradually break down and dribble through the many levels of the business nice and easy over the summer holidays, so’s not to cause too much of a stink all at once.

Reminds me of John writing in The Holy Bible, King James Version, in chapter 3, verse 13 of his gospel: “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

Good enough reason to keep the stink under a tin until dark falls on New Year’s Eve and the whole nation gets maggoted, eh?

Having sat watching this nefarious business for thirty years, I feel vaguely qualified to respond to this article, bit by bit.

The wine industry was exposed to some unpalatable truths this year, as the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation acknowledged that vineyards and winemakers would need to make major changes if they are to survive an ever growing plethora of challenges.

Well, yes. This is the body that has overseen the dumbest broadscale rooting of the Australian countryside, local economies, public health, families, environment and water during the last decades. Its board includes nobody who grows grapes; nobody with actual investment in the wine industry; nobody I would call a particularly talented hands-on winemaker. (There is one winemaking director who is on the board for his marketing skills, according to the original press statements). Two of its small number work for huge transnational companies (Pernod-Ricard; Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey) which are direct rivals of the Australian wine business. Its members change in about one quarter the time it takes a responsible winemaker to decide upon a flavour, find the land, prepare it, plant it, harvest it, convert it from primary to secondary product in the winery, mature it, package it as something gastronomically attractive, market it, promote it, sell it, distribute it, and see it winning respect.

Major changes indeed.

With the preceding "boom time" party now well and truly over, 2009 could prove to be a major turning point for the consortium as small and large operations alike look for innovative measures to help the Australian wine industry recover from what has been a long-running hangover.

Yes. As I have consistently written for thirty years, there is no point in the driest country on Earth buggering arid land and wasting precious water to make cheap rotgut bladder pack quality wine which is two or three times the strength of your average beer for sale to the world at the price of imported water.

2009 IS the major turning point. Things have already changed, and admitting this on New Year’s Eve will not make the facts go away.

This industry is cactus whether these geniuses look for innovative measures or not.

The confronting reality for Australia's wine industry is actually a cautionary tale for all producing countries, says the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation.

Well, yes. The Australian wine industry should immediately advise the world to drop the Australian winemaking recipe immediately. It is Australia’s duty. Through its great publicly-funded halls of academe, like the University of Adelaide, this industry trained thousands of winemakers and sent them out like apostles around the world to advise our rivals how to do things our way. We never seemed to realise that because they had the equivalent of slave labour, no environmental restrictions, and either plenty of water or plenty of water which could be procured illicitly, we never seemed to realise that these countries would be able to make cheaper wine than Australia could.

So before their environments fail like Australia’s, before their water dries out, before their communities drink themselves to oblivion and ruin, of course we should be out there, telling them to stop.

The University of Adelaide should quickly knock a course together, offering a doctorate in how to undo what we’ve just taught these hapless copyists to do.

The people who have encouraged the Australian wine industry to develop to this sickening delusion should all be on the road, at their own expense, apologising, and helping put things right. In Georgia, Romania, China, India, Argentina, Chile ... wherever it’s necessary.

The corporation's market development manager, Paul Henry, says the industry will in all likelihood face production without profit and diminishing bargaining power in the face of attritional retail dynamics caused by the global financial crisis.

Well, yes, and all the above. Has anybody sat down and considered precisely how much wine the world should be expected to drink? That would a handy number to have before we encounter tricky difficulties like the global financial crisis, which wasn’t really much of a surprise to those of us who live moderately and watch.

Despite the ongoing drought, wine production went up this year, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), but lower domestic sales and a drop in exports led to a surplus in wine stocks.

Yes. But this was no surprise. The whole business was looking forward to a bumper harvest until the Lord smote the grapeyards with withering heat. The heat was the surprise. The export slump was predicted; the increase in yields per acre and total tonnes harvested was exactly what the University of Adelaide and the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation have been struggling for decades to achieve. This oversupply – two billion litres in tank at the moment, and another good vintage looming – is the direct result of everything everyone’s struggled for. Just how this industry could justify the use of the extra water required to achieve these enormous increases should confound and enrage the entire community.

"Global financial crisis aside, Australia has manoeuvred itself into a situation where innovation and efficiency in production has outstripped the sector's own ability to manage that capacity," Mr Henry said.

What did I just say?

