Articles
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Sydney Time
Copyright © Ric Einstein 2009
Links to Past Articles
- 2005 2004 2003
2002 2001
Current Articles 2006
The TORBWine Trophy Winner for Bureaucratic BS and
Bad Customer Service
(9 November)
Getting defective wine replaced in Australia is normally pretty simple and most
large companies have procedures in place that look after their customers well.
The smaller wineries are normally pretty easy too. Over the years I have had a
number of less than impressive experiences with one particular large company but
my latest experiences takes more than the cake. These guys deserve a Trophy for
their unique handling of the replacement of defective wine.
And the Trophy goes to....
“Natalie Decants” a bottle of plonk
Natalie MacLaine is a prolific Canadian journalist who, as an absolute
master at self-promotion, sends out a professional looking newsletter fairly
regularly. Her articles appear in the Australian press from time to time, and no
doubt in newspapers all around the world. In her latest newsletter, she details
the woes and plights faced by the Australian wine industry and in her own
words, she states that she "expects the article to cause some controversy". There
is nothing wrong with creating controversy, especially when it is designed to
foster positive debate; unfortunately from my perspective, the article fails to
achieve that objective, and the way I see it, uses "Oz bashing" to try and
create the controversy. Read all about it
here.
Rockford - An Embarrassing
Rag (18 October)
The Rockford Winery Stonewall Members wait with baited breath for the annual
(spring) Rockford Rag to hit their mail boxes. The newsletter contains the order
form which allows them the privilege of ordering the hard to obtain Basket
Press and Black Shiraz. The newsletter is written by Robert
O'Callaghan and normally comes across as a "mate corresponding with another
mate" about a mutual interest; it seems very "folksy and personal." All good
stuff! It also contains a fair amount of serious content, including Robert's
comments on the newly released wines. This year, Robert devoted his comments on
the famous Black Shiraz to explain a bit about the background of the
wine, but most of it was a justification on why they continue to use cork to
seal the wine. This is despite the fact that the leakage rate in Black Shiraz is
horrific and one could drive a Mac Truck though the holes in his comments;
something I have done in this article.
In September The Pie King, Red Bigot and I spent a week doing what we do
best together; tasting (and drinking) lots of good wine and eating far to much
good food (whilst I tried to avoid the pies.) Prior to posting the 2006 SA Tour
Diaries, this introduction will provide a SA vintage comparison and latest
update. It will also cover some of our major findings, both good and bad, as
well as our overall impressions. Its a great way to set the scene and can be
found here.
Is it Duck, Turkey or Chicken?
(20 September)
Most reasonable people would assume that the majority of professional
judges would see many similar attributes when they are judging a particular
wine. In the case of wine shows, when a wine receives
a medal, the three judges involved have awarded an aggregate score that merits
the medal but the public has no idea about the attributes of the wine, however
there is one wine competition where the skirts are lifted and consumers get to
see what normally remains well hidden. The competition is the Sydney
International Wine Show which not only awards medals, but posts the tasting
notes made by the individual judges too. Choosing eight wines at random and
comparing the tasting notes and judges throughs, shows how even professionals
can see wines so differently; it's a real eye opener. The story can be found
here.
The (Australian) Wine Emperor Is Dead - Long Live the Doctor
What’s it All Mean? (30 August)
Dan Berger, one of the US's most respected wine critics recently
addressed the NSW Wine Press Club. The comments on his topic, “The
quality or the critter? Australian wines and the American palate” were
dubbed as "provocative” by the Press Club, and whilst a little of what he said
(in my opinion) was flat out improbable or wrong, I must be controversial too,
as I agree with most of Dans comments. Possibly they were deemed provocative
because they went against the establishment's line, but that doesn't mean much
of what Dan said is not in the best interests of premium producers, even if it
causes the local press indigestion. This article examines the main points made
and my take on them.
Damned if You Do - Screwed if You Don't
(16 August)
In the
article which presented an overview of my visit to Plonk Oz 2006, I
made mention of the number of red wines I found that had reductive characters.
