Before the laser age they said a tree was best measured when it was down. But to get the measure of a wine vintage, there are no precision aids, just personal judgement. And since no vintage is all good or all bad, it takes time, perhaps a decade or two in the case of the best reds, for a clear picture to emerge.

Vintage 1995, if for nothing else, could be remembered as the year winemaker fell short by a quarter of a million tonnes short of grapes. But it was also a year of great contrasts, likely to produce a few fabulous wines but mostly good average quality. It was also a vintage that set back the financial plans of some by two years or more while giving grape growers who escaped crop losses windfall prices.

Rothbury Estate Chief Executive, Dennis Power, tells me crops in the Hunter Valley were the lowest in memory with losses from some vineyards as great as 70 per cent. He says surprisingly good whites and blockbuster reds of a once-in-a-lifetime quality compensate a little for the otherwise devastating losses.

Power’s neighbour, Bruce Tyrrell, reckons the Hunter’s total harvest at 40 per cent down on previous years. Then, with a touch of black humour, tells of a mechanical harvester operator setting off into a vineyard that normally yields 15 tonnes, coming back with 0.78 tonnes — and writing it in the register as 780 kilograms. It sounded better he said.

In the West, Paul Lapsley, Chief wine maker for Houghtons, reports a smaller than average year with the Swan and Moondah Brook bringing grapes to maturity rapidly under hot, dry conditions that favoured Chenin Blanc and Verdelho. Margaret River, affected by two years of drought, suffered volume declines, too, but semillon and cabernet quality appears very good.

From the Mount Barker and Frankland River area, Lapsley rates shiraz and sauvignon blanc as very good. And having tasted Merv Lange’s Alkoomi Frankland River Sauvignon Blanc 1995 last week, I cannot argue.

Tasmania, according to the folks at Heemskerk, probably crushed more grapes than average. And being a cool vintage, sparkling and white grapes fared well, particularly chardonnay, while red varieties struggled to ripen.

From the Yarra Valley, Domaine Chandon’s Wayne Donaldson loved the vintage from a sparkling wine-maker’s view. Cool ripening conditions saw red table-wine varieties struggling to ripen, but pinot noir and chardonnay destined for bubbly met quality and volume targets. But as the Yarra varies so much, there are bound to be tales both happy and sad from its many makers.

Southcorp wine maker, Peter Taylor, offered a thumbnail sketch of several regions within his domain: the Barossa was down in quantity but made outstanding shiraz; McLaren Vale may have been down a little and made average wines; Langhorne Creek was down and the fruit just average; and the Eden and Clare Valleys, while down in volume made outstanding shiraz.

From the all-important Limestone Coast, Wynns wine maker, Peter Douglas, estimates combined crush for Coonawarra-Padthaway a healthy 50-60 thousand tonnes (around 4 million cases) with great quality contrasts. Coonawarra and Padthaway whites were outstanding, while reds overall were average.

Collectors will not see any Wynns John Riddoch, Michael Hermitage or Penfolds Bin 707 from the 1995 vintage, Douglas says, but there are good quantities of Wynns Black Label Cabernet and Penfolds Bin 389 now in barrel. And he rates Padthaway as the best source of South Australian cabernet for 1995.

Down in Rutherglen, Robin Pfeiffer reports a small vintage that might have been a disaster had it been bigger! Drought-stressed vines set small grape crops early in the season. Then cool conditions replaced the heat and persisted. Because of the small grape load, vines found the energy to deliver full ripeness. That would not have been the case, she says, if the crop had been a normal size.

Ian McKenzie of Seppelts Great Western Winery reports spectacular central Victorian shiraz and says he’s fighting to keep it out of some pretty prestigious blends over in the Barossa.

In our own backyard, Canberra district seems to have struck its biggest and best vintage yet, according to Ken Helm.

As they say, it was a season of contrasts. But the smart money at this early stage seems to be on Hunter, Clare, Barossa, Eden Valley and Central Victorian Shiraz and on Coonawarra and Padthaway Chardonnay.

Some months back I wrote of the massive shortfall in the 1995 vintage (around 250,000 tonnes of grapes) and how it would translate to higher wine prices. After much looking over shoulders at competitors, major companies are now posting wholesale price increases on most products from July 1.

The price increases are in part to recoup dramatically higher vintage costs — mainly by way of vastly increased grape prices but also because fixed costs are much the same for a small vintage as for a large one, hence a higher production cost per case in small years like 1995 — and in part to retard consumption until supplies catch up with demand.

Producer price increases are always multiplied by Federal and State ad valorem taxes and retailer margins. However, (and the timing could not be worse for the industry or wine drinkers), the Federal tax grab also increases by 8.3 per cent on July 1.

Thus, if a producer raises the wholesale price on a wine from $50 to $55 a dozen, the nett effect on price to the consumer will be more like a dollar a bottle than the fifty cents implied by the ten per cent price hike: add 24 per cent Federal Sales tax, 13 per cent Territory licence fee, and a 33 per cent retail mark up to $50 and you have a retail price of $7.76.

Move the wholesale price to $55 and increase the Federal take from 24 per cent to 26 per cent, and the shelf price becomes $8.67 — an increase of 91 cents, or 12 per cent.

In this environment, it does pay to stock up a little, not just to save money but to preserve our drinking standards. For one noticeable effect of creeping wine prices in the last couple of years has been a reduction of wine quality at given price points.