Exports of Australian wine fell by nine per cent to 715 million litres and the United Kingdom remained the largest importer of Australian wine, taking 268 million litres valued at $895 million. However, Mr Henry says Australia's competitors should be mindful of being hubris.

I think that should be hubristic.

I’ve only met Paul Henry once, and on that short occasion he impressed me. He seemed to understand that he was on his donkey, riding into a seething Jerusalem. But I got the feeling that the only eternal life he could see was the history he’d leave behind. There are not many successful liquidators remembered down through the years.

"These current market and structural challenges are not exclusive to Australia ... they are common to the development cycle of all wine producing countries," he said.

Well, yes, apart from the fact that this country seems to be withering, bleaching and cracking rather faster than those with snow-peaked mountains providing them with ongoing life.

There are no environmental scientists on the board of the Australian Wine And Brandy Corporation, either.

Remaining optimistic the industry will return to its former days of glory, Mr Henry said the real judgment call should not be based on how Australian viniculturists got themselves into such a difficult supply and demand situation, but rather, how and when the industry will get itself out.

Yes, of course. Savoury though the notion be, there is little point in stringing the whole roadside with crucifixes. But what should happen immediately is the old guard, who got this amazing industry into this decrepitude, should never, ever be given another chance. They should take their money and the remnants of their glossy gastroporn fame, and retire, planting native vegetation as they go. They should have no further influence over our own great public institutions, like the University of Adelaide. They should never be permitted to represent or influence this country anywhere, ever.

Which brings us to the question: is there sufficient hot young blood hiding in the hallways and annexes of the Universities and the great glimmering refineries of this country to come out and lead? Have we trained any? If we did, would we recognise them? Are they brave enough to speak? Do they have the intellectual and moral exactitude to do this awful job?

If we haven’t trained any such leaders, then those in charge should in fact be crucified on the roadsides after all.

"The stated aim of the industry is to identify a credible premium to be paid for Australian wine and to move our production and marketing platform towards a quality vision that celebrates sustainable value above unprofitable volume growth," he says.

Doesn’t that mean make better wine at better prices if indeed the environment permits, the market desires, and government tolerates?

Although at the end of 2007 there was concern there would be a mass exodus from viniculture in Australia, experts now say the removal of several vineyards is necessary if the industry is to remain on a sustainable footing.

Several vineyards? The whole mentality of the current “industry” – and that’s it’s own word – is to continue planting enormous broadacre monocultural grapeyards the like of which continue to be planted, lickety-split, right up the Murray darling Basin into Queensland, and all over the bits of the south-western corner of Western Australia which aren’t already dying under intensive bluegum plantations.

The whole mentality of the current “industry” is to keep the grape prices down by forcing out of business the specialist families who’ve hand-worked environmentally-responsible vineyards with modest expectations through drought, bushfire and flood, for generations.

The Australian wine “industry” is about as smart as the American corn industry, which must over-produce to succeed. There are no fences anymore, no plants, no insects, no shops, no townships, nobody with dirt on their hands. Plenty of petrochemicals; plenty of poison. But no flavour.

Despite earlier gloomy predictions, ABS statistics show the total area of grape vines this year was slightly higher than last year at 166,000 hectares and, with production up, yield rose from 9.3 to 11.8 tonnes per hectare.

See? From whence came that water? Eh?

Winemakers Federation of Australia chief executive Stephen Strachan says it is because of the success of the industry in recent years that so many challenges have arisen.

Exactly. We’re so goddam clever – remember hubris? – that we fucked it completely. Greed comes into mind, too.

"We saw a lot of people come into the industry expecting the phenomenal growth to continue and we've got a job to do to try to keep that market share, rather than continue to grow," he says. "Australia, I think, is now the fourth largest wine producer in the world."

There’s a lot of stuff in that par.

The likes of Strachan talked the business up for years, encouraging increased investment. Every extra tonne of grapes grown in Australia sees the Wine And Brandy Corporation budget swell. The money comes from a levy on tonnes harvested.

Which has nothing to do with market share. Share of what? The biggest wine oversupply in history? The biggest recreational drug racket fiasco ever? Share of what?

The ABS says the total grape crush for the 2007-08 vintage came in at 1.8 million tonnes, up by about 30 per cent on last year, and produced 1.2 billion litres of wine.