My email mate Murray in NZ, pointed me in the direction of an expert in the
field, Alan Limmer of the
Stonecroft Winery.
Alan was kind enough to throw some brilliant light onto the subject, and his
simple explanation and comments will be valuable to all wine lovers. It started
off as being a small amount of feedback and due to Alan's continued input, it is
now a fully blown article and a good one too (most of it is his content.) It
explores why wine under screwcaps can be stinky and exposes a major myth
about the whole process; one that all winemakers who are considering using
screwcaps should know about. The article can be found
here.
Desperado and Drugs of Addiction
(2 August)
When Brian edited this story, he sent back an insightful comment about it,
"Interesting and slightly depressing stuff." Now I know that people don't want
to read depressing stuff, so there is a bit of humour thrown in too, but the
message contained in this story is deadly serious. The story starts off with an
Australian producers struggle to find a good US importer to handle his wine and
then, thanks to a soul bearing confession from Mike Opdahl, a very
well-respected US importer, it details chapter and verse why it is so hard to
find one. More importantly, Mike provides a rare insiders perspective to
the problems facing Australian wineries that want to crack the US market, and
tells why some have been successful and why many will fail. Its powerful stuff
and can be found here.
Trouble at the Top End – Consumer Perspective
When I wrote
Trouble
at the Top End it generated a large amount of feedback from within the
retail industry, but there was another side to the story that needed to be
explored. I wanted to get the US consumers' perspective and find out
their feelings as to why Australian wines were no longer "flavour of the month," so I
asked the good folk on the WCWN Forum. Their response was enlightening
and has lead to this article, which can be found
here.
Wine Australia 2006 - Overview
(20 July)
Its over for another two years but
this event was the most successful since Melbourne in 2000, if not the most
successful ever. This overview will give you an idea of the magnitude of the
event, what we got up and what's to follow in the full story. It can be found
here.
Open Mouth and Extract Foot
(19 July)
Imagine your surprise; you have a wine blog, write up some tasting notes months
ago and then out of the blue, receive a one sentence
email threatening unspecified legal action unless you remove them from your
site. That's exactly what happened to
Cam Wheeler from
Appellation Australia, needless to say Cam was shocked
and asked a number of people for advice. This article tells the whole story; it
contains the content of an exchange of emails between Cam and the winery, it
names the winery and naturally contains my no holds barred commentary. It can be
found here.
An Industry Fractured
(12 July)
In some ways the more things change the more they stay the same. The Australian
wine industry has been through a number of boom, bust, boom cycles only this
time, the industry is far bigger and affects many more people.
Foster's now controls about 30% of the industry whilst the top dozen companies
are producing about 85% of Australia's wine production. Over 50% of
wine sold in Australia is bag-in-a-box, and 80% of all bottled wine sells for
less than $15 a bottle; this has resulted in a industry that has been
fractured into two groups with different requirements. The first group
are the players chasing volume production in a global market place, whilst the
second are trying to capture the limited number of premium buyers. Whilst
Foster's to Unload a Crown Jewel
(5 July)
Many wine lovers outside of Australia may never have heard of "Seppeltsfield;"
the winery is responsible for the biggest and best range of fortified wines in
Australia and is steeped in over 150 years of rich history, and a cellar full of
aged material that is even richer; indeed it is irreplaceable. By Fosters own
admission, Seppeltsfield is not just the jewel in the Barossa's crown, it
is possibly "the jewel in the Australian wine crown" so why do Foster's
want to unload it and what is likely to happen to this iconic winery. To get the
"good oil" I spoke to
Matt Schmidt, Corporate Affairs Manager of Foster’s Wine Estates, to find
out all about it. The story can be found
here.
It Was Entirely Predictable
(28 June)
You didn't need to be a rocket scientists to see the grape glut coming;
Australia has had a number of boom and bust vine cycles in the past and this one
was undoubtedly the most predictable, so how did it happen; why have so many
been caught out and more importantly, what will happen over the next few years
to rectify the situation? These questions and more are answered in
this article.
