2004 - The Wine Year in Review

Torbwine offers a snapshot of the past twelve months, the highlights, the low-lights, the best of the new releases plus much more. Settle back and grab a glass of good red and read 2004 - The Year in Review.

There were three vinous highlight events for me this year; the first was the Victorian Tour, the second was the South Australian Tour and finally Wine Australia 2004 was a great way to finish the wine year. I have no idea how many wines I tasted during the year but it must be getting close to a thousand.  Tasting notes on the majority of the wines can be found at www.torbwine.com.

Wine from the 2002 vintage started to be released and the early signs are most encouraging. The McLaren Vale and the Barossa regions look like they will be standouts. Coonawarra and much of Western Australia did not fare as well. The 2004 vintage looks like it will be similar to 2002 but 2003 was a severe drought year in much of Australia and one where purchases will need to be careful and very much “try before you buy”.

I dislike lists that state “The Best or Top 10/20/100/500” of the year etc because in many ways they can be meaningless as a wine can show poorly or well on a particular day for a variety of reasons. Just have a look at the wine shows where a wine can win a trophy in one show and bomb in the next. Also, just because a wine gains a gazillion points from one reviewer does not mean it is worth chasing or paying a premium for once it has been “blessed.”

Rather than providing readers with a list of the best wines in terms of quality or value, to my way of thinking the best indicator is to have a look at the wines I have purchased.  It is always interesting to see where my wine dollars were spent and when I looked at this year’s expenditure, once again it was surprising.

The wineries were I spent over $1000 (in alphabetical order) were:

Torbreck – certainly quality not quantity.

Yalumba – both quality and quantity

The wineries where I spent between $500 and $999 (in alphabetical order) were:

Blackjack

Classic McLaren

Fox Creek

Houghton

Jasper Hill

Kaesler

Kalleske

Penfold

Peter Lehmann

Rockford

Summerfield

Turkey Flat

Veritas

Wendouree

The wineries where I spent between $300 and $499 (in alphabetical order):-were

Balnaves

Bests

Buller

Burge Family

Cofield

d’Arenberg

Kay Bros

Leasingham

Morris

Moss Wood

Seppelt

It is interesting to note the majority of the expenditure has gone to the smaller wineries, a trend that would be similar to many other wine lovers. The big four or five producers may be responsible for over 90% of bottled wine production but they are representing an ever decreasing percentage of my wine purchasing dollars. Whilst the big boys may produce well made wine, in many cases they are no longer as interesting as they once were and there is generally better value to be found elsewhere. As the global players desert the Australian consumers (or at least at the premium end of the market) for the rewards of globalism and overseas markets, the smart Australian consumers have happily found many alternatives to purchase.

There is another factor in the decline of my expenditure with the large companies.  A large proportion of the production of the large companies is now geared towards early drinking style red wines.  In the past, many of the icons that were purchased year in and year out, were medium to long-term wines that benefited from time in the cellar. This stylistic shift in most cases does not appeal to me, so the money spent on these wines have gone to smaller producers.

All is not rosy for the top players. Constellation is fairing best but it is still enjoying the early days of the marriage. The problems and issues that have faced the others majors after a merger may not have had enough time to bubble to the surface yet but Constellation may not face to face the same set of challenges the others faced for one main reason. In the case of Southcorp and Blass, the major components in the merger were Australian based entities, in the case of Hardy and Constellation; Constellation had a much more significant presence in the US which may the business marriage more compatible, easier to manage and offer faster US market penetration for the Australian arm’s wines.

Both Southcorp and Beringer Blass still have significant ongoing problems to overcome and profitability issues to resolve proving that being big is neither a panacea or the easy answer to profitability. On the next rung down in terms of size, many of the wineries have done well in the profit stakes. Many of the smaller wineries did not have an easy time of it either and as the retail consolidation continues and the two big grocers gain a greater stranglehold on wine retailing, it will continue to be difficult for them to gain distribution outlets.

The poor growers can’t win either. The 2004 vintage was very good but selling the grapes posed problems for many growers, especially the newer ones with no contracts.