Giving us two billion litres of very ordinary plonk to sell into a world market that’s already overflowing.

Australia's largest winemakers accounted for 71 per cent of the total crush, while the smaller winemakers averaged 97 tonnes each. Mr Strachan said although the drought continued to ravage the country, the high quality and size of the 2008 vintage surprised a lot of people.

And delighted those big four companies with the 71 per cent, as their costs were delightfully low. Two of those four, half, of course, are not Australian companies, and you needn’t be a cynic to realise Foster’s won’t be Australian for very much longer.

"It was a very challenging vintage because of the size of it and if we have another vintage of that magnitude, then there is a fairly high likelihood that a significant amount of fruit won't be processed," he said. "The bottom line is there needs to be an adjustment downwards in terms of our vineyard capacity in Australia and that will probably happen at a greater pace now because grape prices are going to be very low this year. From an industry perspective we need to see some vineyards removed so we get back on to more stable footing in terms of sustainability."

Okay, Mr. Strachan, we get your drift. We need to lose a quarter of our vineyards. If you like, I can make available thirty years of tasting notes, with say, two to six thousand wines assessed each year. Let’s say we sort them in ascending order of scores, and tell the producers of the bottom quarter that they obviously don’t know what they’re doing and should simply eff off.

That would provide this industry with its biggest ever international marketing message.

If we also locked in a ratio of water used per dollars profit per tonne of grapes, and native vegetation planted to counterbalance the environmental damage inevitably incurred, that would be another incredible marketing message that would be of enormous assistance in notifying the world that we’ve been leading them in the wrong direction, too.

In fact, their drinkers might even forgive us. People might begin to trust us again.

Mr Henry agrees there is an urgent need for rationalisation and downsizing required within the industry. "But there was little consensus about where and who that corrective measure would come from," he said.

Try my suggestion above, Paul.

And while some might expect a limited amount of water to restrict the number of hectares covered in vines, the corporation reports that the physical availability of water is not likely to be a serious constraint on the size of the 2009 harvest. The ABS says nearly all vineyards in Australia were forced to irrigate this season, bringing the average water consumption to 3.2 megalitres per hectare, with drip and micro spray the most common forms of watering.

So?

"About 65 per cent of all wine grapes are grown in South Australia's Murray Darling Basin and even if drought breaks, the issue is not so much how much rain we have but more so how much irrigation there is," Mr Strachan said. "The river is going to take a number of years to fill up after the drought breaks, so the water outlook is not terribly promising."

Does that mean growers should steal water? How does he know this is a drought and that it will break?

He said federal reform was needed in regards to water trading allowed between irrigators and universal allocations.

Oh. Gotcha. Put him in charge of the River.

Wine consumers are proving to be "unforgivingly Darwinian", says the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation. The peak industry body says the market place is showing "little or no interest in any attribute other than volume at low cost".

"The most likely effect of the credit crisis is more conservative spending by consumers and gravitation to lower price points," the corporation's information and analysis manager, Lawrie Stanford said. And Mr Strachan agrees.

"We've got a global financial crisis that's leading to either a reduction in demand or consumers trading down to lower priced wines," Mr Strachan said.

Right. Let me think aloud. Forget most of our export. It’s neither profitable nor sustainable. Half the wine Australia drinks is in bladder packs, right? Mothers’ little helper. The silver pillow; the chrome handbag. Then we have, say, Greenock Creek, or Wendouree, which never makes more than fifty tonnes and never sells a bottle below, say $50.

The chrome is begat by chrome. The glittering refineries; the monoculture; the efficiency; the reliability; the science; the University of Adelaide; the salination; the alcoholism; the health costs; the full jails across the outback.

Wendouree is begat by Wendouree: by its hard dirt; its meagre climate; its humble expectations; its honesty with its customers; the way it decided against releasing any wine this year because it wasn’t good enough.

What do these businesses have in common?

Nothing.

So why are they lumped into one big cuddly “wine industry”?

Because the refineries need some modest honesty to ride upon, that’s why. Some quality, some reality, some gastronomic achievement. Some nuts and berries.

With domestic sales dropping by five per cent, Mr Strachan predicted the figure would continue to grow, particularly if the government introduced a tax on all alcoholic beverages in the new year.

I think he means “continue to fall”.