Increased demand and higher production costs mean, quite simply, that the $4.99, $5.99 or whatever wine you buy today is not as good as one bought at the same price point two years ago. Simple arithmetic, really, but not a reality in our previously oversupplied wine market.

In the last two weeks I have tasted about two hundred under-$10-a-bottle Australian wines (ie, before the coming price rises). In general, red-wines offer better value than the whites. And if faulty wines are few and far between, ‘bland’ seems the commonest tasting note, especially amongst white wines. However, there are some wines that deliver really good value for money.

This is my pick of recently-tasted under-$10 reds, in no particular order: Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet (both the 1992 and 1993 vintages can still be found with retailers); Wynns Coonawarra Estate Hermitage 1993; Lindemans Nyrang Hermitage 1993; Seaview McLaren Vale Shiraz 1992; Seaview McLaren Vale Cabernet Sauvignon 1992; St Hallett Gamekeepers Reserve 1994; Mildara Coonawarra Hermitage 1993 (but not the 1992); Orlando Russett Ridge Coonawarra Cabernet Shiraz Merlot 1993; Jacobs Creek Cabernet Shiraz Malbec 1993; Richmond Grove Coonawarra Cabernet 1993.

And the whites: Krondorf Chardonnay 1994; Rothbury Estate Trident 1994; Wynns Coonawarra Estate Rhine Riesling 1994; Leo Buring DW T18 Eden Valley Rhine Riesling 1994; Penfolds Semillon Chardonnay 1994 ( simply phenomenal at the price); Wolf Blass Chardonnay 1994; Wyangan Estate Chardonnay 1993; Richmond Grove Watervale Rhine Riesling 1994; Jacobs Creek Chardonnay 1994; Deen De Bortoli Vat 2 Sauvignon Blanc 1994; Taylors Clare Valley Chardonnay 1994.

With the disclaimer that vintages and prices move quickly, all of these wines are reasonably well distributed and subject to retailer discounting from time to time. The shrewd shopper should buy and drink well from this list.

And a closing note on the 1995 vintage vintage. It was not only a small vintage but one of mixed quality as well. Ian McKenzie, Group White Wine Maker for Southcorp says it tended to be the warmer areas that were down in volume (Hunter, McLaren Vale, Riverina, Murray River, and Barsossa Valley) while the cooler areas suffered less.

Ian says the group has picked, from its Tumbarumba Vineyard, NSW, the best chardonnay he has ever seen outside of Burgundy, France. Now, that’s really saying something because Ian has probably processed a wider variety of chardonnay than any other wine maker in Australia.

Central Victoria, he says, produced outstanding shiraz where Padthaway performed with chardonnay. Unfortunately, Coonawarra, just an hour south of Padthaway, hit hard times after a run of good vintages. Wet, cool weather closed in and many red grapes simply refused to ripen — which probably means lots of Coonawarra shiraz in our 1995 bubblies and more reason to stock up now on decent reds.

Grange mania struck this month. Even before the press releases and samples went out, Penfolds sales office and retailers began fielding calls from across the world. “Got any 1990 Grange?” is the only question asked. Most callers haven’t bothered asking for the price.

Not that the price matters if you can’t find the wine. But if you can find it and do want some, forget the official recommended retail of $130. One leading Sydney discount retailer sold his allocation at $150 within a few days of release and says he’s asking $200 for the next allocation in July.

One Double Bay retailer reports having sold a 1990 Magnum for $1500!

The big spenders (some wanting as much as 25 dozen) began ringing around the Canberra trade, too. But there was little joy there, as a quick survey shows our retailers to be looking after the punters (if we can call Grange buyers that) by limiting sales to a bottle or two.

Jim Murphy’s Market Cellars, Georgas Liquor Stable, Cand Amber, Liquorland and Farmer Bros all had stock remaining and were rationing it when I rang this week, and they were all pricing 1990 Grange at $140 to $150 a bottle. (Apologies to traders not mentioned but, don’t worry, the buyers will find you.).

Since Grange caught on in the sixties, and even more so now that its allure has spread, not only wine buffs but inveterate collectors and investors have been dragged into the increasingly expensive chase each year.

Yet, anytime anyone ventures the view that Grange has peaked in value, it moves up again, and the investors are rewarded on paper, if not in cash. For I suspect most of the Grange bought as an ‘investment’ somehow never finds itself under the auctioneer’s hammer.

It was a commonly held view in recent years as Grange hit $70, then pushed through to $100 that a natural barrier had been hit because our best-known red had finally reached parity with the second-to-top Bordeaux wines.

But the precipitate lift in price for the 1990 vintage pushes Grange beyond that rank, if not to the very top level. (Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1990, for instance, sells for around $300 a bottle). The lift follows years of hype for reds in general from that vintage; an uprecedented lift in global demand for Australian red wines; and strong recognition of a big, distinctive wine with a strong Australian accent in the U.K. and U.S.A. markets.

What we have witnessed over the last decade is the arrival of Grange on the global scene, and the recognition of its unique qualities. It may not yet be up there in price with Chateaus Lafite Rothschild, Mouton Rothshild, Latour, Haut Brion, Margaux, and Petrus of Bordeaux, nor with Burgundy’s Le Chambertin and Romanee Conti. But it has, like those enduring wines, individual aromas, flavours and cellaring propensity like no other wine on earth. Hence, its escalation from top-shelf to blue-chip status.

