Welcome to the future

Written by Malcolm Gluck

Thursday, 11 September 2008

The July 11 issue of this magazine contained two disassociated snippets of information regarding Australian wine, which have long occupied my own thoughts (in my soon-to-be-published book, The Great Wine Swindle, I speculate on the implications in greater depth).

The first snippet concerned Camden Park, a label created, grown, and bottled in South Australia but which, since its recent acquisition by Origin wine, has now become an Argentine wine without so much as a break in step or a hiccup in installation.

Harpers reported that Thresher will continue to stock the wine, whatever its provenance. I have little doubt that fans of the liquid will not protest. Who gives a hoot, they will say, where the Shiraz or the Pinot Grigio come from as long as those reassuring names appear?

The second snippet concerned my old acquaintance, Kerri Thompson, who once held the winemaking reins at Leasingham in the Clare Valley. Her decision to quit the job and develop her own label, KT & The Falcon, first surfaced in her mind as a result of an idea mooted by Leasingham's new owners, Constellation, that perhaps the label could be extended to include fruit from the Riverland. The plan was not implemented. But I am sure it will be.

Put the snippets together and you have the first faint glimmerings, the first petri-dish writhings, of that monster of the future: the wine brand which can come from anywhere and be made of anything.

How else can Australian major brand producers, like Yellow Tail, Hardys, Rosemount, and Penfolds, cope with the crippling drought which has seen the annual Aussie harvest fall by nearly half? They cannot underwrite the irrigation and they cannot simply buy all available Aussie grapes. They have to buy, or manufacture, elsewhere.

South American juice has been shipped into Australia for some time for reprocessing into cheap Aussie wines and, appropriately labelled, has gone on legal sale in Australia. Such imported juice could easily be used for export wines; it only requires jiggering with easily bent wine laws. If such legerdemain is not undertaken, how will the big brands survive as major exports? I bet a day doesn't go by that an Aussie wine brand manager doesn't look at a can of Coke and mutter: "If only".

Malcolm gluck is the wine critic of The Oldie magazine