And the tax issue? Easy. Tax all alcoholic beverages on the amount of alcohol they contain.

Combine the resultant effect with that – cheaper, stronger, higher-volume packs will increase in price; winemakers will be encouraged to make wines of lower alcohol – with the results of my culling process above, and you have a happy, sensible, profitable, sustainable business.

Currently undertaking a review of Australia's tax system, and having already introduced a tax on pre-mixed alcoholic drinks, the government says "it is sometimes possible to improve overall welfare by taxing the consumption of particular commodities that cause social harm".

If government didn’t find these geniuses so easy to shove around then the twisted and arcane tax system the industry has already earned itself would never have been imposed in the first place.

As for pre-mixed alcoholic drinks? All the biggest wine companies have them. The wine industry invented them. In the ’sixties and ’seventies they were called Vin Spa or Pineapple Pearl, in the eighties they were West Coast Cooler and the like. Orlando (Pernod-Ricard) even had one called “e”, obviously hoping that a fair few bit of e would be dropped by the kiddies. The wine industry has always been in the business of selling alcohol any way it can. That is its nature.

But Mr Strachan says he is yet to see evidence that wine plays a big part in Australia's problem with alcohol abuse.

Then Mr. Strachan has never stood in the bed of the Todd River with his eyes open. What began with the gun is being finished by complacency.

With the government having signed an agreement with the European Union last week conceding the use of region-specific names such as champagne, Mr Strachan said Australian consumers might also steer away from their favourite drop for a short period once it was given a new classification.

Boo hoo. No more passing off.

He said wine lovers might be frustrated initially due to products formerly known as champagne, port, sherry and tokay being more difficult to locate on bottle shop shelves.

"It's just more a matter of working through a process where people become aware of a different set of descriptors," he said.

Mr Strachan said the new deal conceding the use of European names would mean less constraints on the way wine was made in Australia, allowing it to be more easily exported.

A different set of descriptors? Has Mr. Strachan ever read the claptrap, codswallop and balderdash that’s written on Australian wine bottles?

Mr Strachan said he expected large scale exporters would survive the economic downturn as a result of the deal, but that he was worried how the smaller-scale premium vineyards would fare.

"Consumers tend to trade down in a time of uncertainty, so they still continue to consume as much wine, but they tend to trade down, so those who are selling premium products are going to find the going pretty tough until we work through all the economic uncertainty."

This suits perfectly the perpetrators of the whole racket, right from the beginning. Trade down, and you support the refineries that have buggered the Murray and the Todd, and their inhabitants, you support the mentality of continual oversupply regardless of its effects, and you will need desperately to maintain status quo, with its morality, its experienced players, and its utter, overwhelming destruction.
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INDIA CHANGES GEAR IN COOL GASTRO CHIC

NEW YORK? NOPE. LA? NAH. ITALY? YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING! THIS IS THE SAN GIMIGNANO RESTAURANT IN NEW DELHI. MARCO POLO BEEN THROUGH LATELY?

WINE LICENSING: INDIA SHOWS USA THE WAY

WINE IS A BIG DEAL IN INDIA, WITH SALES STEADILY CLIMBING AS GOVERNMENT PROMOTES WINE DRINKING AND LIFTS SALES RESTRICTIONS

India Pulls Its Cork

by PHILIP WHITE

As India gradually discovers wine, its lawmakers seem keen to deregulate restrictive laws and get on with it.

One major step is the move to permit department stores to sell wine.

“We are working towards easing regulation on wine production and consumption in the country. Availability of wine would be the first step in this direction. The government is willing to spread wine culture among people and promote vineyards in the country,” an official in the ministry of food processing, who wished not to be named, told the Economic Times of India on New Year’s Eve.”

“Some states, like Delhi, Maharastra, Karnataka and Punjab have already allowed department stores to sell beer provided they get a liquor licence”, ETI reported. “The ministry of food processing along with the department of commerce are of the view that wine should also be treated like beer, which is different from hard liquor such as whiskey and rum. The Delhi government, too, is likely to allow the sale of wine in local stores soon.

“The two arms of the central government are working on a policy to encourage wine making and its consumption in the country. They are also in favour of having a uniform excise duty regime across the state for wine sector. Excise duty on wines is a state subject and varies from state to state.