How do we rate Grange when it moves from cellar to pedestal? I guess many of us who cellared it in the past have to kiss it goodbye now as it flits out of reach. But, as a drink, 1990 Grange ranks with the best.

I’ve been blessed to taste all the Granges back to 1951, some vintages many times over, and most several times. The 1990, or a component of it, I first tasted from barrel towards the end of 1990 with its creator, Max Schubert. Max was old and suffering from emphysema then, but his enthusiasm for the inky-purple, embryonic Grange 1990 infected everyone sharing the experience with him.

In May this year, wine maker John Duval, unveiled the finished wine at Kalimna cottage in the Barossa Valley on the eve of its public release. It’s a wine that defies tasting notes, offering Grange’s unique, opulent ripe flavour, masses of it, with that extra succulent depth we see in great years. It lacks only one thing: maturity — and I look forward to a re-taste in my dotage sometime next century.

Released with Grange in about one fifth of the volume and at a slightly lower price, was a red I rank in the same league: Penfolds Coonawarra Cabernet Barossa Shiraz Bin 90A 1990. Retailers seem to be hiding it for themselves, but this is a sublime red modeled on the legendary Bin 60A 1962 (still drinking well) and Bin 80A 1980 (just reaching maturity).

Bin 90A combines the strength and elegance of Coonawarra cabernet sauvignon with powerful, earthy shiraz grown on the Koonunga Hill Vineyard in the Barossa Valley and, in my view, will become a collector’s item of the twenty first century.

It’s time to break out the sherry, port, and muscat. Forget any notion about drinking them only as aperitifs, with soup or after-dinner. Fortified wines do have food matches. And, used sensitively during a meal, provide us with an interesting new spectrum of wine flavours.

Good fortifieds offer not just fruit, oak, and spirit flavours but maturity, ready to go. For, unlike table wines, released within a year or two of vintage and needing years of cellaring to be at their best, fortifieds are bottled at maturity. And, in the case of Australia’s better fortifieds, that means blends containing material dating back decades — and in some cases even a century.

Yet the declining market for fortified wines keeps prices comparatively low: top-shelf reds, perhaps three years old, now fetch $35 to $45 a bottle. Spend that much on a port or muscat, and you’ll get an incredibly complex, satisfying wine whose many components might have an average age of thirty years (ie: years spent in oak barrels prior to bottling). Even ten and twelve year old blends retail for under $20.

Perhaps it was frustration at knowing how good but little-known his wines are that prompted Seppeltsfield’s James Godfrey to team up with Serge Dansereau, Chef at Kable’s Restaurant in Sydney’s Regent Hotel this week.

At a dinner last Tuesday, one in the Regent’s series of wine and food matchings, Serge and James altered my perception of fortified wine forever. Even though the chef at Chateau Shanahan doesn’t contemplate offering four courses accompanied exclusively by fortified wine as they did, just two or even one course offers a stunning departure from the normal fare.

Dansereau’s entree of rockfish, scampi, yabbie tails, olives, basil and tomato-garlic dressing could easily have matched any number of dry whites. But Seppeltsfield Show Fino Sherry D.P.117, light and fresh as it is, delivered a unique, pleasantly tart bite and an underlying richness. It was an absolutely delightful combination that should work as well with any good, fresh Fino Sherry, Australian or Spanish.

(Ian McKenzie, well-known wine maker and Show Judge, told me at the dinner that recent changes to Federal regulations now allow lower strength fortified wines to be made. That’s great news for sherry lovers because it means, according to McKenzie, we will soon see on the market light, fresh Fino Sherries of around 15 per cent alcohol instead of 17.5 per cent. If the beautiful Spanish versions of that strength are anything to go by, then we can look forward to drinking an attractive new style of sherry that suits our climate so well.)

Amontillado Sherry and soup might be an old and proven combination. But Dansereau’s White Minestrone, based on a luscious veal-bone/ham-bone/bacon-bone stock worked better with Seppeltsfield Show Oloroso Sherry D.P. 38 than with the Show Amontillado D.P.116. Normally an Australian Oloroso is just too sweet for soup, but this combination proved mouthwatering and deceptively simple.

For a comparison of old and new, the main course, veal shank with kipfler potatoes, sauteed zucchini and shallot jus, was served with a big, traditional shiraz-based vintage port (Seppeltsfield Vintage Port GR 123 1984) and a lighter one made from the Portuguese variety touriga (Seppeltsfield Vintage Port GR 124 1987).

Meat as rich, soft and sweet as shank demands an assertive wine flavour — normally I’d settle for a full-bodied red of great age — perhaps a Hunter Shiraz or real Burgundy.

In this instance, the shiraz port weighed a little too heavily on the food, while the lighter, more fragrant touriga matched well. And if you believe the old saying that the glass tells the story, then most people in the room thought the same.

Seppelts won’t be releasing the touriga port for several years, but a similar veal shank (or lamb shank) match might be found in a Portuguese late bottled vintage port — the trick being to find something with age but that’s not too heavy.

Seppeltsfield Show Rutherglen Muscat DP 63 was a natural accompaniment to warm macerated date tart — no surprises there, but as yummy as it sounds. No surprises either in the superb Seppeltsfield Show Tawny Port DP 90 (some components dating back to last century) nor with Seppeltsfield Show Brandy VSOP (average age 28 years) — both are simply great and unique Australian products to be savoured to the last drop.