As far as exports are concerned, the Australian wine industry is still very healthy, especially in the two largest markets the UK and the US, however not everything is as rosy as it could be.  Recently in the UK, there appears to be a concerted push by some journalists to denigrate Australian wine by saying that we are no longer as competitive as we once were, our wines are mass produced sunshine in a bottle and other countries are catching up to us.  In the US, at the top end, whilst the Parker followers will still chase the highly-pointed wines, we are no longer seen as the “highly desirable fashion item” that we were a few years ago.  The run-of-the-mill wines however are still holding their own, but it is at the bottom end where the likes of Yellow Tail play, that the Australian wine industry is doing exceedingly well.  Whilst this is great for volume, it does little for dollars per litre unless there is an ocean of them.

Shiraz and Chardonnay continue to be the grape of choice for many wine drinkers but at the other end of the spectrum, many wineries are starting to play with traditional Spanish and Italian varieties. d’Arenberg could be considered a leader in this field with a bewildering array of new blends but they are far from the only ones playing around in unchartered waters. It will be interesting to see how these new wines develop because it’s not just a matter of planting a new variety, watching the grapes grow and then making the wine in the same old way. As Mike Brown from Gemtree told me “with Tempranillo, I had to throw out the traditional winemaking book, forget everything I know and learn how to make it all over again.”

The Italian varieties are well known for their food friendliness and as we are a nation of food and wine lovers, these new varieties have huge potential and many of the drinkers who get hooked on them may be new to wine which can only be a good thing for the industry.

The hottest topic of the year is that of alternative closures. The move towards Stelvin in particular, is continuing to gain momentum and market acceptance in Australia and the UK, but judging by some of the bovine manure that has made sprouted on some US wine forums recently, (the thread contained 542 posts before it was locked) the US in particular is still trying to overcome the jug wine, wino mentality associated with screwcaps.  Whilst there is a strong alternative closure lobby, many of whom believe that Stelvins are the answer to everything and can do no wrong, one of the best articles on the closure debate came from Campbell Mattinson in Winefront Monthly, where he stated “Cork can be a beautiful thing, but it scores little more than average as a device for blanket use. Importantly, despite the teething problems that screwcaps will no doubt encounter, if all cork could suddenly guarantee to both protect wine from oxidation and be taint-free, there are many wines and wine styles that would still be better served by a screwcap seal. This is a decisive, clinching point. Some wines may well be best under cork, or a cork-like device. And some will be best served under screwcap. It is now time to stop barracking and start thinking of which way the wine itself would like us to jump.”

Whilst there are many proponents for Stelvin and as much as I hate TCA and other cork-related problems, the reality is that at this point in time, there is no definitive answer as to how red wine will age in the longer term under ROTE seals.  I fully agree with Campbell, in that some wines may age a better under cork than Stelvins and only time and more research will provide the answer.

Is incredible to think that with all the technological facilities at our disposal, that so little is understood about how red wine ages in the bottle. The mind boggles when you consider that you can put a remote-controlled micro camera into a person's veins and watch the results in real time as the camera travels around the body. Yet science really has no understanding about something as seemingly simple as how wine ages and in particular the role of microscopic amounts of air in the process.

The auction market has gone from strength to strength; in particular Langton's growth has been phenomenal.  For some strange reason the Melbourne auctions seem more popular than the Sydney auctions and in many cases look like they attract higher prices and better clearance rates.  Many of the smaller players are finding it increasingly difficult to operate as Langton’s gain an increased market share.

More and more wine information, which is freely and easily accessible, is finding its way onto the Internet.  Wine lovers are becoming increasingly savvy at taking advantage of this information, which in the longer term, is going to make it increasingly difficult for many wine publications to remain financially viable. Wine forums are continuing to gain in popularity and provide a marvellous vehicle for exchanging information for both inexperienced and experienced wine lovers.

If I gaze into my crystal ball and see what 2005 is going to bring, I forecast that:

• the price of Grange will drop by 50%,

• the Portuguese cork industry will come up with a 100% iron-clad, guaranteed solution to cork taint and oxidisation,

• Woolworths and Coles will sell all their bottle shops to independent operators, and

• Southcorp's share price will triple and/or they will be taken over.