“To give impetus to wine production and its promotion, the food processing ministry has also set up a National Wine Board to develop standards and promote domestic wine industry, so that they may stand stiff competition thrown by Australian and French wines. Competition from foreign wines is expected to intensify with the recent reduction in customs duties on wines and spirits.

“The ministry argues that promotion of wine culture will lead to agricultural diversification and employment generation in rural India. With the growing popularity, wine farmers in Maharashtra are shifting from plantation of table grapes to wine grapes, said the official. India’s wine market, which is 1.2 million cases, has been growing at 40% this year compared with 2007.”

Meanwhile, in the USA, where many states already enjoy this privilege (to varying degrees – the laws are arcane), a few recalcitrants are still kicking and screaming.

The New Jersey legislature is considering changing its 47-year-old law designed to prevent monopolization, price-fixing and mob influence of liquor stores and introducing similarly liberal legislation. Liquor store owners are up in arms, saying this will lead to supermarket chains gaining control of the retail liquor business.

Fred Leighton, president of the New Jersey Liquor Store Alliance and owner of Bayway World of Liquor in Elizabeth, argued the legislation would hurt struggling business districts, raise the risk of minors illegally obtaining liquor at busy supermarkets, and lead to price hikes.

The director of the state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control said the proposal is unnecessary and would make it more difficult to enforce the drinking age.

"When I see a 15-year-old walk into a liquor store, I assume there is a problem," Jerry Fischer, state ABC director, told the committee. "When I see a 15-year-old walk into a supermarket, I can't assume anything. I have very valid concerns."

The bill would change the existing system that limits any corporation or individual to only two retail liquor licenses statewide. It is being pushed by the New Jersey Food Council, the lobbying arm for such supermarket chains as Acme, Stop & Shop, Pathmark, Whole Foods and Quick Chek.

"The existing law is anti-competitive, unfair and riddled with loopholes," said Deana Lykins, a consultant retained by the N.J. Food Council. "It is a protectionist measure for one part of the liquor industry."

In Albany, upstate New York, opponents to a similar liberalisation of liquor laws also say the proposal by Gov. David Paterson to allow the sale of wine in grocery and convenience stores sounds “as ominous as a death knell”.

"It'll put most of us out of business," Michael Scanlan, co-owner of Niskayuna Wines and Liquors, told The Albany Times Union. "They can sell it for cheaper than we can buy it."

The ATU reported that Scanlan co-owns the cozy Nott Street shop with his brother, Peter Scanlan. Their father opened the store nearly four decades ago. Over those years, he claimed, “proposals for expanded wine sales came and went like tides but never came to fruition”.

Many liquor store owners see the move as inevitable, the report continued, partly because the state deficit is so large and the Paterson administration believes it can raise a quick $105 million in franchise fees from stores and pharmacies that now sell beer and are eager to sell wine.

35 states already allow the sale of wine in food stores. Capital Region stores like Price Chopper and Stewart's sell wine in Vermont locations, for example. Proponents say the proposal is a matter of convenience: while there are only 1,700 licensed liquor stores in New York, there are 18,171 outlets that sell beer; why not let those stores sell wine to make the product more widely available?

Many suggest that huge chains like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's avoid the Capital Region and other upstate areas because of this wine sale limitation.

Yet, directly reflecting the Australian situation, liquor store owners say there's no way they can compete with the big chains’ bulk purchasing power, and consequent discounting, comparing themselves “to the hardware stores that tried, and mostly failed, to conquer big-box competition”. And they say the governor's plan is inherently unfair: under state liquor rules, for example, they are allowed just one location while grocery and convenience stores face no such restriction.

Store owners predicted a small number of liquor stores will survive, mostly those that sell expensive niche wines. But many others, they said, will be imperiled if the Paterson proposal passes.

"In Vermont, you can buy wine anywhere," Rutland said. "But try to find a liquor store."

The NewYork Times meanwhile reported “The retail grocers of New York and Brooklyn feel bitter towards the dry goods department stores that have introduced groceries, wines and liquors ... and charge that the department stores are placing before their women customers ‘an unusual temptation to indulge in alcoholic stimulants’ ...

“W. H. Moss, grocer, Washington and Vesey Streets, said “selling wine and liquors in dry goods stores has a demoralising tendency on women. It offers them temptations to buy whiskey which otherwise they would not be likely to encounter. I would not be surprised to learn that dry goods stores were selling coffins.”