In fairness to other fortified producers, the wine/food matches here could be executed as well with wines from other makers — although the Seppelt Show series sit with just a few others at the top of the quality triangle. I guess the real point is that there is life beyond table wine and we should embrace it.

Wine maker James Godfrey presides over one of the world’s great treasuries of aged fortifeds. At Seppeltlsfield, in the Barossa Valley, he sits on an unbroken line of vintages stretching back to 1878. As well, he husbands countless multi-vintage fortified blends — making new wine, blending new with old, and deciding final blends for the market — everything from humble Mount Rufus Tawny to sublime Show specials like Seppeltsfield D.P. 90 Port to delicate Fino Sherries to blockbuster vintage ports.

Godfrey recalls being thrown in the deep end at Seppeltsfield, arriving as a qualified wine maker little experienced in the complexities of fortified wine making and blending.

Not that table-wine making is easy, but fortified production presents unique challenges. Few fortified wines come from a single vintage, single grape variety, or single vineyard as table wines so often do. And fortifieds require long wood ageing and blending of multiple components of different ages to achieve a consistent style from year to year.

Imagine being handed a glass of port blended from components, five to fifty years old, and being asked to continue the blend, starting with appropriate top ups this vintage. Sounds more like detective work than wine making.

Yet, in a nutshell, that’s what Godfrey does — makes hundreds of component wines each year, fortifies each with spirit, pops them in oak barrels, and nurses each one towards an outcome that might be five or fifty years in the future.

Blends of the past, of course, are the key to the future. And wine makers at Seppeltsfield work with a confusing palate of aromas and flavours, each a variation on the grape variety and its origin, the type of fortifying spirit used, and the type of oak along with where the oak sits and how long a wine stays in it. These are just the basic components which lend themselves to endless combinations through the blending process.

A typical Seppeltsfield port might contain wine made from six grape varieties, each with its own aroma, flavour, and ageing characteristics: white muscadelle and red grenache, mourvedre (mataro), cabernet sauvignon, touriga, and shiraz. Sourcing any of those varieties from more than one region further compounds the blend.

Muscadelle ages quickly, tastes neutral and soft, and, thus, makes a great equaliser for bigger wines. Grenache, especially from Seppeltsfield’s very old, low-yielding vines, ages reasonably well, and adds a spicy aromatic edge and a full, fruity palate. Mataro, mainly from the Barossa, ages rapidly, and adds sweetness to a blend. Godfrey calls it the ‘merlot of fortified’. Shiraz ages forever and adds terrific robust flavours that easily match quite strong spirit flavours. Because it takes so long to age, it plays only a small role in young tawnies but gives the backbone to the older ones. Cabernet sauvignon adds a distinctive fruit character as a minor component in blends. It ages well and it seems that no matter what spirit is used to fortify it, the fruit flavour always wins in the end.

Fortifying spirit, added in sufficient quantity to a fermenting wine, brings the ferment to an abrupt halt and adds another flavour to mingle with grapiness and sweetness of any unfermented sugars.

Like grape varieties, spirits come in many flavours and become part of the aroma/flavour palate used by wine makers. Godfrey works closely with Barossa distiller, Tarac, to get exactly the styles he needs for each grape variety.

Flavours range through the clean, light, neutrality of marc spirit (made from grape skin and seeds), to floral grenache-based spirit, to oily/fatty, wine-based low-strength spirit, to the ‘over the top’ styles used to fortify vintage port.

And although most fortified wine is aged in old barrels to avoid the overt oak flavours that are desirable in many table wines, the type of oak, its size, and where it is stored exercises a profound influence on wine flavour, especially over long periods of time.

Godfrey experiments with this flavour aspect, too. In one such test, he filled three barrels of the same oak with new fortified wine in 1987 — a 480 litre puncheon, a 280 litre hogshead, and a 180 litre quartercask. These were stacked at the highest, hottest level in one shed. A second hogshead was filled with the same wine and placed in cool storage. Making a long story short, by 1995 when I tasted samples from each cask, significant aroma and flavour differences had emerged,

The elements described so simply here are what the wine maker sees on day one. Time and blending alters the flavour palate immeasurably. And when we finally drink a D.P. 90 Port, or its like, we smell and taste the fruits of perhaps fifty years’ labour.

Penfolds red wines stand alone in the global landscape. They offer the world’s drinkers not just a dazzling vision of the wonderfully ripe, robust wine flavours our sunny continent produces, but carry, as well, a Penfolds thumbprint in the form of aromas, flavours, and a particular feel in the mouth, quite different from anything made by any other wine maker.

New vintages released last month and imminent releases of the company’s flagships, Grange 1990, Cabernet Sauvignon Bin 707 1992 and Coonawarra Cabernet-Kalimna Shiraz Bin 90A 1990, continue very much in the mould cast by Max Schubert back in 1951. But they also reveal a significant evolution guided by the present Penfolds team, headed by John Duval (wine making) and Andrew Pike (vineyard management).

In fact, there has been a remarkable continuity in red-wine-making practice since Schubert established the style over forty years ago. And the continuity seems all the more remarkable given the turmoil faced by Penfolds over the years.

Grange, and the unique red-making culture that grew with it, got off to a shaky start in the fifties then solidified in the sixties as Schubert’s reds took the wine-show circuit by storm. The culture endured when Penfolds passsed from family control to Tooth & Co in the seventies and prospered once again when, first, the Adsteam Group took control and, later, South Australian Brewing Holdings (now Southcorp) assumed command.