Opportunity Lost - The Mind Boggles
(21June)
My thanks to the readers who provided both the idea and background for this
story. Everyone knows Australia has a huge wine excess to get rid of ,and any
sane person could be excused for thinking that the Australian wine industry
would do all they could to take advantage of every opportunity available to sell
their product, but that is simply not the case. Last month, there was a huge
trade show (Vinexpo) in Hong Kong which specifically caters to the Asian market.
The fact that China and India are two markets that have the greatest long term
potential growth for wine consumption clearly does not interest the myopic
Australian wine industry. We had virtually no presence at the show despite the
fact that a huge amount of business is successfully conducted there; the
Australian attendees I spoke to were stunned at our lack of interest. Read all
about it here.
A Heritage Wine Investor Tells His Story
(14 June)
The existence and survival of the premium end of the Australian wine industry is
dependant upon success in export markets, and the US market is now probably the
most critical component in that equation. The bad news is that market is
starting to under perform and based on current trends, it looks like it will
only get worse, leaving many premium producers with a serious stock hangover.
This article, which is one of the most important I have written for some time,
explores the current situation and the background reasons. It can be found
here and should not be missed.
Good for Consumers but....
(18 May)
not good for producers. For the small or boutique premium producers,
distribution of Australian wine is becoming an increasingly more difficult task.
Locally, the dominance of the two large grocery chains is making it harder and
harder to get shelf space and this article
examines the problems and what some wineries are doing to find solutions.
Valuable Wine Device, Party Trick
or Snake Oil?
(18 May)
Over the years, a number of wine
devises have been released that promised all sorts of miraculous advantages, but
to the best of my knowledge none of them have lived up to the
promises. The last round of new miracle devices revolved around magnetism
and its ability to instantly age wine but most wine lovers found the product
wanting. The newest device, called
Clef du Vin claims it "allows you to enjoy today the full potential of a
lay down wine, which would have otherwise waited for years." In theory, this is
achieved by the device by "gradually modifying amongst other things the balance
in oxidation-reduction." The Australian importer was kind enough to lend me one
to put through its paces, the results can be
found here.
Reporting or Advertising? (a
parody)
(11 May)
Glossy magazines have one objective; make money ! There are only two ways to do
that, sell advertising or sell copies, and the advertising
is far more profitable than subscriptions, so publications do everything in
their power to make the advertising offer as attractive as possible. Ever pick
up a magazine and wonder what is advertising and what is copy? Frequently the
lines are blurred, and one can only wonder how much the copy is influenced by
the advertising revenue. This story looks at
these wavy lines.
Land of the free, home of the
brave
(4 May)
The crap that people have to go through to buy a bottle of wine in the US
boggles the mind. It is beyond restrictive, it is plain stupid and does not make
any sense at all, but when you get a combination of puritanical attitudes and
vested corrupt political interests whose primary concern is to get themselves
re-elected, expecting a reasonable and sensible attitude stands no chance. Want
to buy a gun? No problem; want to buy wine, now that's hard! Read about it
here.
Rules
The French are aghast and think we are vinous pariahs because we can and do add
add tartaric acid to our wine. The
other side of that coin is that many in Australia think that it is sacrilegious
to add sugar to wine, yet the French think that is perfectly acceptable.
So how do these winemaking rules come about and who is right and who is wrong?
Find out all about it here.
A Dozen Soaks (25 April)
Recently a bunch of winos from
Sydney and Canberra came up to Bowral in the Southern Highland for a
get together. There were 12 of us all up and what a night it turned out to be;
excellent food, great wine and convivial company. What more could a person ask
for. All the details can be found here.
West Australian 2006 Tour Diary
Summary (February)
With past Tour Diaries it has been tradition to post a Vintage Report (which
puts things in perspective) prior to the posting of Chapter One. This one breaks
with tradition; although the vintages are covered as part of a bigger story.