But that was the The New York Times of 17 November, 1894. Nothing changes. Maybe I’d move straight to India.

RED, WHITE AND BLACK - NOT PREGNANT?

THIS SINGLE PHOTOGRAPH IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST CIRCULATING WEB IMAGES THIS NEW YEAR THAT COMES UP WHEN ONE HITS "WINE". IT SHOWS A WOMAN CALLED MARIAH CAREY (LEFT). IT SEEMS THE WHOLE OF THE UNITED STATES MEDIA BELIEVES THIS SINGLE IMAGE PROVES THAT Ms. CAREY IS NOT PREGNANT. HOW DO THEY KNOW? HOW DOES THAT STACK UP? WHO THE HELL IS MARIAH CAREY? WHY IS EVERYBODY WORRIED ABOUT HER? IS IT BECAUSE SHE'S TALKING TO A BLACK LADY? NOPE. IT'S BECAUSE SHE'S HAVING A GLASS OF WINE!

LOOKS BETTER THAN A PHONE

THIS TELEPHONE COMPANY ADVERTISEMENT REMINDS DRINKSTER OF SOMETHING. WHAT DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH TELEPHONES? WHY HASN'T THE WINE INDUSTRY, WITH ALL ITS BILLIONS WASTED ON IDIOTIC MARKETING AND ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS, THOUGHT OF THIS?

LIBERTY ATTACKS FRENCH WINOS

Time To Hit The Streets

by PHILIP WHITE

“One day we shall be so angry about it that we are going to do a demonstration in the street only the French can do and the government will have to listen to us this time!”

So says my winemaker friend from Bordeaux, Jacques Lurton.

I’d sent him an AFP article posted from Bordeaux on Christmas eve, “Sour grapes for French wine in 2008”. This sad account of the neo-wowsers eroding the basic cultural nature of wine in France deserved a rapid response.

Jacques is the man.

Savage demonstrations are indeed due. If the French fall, Australia’s wowser interferist exclusive Brethren pinko humanist Ruddy do-gooders will have a field day. That lot are already on the march. Against the wine lover.

The AFP article claimed wine, “a once proud symbol of the nation's identity, is now swirling in a cocktail of alcohol abuse legislation. Long viewed as a quintessential part of the French lifestyle, along with fine foods and good living, wine is slumping so low in the national esteem that winemakers have even complained of being treated like drug dealers by the government, and their websites put on a par with porn.

“One recent survey highlighting the change in popular attitudes to wine showed that 51 percent of people now considered the national drink ‘risky’.”

“It is a very well documented article and yes it is true”, Jacques shot back. “When you look at it from the angle of a foreign reader it looks like this is a nightmare situation!

“But in France people who want to get drunk never use wine as it is considered a drink to pair with food. Only if you go to a wine producer’s place for dinner or lunch you will be asked if you’d like a glass of wine for an aperitif but in every other private house or at the bar people drink other kinds of alcoholic beverages.”


Raphael Berger, of the statistics centre on living conditions, CREDOC, which issued the study, said "Wine in France used to escape the negative perceptions of being an alcoholic drink ... much of the change in attitude was related to ongoing government efforts to control alcoholism and abuse”.

France's Health Ministry has been reasonably successful in its recent blitz on drink drivers, and “spent much of 2008 preparing new laws to curb teenage binge drinking and alcohol abuse”.

This year will see the legal age for purchasing alcohol increased from 16 to 18, a ban on happy hours and open bars (with a flat fee to drink as much as possible withing a limited time), and a possible prohibition on free wine tastings.

“While French doctors once tolerated a few glasses of champagne during pregnancies” AFP said, “new legislation now obliges producers to print a ‘no drinking during pregnancy’ logo on bottles”.

This new low for quality French producers was previously the domain of the USA alone, which the French had found quaintly ridiculous.

“We all know that 90% of road accident due to alcohol drinking is not caused by wine but vodka and other strong alcohol beverages” Jacques retorted.

“Have you ever seen a young French drinking wine in a night club? If you look at what people buy in supermarkets for parties this is never wine but cheap whiskies, vodkas, cocktails etc. ... mixed with Schweppes”.

"Instead of encouraging moderate drinking, we are frightening people and demonising wine," Georges Haushalter, head of Bordeaux's Wine Merchant Union, told AFP.