Through all the commercial turmoil and strong interraction with other wine-making cultures as Penfolds joined a corporate blend including Kaiser Stuhl, Tollana, Wynns, Tullochs, Seaview, Lindemans, Leo Buring, and Seppelt, the Penfold red culture endured.

Max Schubert retired from full time wine making around 1973, passing the mantle to Don Ditter. But Schubert stationed himself at Penfolds Magill Cellars, almost until his death in March last year, and remained a mentor both to Ditter, and to John Duval who succeeded to the position of Chief red-wine maker when Ditter retired in 1986 (a great vintage to take over the mantle says Duval).

Without access to confidential company material, it is not possible to pinpoint exactly how the making of Penfolds reds has evolved since the days of Schubert. And, in fact, the comparison of today’s young reds with those of yesterday is possible only in the minds of the now old men and women who were there.

But if details changed over the years, the overall principles established did not. The keynotes seem to be selection of perfectly ripened grapes appropriate to the style of wine being made; full extraction of colour and flavour from the grapes through fermentation techniques developed by Schubert; completion of fermentation in small oak barrels (over which painstaking selection control is exercised); and maturation in small barrels prior to bottling.

One of the keys to the Penfolds style within that list is fruit selection. That’s really at the heart of wine style and quality and an aspect of quality control now finely honed by Penfolds through its end-use-evaluation-scheme — a sophisticated, complex and interactive system that relates wine use back to vineyard source. It brings wine maker and vineyard manager together and appears to have been highly successful in a steady quality evolution.

As an outsider, my guess is that the biggest single change over the forty four years since the style’s birth has been sourcing of grapes.

In Schubert’s own words, sourcing the right grapes was the first step in making Grange and all the other wonderful reds that followed. Indeed, had sufficient cabernet been available in Australia in 1951 we would now be celebrating Grange Cabernet instead of Grange Hermitage.

Those early reds focused more on the Barossa, Morphett Vale (now an Adelaide suburb), Magill and McLaren Vale with some Coonawarra material. Now, Coonawarra and Padthaway have hit the scene in a big way and significant plantings have sprung up in the Clare and Eden Valleys and Langhorne Creek.

In the early days, the industry’s focus was on fortified wine production and Australians barely touched red wine. Growing demand, especially in the eighties and nineties has seen a massive explosion in planting and vineyard management techniques that mean more and better winemaking options for John Duval and his team.

Unlike some critics lamenting the loss of Penfolds reds of old, I firmly believe that the wines are, on average, steadily climbing new heights as all the little bits of quality control, and especially diversified vineyard sourcing, click into place.

To line up the current Penfolds reds and vacantly award them points out of twenty or stars out of five seems to me to miss the point completely. These are wines of immense character and individuality. More on the new releases next week.

May 14th, 1995

Those wonderful Penfolds reds introduced in last week’s column deserve special attention in today’s largely overpriced wine market. At a time when Australia is probably making its best reds ever, there are still a lot of ordinary wines out there bearing hefty price tags.

But the Penfolds range offers not only exciting quality, but a proven track record in cellaring as well as strong resale value through the auction system.

Ironically, while Penfolds probably pockets an historically high margin, prices continue to be restrained by a fiercely competitive retail market. Retailers may be on allocation, but despite the shortage, pricing on such well-known brands becomes a barometer by which wine drinkers judge the overall value offered by a trader.

So, shop around. Somewhere someone could be selling the range at or near cost price. Which means you can pick up Bin 128 and Bin 28 for $10.99, Bin 407 for $13.99 and Bin 389 for $14.99 on super special. The market tends to be more competitive in Sydney than in Canberra, so keep an eye on the Sydney papers and prepare to make a raid up there, if necessary, on you next trip. Or, use a Sydney retailer’s price to bargain with a local merchant.

Each of the new Penfolds reds offers a strongly individual style based on selective grape sourcing, while the range is linked by common wine-making techniques that produce a Penfold thumbprint by way of distinctive aromas, flavours and structure accompanying the primary wine flavour.

Penfold Coonawarra Bin 128 1992, for example, delivers the lush, supple, gracious berry flavours typical of good Coonawarra shiraz. But the fruit comes with an overlay of aromas, flavours and textures derived from fermentation and maturation in French oak barrels, and a fair bit of contact with air during its making. These form the Penfolds thumbprint.

It can be tasted and felt, too, in Kalimna Bin 28 1992, a wine that shows another face of shiraz and the quite powerful flavour of American rather than French oak. The ‘mother’ wine for Bin 28 comes from Penfolds Kalimna vineyard in the northern Barossa Valley, blended with compatible material from elsewhere in the Barossa, McLaren Vale and Padthaway.

Kalimna experiences warmer growing conditions than Coonawarra, producing markedly different grape and, hence, wine flavours than we see in Bin 128. Instead of delicacy, we taste in Bin 28 ripe, powerful fruit flavours matched by stronger oak. It is simply a satisfying-to-drink example of warm-climate Aussie shiraz and tastes even better with ten years’ bottle age.

Penfolds Cabernet Sauvignon Bin 407 1992, the third vintage in this line, offers pure, distinct cabernet flavour. Coming predominantly from two cooler growing areas — Padthaway and Coonawarra — and a cool vintage, that flavour spectrum embraces both a ripe, sweet “blackcurrant” component and a green astringent edge. Wrap these with the Penfold oak and wine-making extras, and you have an outstanding, elegant red that’s best cellared 5 to 10 years. More than anything else, it expresses the character of Padthaway and Coonawarra.