That story could be almost described as The Bigot Brothers go Myth Busting in
Margaret River. When I was telling one SA winemaker a little what I was going to
write about, he jokingly suggested I should be careful of fully laden semi
trailers with WA number plates.
The WA and Margaret River wine associations will not like the comments, but the
better quality wines will no doubt agree with them. The story can be
found here.
There Is Still One Born Every Minute
(23February)
I can't believe it! After the failure of two wine investment funds and massive
amounts of publicity, a third company is still at it and given that this company
is still operating, there are still those foolish enough to be investing in
them. I didn't just file this email in the round filing cabinet in the ether, a
bit of research and investigation was called for to see what this was all about
and the results are interesting. You can not only drive a truck through the
logic in their sales pitch, you can drive a fleet of pantechnicons in horizontal
line abreast through it and not touch the sides. P.T. Barnum was indeed correct,
there must be one born every minute. Read all about it
here.
‘Twas a Black Day
(9February)
This story was prompted by having problems with two bottles of Rockford Black
Shiraz in one week; both cork related. That got the brain cells ticking and I
started doing some research. Why don't more wine companies use artificial
closures for sparkling wines and are artificial closers as good as cork, better
than cork or worse than cork?
The answer to that question depends on who you talk to, but now that I have
talked with a number of industry players, I can provide a balanced opinion.
My bet is that within five years, crown seals on Australian sparkling wines will
have the same acceptance as Stelvins have on white wine today. The story can be
found here.
If You Think Making Wine Is Tough in the Sahara, Try Siberia
(2 February)
The recent press reports have been deluged with stories about the plight facing
both growers and the industry as a whole. It is no coincidence that there have
been so many articles about the plight of the growers and their fights with the
likes of McGuigan who have been trying to walk away from contracts, but these
stories do not even begin to scratch to depth of the issue. Last week the
Australian Bureau of Statistics published numbers that are truly frightening and
these numbers backed up earlier industry estimates that had been kindly sent to
me by one member winery.
Now if you think the growers in the Riverland are complaining and have it tough,
they are in relatively good shape in comparison to the premium growing areas
like Barossa, Margaret River and Heathcote. The size of the problem, as revealed
by the numbers in this article are truly staggering an show the perilous
position that the premium growers face. This story
is a must read.
They All Taste The Same
(26 January)
Whilst I was wading my way through 50 of the top Shiraz from 2002 at the
The 2002 Great
Shiraz Taste Off
Copyright © Ric Einstein 2006
Things are never stable for long in the today's wine world. Brands come and
brands go; wine styles change, prices go up and down in less time than it takes
for a politician to break an election promise, and much of the market is
dictated by ever changing, fashion like trends. Robert Parker has been dubbed
"The Emperor of Wine," and as the worlds most powerful wine critic, has had a
tremendous influence on Australian wine sales in the all important US market
place since the release of the 1998 vintage. But that influence is about
to be no more. Two staff writers on the Wine Advocate staff are leaving and new
guns have been hired to take their place, which has resulted in a change of
responsibilities and areas of coverage. Read all about what this means for
Australian wine here.
Almost everyday I receive emails from wine merchants offering all sorts of
deals; you know the sort of thing.... Mount River Hill 2002 Premium Reserve Old
Trellis Wombat Kangaroo Wallaby Shiraz Cabernet Grenache Viognier from a single
vineyard and reduced from $102.79 to a members only price of $27.83; and its
from the vintage of the decade, received 94 points from Fredrick J. Bloggs Esq.
(the renowned Sommelier at the Greezy Spoon Epicure Diner in downtown Dry
Gulch North Dakota) and has won a Platinum Trophy in class 4971at the Murmansk
International Borsht and Sturgeon Agricultural Show which makes it the very
bestest wine in the whole damn wide world. This
article will explain in short, direct language what retailers claims
actually mean - or don't as the case may be.
An Eminent US Journalist's View of Australia
(22 August)