France’s wine consumption has slid steadily to 64 litres per person a year from 75 litres in the early 1990s. While this margin was once easily mopped up by export, South America, South Africa and Australia have invaded those low-price markets traditionally regarded as safe property by the French, leaving the monetary collapse of 2008 to savage the upper end of the French portfolio.

While even the Chinese felt wine to be a safe investment haven, the last few months have seen the Liv-ex, the leading fine wine exchange, get big-time jitters, in October recording its largest fall – 12.4% - since its inception in 2001. Liv-ex fell another 5.5% in November, while Bordeaux prices fell 25%.

In value terms, the director of the Federation of Wine and Spirit Exporters (FEVS), Renaud Gaillard, told AFP he sees “a zero increase for the end of 2008 ... The potent mix of negative conditions for 2009 is even more worrying, he said. "There is no indicator we will be coming out of this crisis quickly."

As if all that wasn’t bad enough, 2008 was a difficult vintage in Bordeaux, throwing frosts, hail, torrential rains, and resultant mildew and botrytis at producers. While some winemakers are almost happy, the “vintage was expensive and one of the lowest on record, leading to supply problems and shortages of certain products such as Bordeaux whites”.

Apparently learning from China’s skills in stifling political discussion on the internet, France continues to fail to legally legitimise the Internet as a medium for alcohol publicity. AFP reports “draft legislation leaked to the press earlier this year, which attempted to legalise wine ads, proposed limiting access to wine sites to certain hours -- the same regulations proposed for pornographic sites” ... and, it continues, “self-censorship is rife since Heineken, Moet and Le Parisien have all been convicted of “promoting wine drinking.

“A national magazine article about a Books and Wine fair, which carried the fair's wineglass logo, was also forced to carry a government health warning ... and the Ubifrance 2008 report on exports concludes with a warning that reads ‘This is not intended to incite consumption of alcoholic drinks’."

In October, winemakers in Bordeaux, Champagne and Burgundy painted over road signs pointing to their regions as a protest against wine censorship, and the new wine tax.

“Alleged government hostility to wine reached such proportions in 2008” AFP continued, “that two prominent wine journalists accused the government of hindering wine consumption to boost sales of anti-depressants in order to pander to the stronger pharmaceuticals lobby ... winemakers claim they have been relegated to the category of dealers and angrily complain that France's leading export is no longer trumpeted by the government”.

"Viticulture products are placed in the same category as drugs," Jean-Charles Tastavy, an independent wine producer and member of the Council for Moderation and Prevention, recently said.

The outlook for the future is not bright despite good demand for his wines, Thomas Duroux, director of Chateau Palmer, told AFP.

"In terms of communication, 2008 has been a horrible year," he said. "France is the world's most important wine producer, and we have the most restrictive advertising legislation. Is this because (President Nicholas) Sarkozy doesn't drink, or because our system of (anti-alcohol) lobbies is too strong?"

Sarko? Doesn't drink? Bullshit! Click on his name - that was the second image Google suggested when I asked for "French people drinking".

Back to our friend Jacques.

“It’s a crazy situation” he said, “and nonsense, as wine is so much part of our culture. The wine industry brought more money into the external French balance last year than the entire Airbus business. This has nothing to do with our actual president as this anti wine campaign started long ago when we had a socialist prime minister and Chirac as a president.

“I must say our president wants to help the wine industry to export” he continued “but he is not showing strong signs of changes on the domestic market because it is not a popular subject.

Agriculture in France is less than 7% of the active population and we are seen as people living on subsidies or we are considered very wealthy if you own a chateau so our image is not good enough for the politics to show us as victim. It is true the French wine industry has been too long subsidised and some producers - mostly from the south of France - have given our industry a bad image.

“At the moment the French market remains the largest in the world and there is still possibilities to sell wines in France” Jacques said.

“The problem is more for the large negociants, with their big brands, and champagne producers, who have came to the point of a very expensive product due to grape price, assisted by the export market buying at any price.

“But if you talk to a little producer who cultivates relationships with his clients in France by visiting them an serving them directly? He is still selling wine!

“Another aspect which hasn't helped our wines to be exported is the euro currency which has been too strong for too long against every other currency. Now things are better but it is too late as the world collapse has slowed every thing down.”