Penfolds Cabernet Shiraz Bin 389 1992 shows the evolution of this great red since Len Evans (I think it was Len) dubbed the 1959 vintage “poor man’s Grange”. The modern version bears little resemblance to Grange thanks, I believe, to the powerful but elegant cabernet flavours of the increased Coonawarra and Padthaway grape components in the blend.

The combination of outstanding grapes and fermentation and maturation in barrels handed down from Grange, gives a powerful red, distinctly Australian with its combination of elegant, strong cabernet and lush, ripe shiraz. I see Bin 389 of the last few vintages, the current 1992 included, as perhaps the best value-for-money red on the market today if you’re looking for richness of flavour and cellaring potential.

Penfolds this year unveiled the first vintage (1992) of a new, entirely Barossa-sourced red, Old Vine Mourvedre-Grenache-Shiraz. It sits firmly in the Penfold mould but offers a real flavour departure from the cabernets and shirazes thanks to the fragrance of grenache, and the firm, spicy character of the mouvedre (also known as mataro). This is a solid, chunky Barossa wine that needs another few years in the cellar. Very little was made, it is not as widely distributed as the others.

Penfolds St Henri stands out from the others because it’s the only Penfold red not fermented and matured in small oak barrels. The 1991, a spectacular example of ripe Australian shiraz, continues in the style established back in 1957 — the focus remains on pure, sweet, ripe shiraz mellowed in large old casks. This beauty needs 10-20 years’ cellaring.

Not since the early eighties when the Aussie dollar peaked at double its current worth against some European currencies have I seen so many imported wines coming into the country.

Every Friday for the last three months I’ve attended commercial tastings where brokers and agents trot out their latest discoveries, with imports now outnumbering local wines. On top of that there are several standing invitations to visit wineries as soon as their foreign samples arrive.

But there are fundamental differences between the growing flow of imports now and what we saw back in the early eighties.

Then we had a more fragmented, production-driven industry. It was undercapitalised, largely unprofitable, driven by wine makers and riding on the back of rapidly expanding sales, especially of cask wine.

There was no shortage of wine. In fact, quite the reverse situation kept prices low and sales growing. But there was a shortage of premium grape varieties, especially of chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon.

In an article I wrote for the Australian Financial Review in about 1983, I estimated imports at around 3 per cent by volume of the total Australian market but 15 per cent by value.

Imports then were largely of reasonable quality bottled table wine. With our dollar buying between 6 and 8 French Francs, and the Americans yet to discover wine, French country wines like Muscadet, Pouilly Fume, Sancerre, Beaujolais, and Chablis were affordable and consumed by a comparatively high proportion of well informed Australian drinkers.

But times changed. The dollar collapsed in 1985. The Americans discovered wine. And the tremendously strong vineyard and winemaking infrustructure we had developed, fairly quickly turned to exports.

Rationalisation and more professional management saw the trend strengthen so that we now have a much stronger, more outward looking wine industry than ever before. It still needs the cask market. But that market is shrinking, and the strongest growth now comes from sales of bottled white and red wine, both here and in export markets.

Rapid growth, especially in demand for bottled reds, co-inciding with a run of small vintages, are the strongest forces behind the new flow of imports.

Pressure was on stocks of bulk red wine even before the 1995 vintage fell 250,000 tonnes short of expectations.

Wine makers had still not recovered from the disastrously small 1993 vintage. It had led to out-of-stocks for the first time in the history of the Australian wine cask. I saw wine drinkers stare in disbelief at bottle shop attendants when told their favourite tipple had run dry.

And I well remember big wine makers early last year wondering how on earth they could hold price parity of red and white wine casks when there was simply not enough red available. And what was available cost more than white of comparable quality.

Well, under the same pressures, people come up with similar solutions. For sectors of the wine industry, the solution is a perfectly sensible and welcome one: if we can’t make it here, let’s bring it in.

For Miranda Wines in Griffith, the shortage led to California. With a Golden Gate wine cask to fill, and a Californian wine maker with good contacts back home, one thing led to another. And by late 1994 Golden Gate red casks became a blend of Californian and Australian wine.

Miranda’s Bob Burton says it was a matter of importing or taking the brand off the market. He tells me Golden Gate Soft Red, Chianti, and Claret continue to sell well and appear to have been completely accepted by the consumer. Bob adds that when grape supplies meet demand, the winery hopes to return to full Australian production.

On a far bigger scale, Southcorp Wines, Australia’s largest wine maker, last week released a French-Australian blend in its big-selling Wynnvale cask and plans a similar blend for Kaiser Stuhl wine casks shortly.

I’ve tasted the Wynnvale red (51 per cent local— 49 per cent French) and vouch for the quality. Southcorp Chief Executive, Bruce Kemp, told me the move was a logical one to meet a demand that was far beyond Australian capabilities after the huge grape losses in the 1995 vintage.

It’s a sweet irony isn’t it that the French, still perceived as the makers of the world’s greatest wines, should now be providing vin ordinaire for the humble Aussie wine cask.

As wine drinkers, we should welcome these changes. A more open wine market, with perhaps twenty per cent imports instead of two per cent, not only opens our minds to the variety the world has to offer, but might finally provide the only foil to rising prices now that major production capacity is in so few hands.

A draft report on the Winegrape and Wine Industry released in March fills 365 pages. But the bottom line for most industry leaders, and even more so for consumers, are the tax recommendations on page 19.

The recommendations, if implemented by the Federal Government, will bring wine under a similarly destructive tax regime to that currently imposed on beer and spirits — alcoholic beverages whose production constraints and consumption patterns appear quite dissimilar to wine’s.

The inquiry that generated the draft report followed intense wine-industry lobbying after the August 1993 Federal Budget. Then, apparently bowing to beer and spirit industry pressure, the Government threw in a surprise 55 per cent wholesale tax increase on wine, lifting the rate from 20 per cent to 31 per cent.

For Canberra wine drinkers that meant a double whammy because the Territory’s licence fee is levied at 13 per cent of the cost of wine after the addition of sales tax. The effect was to raise the landed cost to a wine outlet of, say, a pre-tax $50 a dozen wine, from $67.80 to $74.02 — a nett increase of about 9 per cent.

The Federal Government’s take on that case of wine leapt from $10 to $15.50 and the Territory’s from $7.80 to $8.52.

But an angry voice of protest from hundreds of wine makers and thousands of grape growers across Australia saw a compromise reached between the Government and Industry. A committee of inquiry was established to ‘examine the development potential of the wine grape and wine industry with particular regard to exports and the impact of taxation and cash grants on the industry.’

While the committee held its hearings and deliberated, wine sales tax was dropped back to 22 per cent, rising to 24 per cent in July 1994, and 26 per cent in July 1995, with the ultimate tax regime to be determined after the final report.

The draft report, then, is not a blue print for Government action but the end of stage one. Public hearings on the draft are to be held during April and May, followed by a final report by the end of June, a Government decision (not just on taxation issues but on many other issues canvassed in the inquiry) and, finally, implementation of the decision.

A committee of three came up with two proposed wine-tax regimes. Brian Croser and Professor Fairbairn put forward a view that would see the retail price of fortified wine and cheap bottled and cask table wine increase, while better quality wine from about $5 a bottle and above would actually come down in price.

What they propose (phased in between 1996 and 1998) is a reduction of the sales tax rate to 10 per cent and addition of a volumetric tax of $4 per litre of alcohol.

Their colleague, Mr Scales adopts a more ‘take no prisoners, show no mercy’ approach, along the lines of what the brewers and distillers might take in the same position.

He proposes a jump to a 32 per cent sales tax from July 1996, plus a volumetric tax rising from $1 per litre of alcohol in July 1997 to $4 in July 2000. His proposal would deliver financial pain to all wine drinkers, unlike the Croser-Fairbairn one, which strikes those who can least afford it.

The very large numbers of wine drinkers enjoying $5 and above bottled wine might see the Croser-Fairbairn tax as attractive. And so it is on day one. But we would be foolish to believe that a special sales tax category of 10 per cent could endure long or that future Governments will resist the temptation to notch up the excise rate above the proposed $4 a litre of alcohol.

In principal, the two proposals are the same. Both split wine tax into two components, similar to the way in which Federal taxes on beer and spirits are currently levied. And the double tax, in lumping wine with beer and spirits, almost certainly spells an ever-growing Government tax grab over time.

The wine industry is sure to be at the public hearings fighting for its interests. And for once the industry’s interests coincide with those of the wine drinker. Australian wine is already very heavily taxed in comparison with the rates in other winemaking countries. Why should we be forced to pay even more tax on a simple, healthy, civilising pleasure?

“It was a Clayton’s vintage”, one wine industry Chief Executive told me. “The wine makers and cellar hands worked white-collar hours. In at 8, out at 5. No frantic, round the clock rush to cope with all the fruit.”

No one had ever seen such a short, small vintage. The casual labour is all being paid up and sent home a month earlier than usual.

But the calm in the wineries is not matched in the boardroom. For the desperate shortfall of grapes around Australia will have the most profound impact on the bottom line of an industry already noted for financial underperformance.

And in this instance, unease in the boardroom will translate directly into significantly higher wine prices. Prices simply have to go up to retard consumption and to claw back higher production costs attributable to the grape shortfall.

The same Chief Executive lamenting his Clayton’s vintage showed me the sums. Last November the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) published the projected 1995 grape crush, based on a survey of wine-maker expectations.

At the time, the industry looked forward to an 851,000 tonne crush — a figure some thought not adequate to meet demand.

Immediately prior to vintage, the figure was revised down to 700,000 tonnes. But with grapes from the warmer, earlier ripening areas already in and crushed, my anonymous Chief Executive estimates the final figure will be between 550,000 and 600,000 tonnes.

It seems the warmer areas were particularly hard hit because of drought and savage winds that late last yearhit vines during flowering time, stripping them of the embryonic 1995 crop.

The Hunter Valley, Mudgee, and the Riverland suffered severely, with crop losses of up to fifty per cent.

And while it’s not possible to pick the exact shortfalls yet, we can probably say that cask wines will be hard hit, given the disaster in the Riverland. As well, a spot price of $1200 for irrigated chardonnay, suggests big brands like Lindemans Bin 65 Chardonnay may face severe volume restrictions.

Sales lost because of the disaster present only part of the problem. According to my Chief Executive, his winery lost forty per cent of its crush. But his fixed costs remained largely unaltered, and savings in labour because of the reduced vintage were small in relation to total costs. He puts the increased production cost per case in his own winery at $11-$12 and suggests that the industry overall needs a 10-12 per cent price hike to recoup its losses.

With demand, especially in the all-important $5-$10 a bottle market, so sensitive to price movements the industry faces a severe dilemma as to how much it can move prices without killing demand completely. However, prices simply have to go up or there just won’t be any wine left to sell.

While the position for the industry is very tough, it’s not all bad news for consumers. With the dollar strong against the currencies of several wine-making countries, part of the shortfall is sure to be made up by imports.

I know of at least six wineries looking to import bulk wine for bottling here (and there are bound to be more) and as well there are the established wholesalers and retailers now looking to plug the gap.

This may present a culture shock to Australian wine drinkers, currently amongst the most parochial in the world. But if we expect to drink good wine under $10 a bottle then, like wine drinkers elsewhere, we will now be forced to look beyond our shores for an increased proportion of our wine for the next few years at least.

Of course, agricultural shortfalls and cornucopias are never universal. As our large wine areas face a cruel fate, Canberra’s wine makers have commenced harvesting what looks to be the biggest crop in the district’s twenty-four year history.

Ken Helm reports that last year‘s record harvest of 300 tonnes looks like being eclipsed by a 1995 crush of 500 tonnes — pushing district production to around 35,000 cases.

1995 has seen the first use of mechanical harvesting taking place in the district, too. Andrew Garrett Wines sent in the machine to take 20 tonnes of chardonnay and pinot noir from the Park Lane Vineyard at Hall.

Local grape prices, Ken tells me, have remained stable, largely because the various parcels are just too small to attract bids from the larger wine makers.

While it’s good to see stable pricing and continuity from the local makers, the future of mainstream suppliers seems less certain with shortages and higher prices in sight.

Friday of last week saw what seemed like most of Australia’s wine industry lunching at Sydney Opera House, celebrating another Royal Sydney Wine Show, savouring trophy-winning wines, and hoping for a few insights from Chairman of Judges Len Evans and perhaps a glimpse of visiting judge, Hugh Johnson, the world’s most widely read wine writer.

Johnson spoke first. In his own gentle way, quelling the chatter of a few hundred voices, he delivered an outsider’s view on wine judging and of Australian wine. A refreshing view it was, too, from a man happy to deliver personal judgement on wine quality but scathingly critical of those giving so called ‘objective’ scores:

“I judge wines by loving it or hating it … and there’s not much in between. I love vitality in a wine, the sort of wine where one bottle is not enough… giving wines points creates a spurious sense of accuracy and if you can believe it means something when someone gives a wine 87 points out of 100 then you would believe anything.”

Nevertheless, Johnson saw some validity in the Australian Show circuit’s Gold, Silver, and Bronze medal award system as it “gives a good broad guide of performance on the day.”

Johnson sees “variety as the essence of wine” and believes that what the French call “terroir” (the combination of soil, climate, aspect and location of vineyards) is at the heart of wine variety.

He said he once viewed us as the France (”How did that bunch of ruffians come to make the best wines in the world?”) of the Southern hemisphere , but now broadens that view, “Australia is the France of the New World.”

But he cautioned us about the tough competition we face in world markets “You are in a boom time, but the waves are short and choppy. The concept of a great tidal wave taking Australian wine around the world and crushing everyone else is desirable but unlikely. Other countries around the world are learning to make wine — France for example.”

Johnson loves our red wines in particular and sees them as our great strength, calling them “… wonderful, mind-bending, gripping blends.” (He added that he’ll be buying his whites in New Zealand.)

Having patted us on the back and cautioned us about being too cocky during the current boom, he noted one feature that separated us from other winemaking countries, “You have incredible team work here, unlike any other country in the world”. He noted that our competitors tended to be secretive with a go-it-alone mentality. And though it went unsaid, I suppose our wine show system with its constant and fearless public scrutiny, provides a meeting point as well as a sparring venue for our producers.

Len Evans followed Hugh Johnson, echoing his preference for our reds over our whites. “The reds emerging are far better than the whites”, observed Evans. Then slipped into a joke, “A fellow said to his mate, ‘I bought a new kind of hearing aid.’ ‘What type is it?’ his mate asked. ‘5.30 he answered’”.

When the laughing stopped Len suggested perhaps Australian wine makers had bought the wrong kind of hearing aid because they were not hearing the message that our whites were not as good as our reds.

“We’ve got the vineyards. We’ve got the wine makers. But will the consumer support better whites. Are they being encouraged to do so?”

Len’s been pushing this theme for a few years now because he sees it as most important for the wine industry, especially in export markets. Visiting Len at Rothbury Estate, on another occasion, he observed that our best reds were raved about in export markets, with a notable trickle down effect on the image of our mass-produced commercial reds.

But the same is not true of our whites. Our cheaper whites sell well but they are “just in the quaffing category” says Len.

Len knows that finally our export dollars are earned from these quaffing wines. But he sees vital long-term significance in having flagship whites as well as flagship reds to maintain the image of Australia as a premium wine producer.

Unless we succeed in conveying that image to overseas consumers then we end up selling a commodity with limited export value and, of course, risk losing markets to any country that can undercut our costs.

As usual, Len’s talk was short, good-humoured and to the point. I hope our white-wine makers were listening.