Bottoms Up, Down Under

By John Elson

Not so long ago, the ditsy wits of the Monty Python shows could get a quick laugh by disparaging some plonk from Australia as "a wine for laying down and leaving there." No longer. The wines from Down Under are moving steadily up in quality, and they are enjoying a new popularity in the U.S. Riding a trend for Aussie chic that has made household names of Qantas, Pat Cash and "Crocodile" Dundee, U.S. sales of Australian wines topped 1 million gallons last year, more than triple the volume of 1986. "People who have experimented with Australian wines have been very happy," says Jon Fredrikson, a San Francisco wine consultant. "They're the new kids on the block being watched very closely. Word gets around."

Americans last year quaffed at least 50 million gallons of French and Italian table wine, so the Aussies clearly have a long way to go. But there are good reasons why experts see a promising future. For one thing, the declining value of the U.S. dollar has pushed the prices of quality French wines -- most red Burgundies, for example, and the top-rated crus of Bordeaux -- beyond the reach of all but the wealthy. Meanwhile, thanks to the relative weakness of the Australian dollar (worth 77 cents in U.S. currency), virtually all Down Under wines available in the U.S. are in the moderate-price range (between $4 and $15 per 750-ml bottle).

There is one striking exception: Penfolds Grange Hermitage Bin 95, which many critics consider Australia's best. A brambly, mouth-filling red that compares favorably with a Hermitage from France's Rhone Valley, the Grange Hermitage sells for $40 or more retail (when you can find it). It has already become something of a cult favorite -- witness its presence on the wine lists of such prestigious restaurants as New York City's "21" and Antoine's in New Orleans.

Grapes have been grown in Australia for nearly 200 years. Until the 1950s, most vintners concentrated on either cheap, fortified sherries and ports for export to Britain, or rough-edged red and white table wines, distinctly second in quality to the country's brawny beers. It is no coincidence that the improvement in Australian style and sophistication in the past ten years matches the progress of California wines: many Aussie winemakers have studied their craft at the University of California at Davis, America's ranking school of oenology. In fact Michael Mullins, the chairman of the viticulture department at Davis, is Australian. Says he of the Californians and his countrymen: "I think they see each other as potential competitors. There are a fair amount of trade secrets, but there's an awful lot of sharing in chemical engineering, yeast biochemistry and other fields, so that there is continual improvement."

In part because their best growing areas are in hot climates with fertile soils, California and Australia produce what some experts call "Pacific wines." Translation: a red from the Napa Valley is more likely to resemble one from South Australia's Barossa Valley than from France's Medoc; the New World wines tend to be forward and fruity in taste, more notable for alcoholic strength than elegance.

There are more than 550 wineries in Australia, and roughly half of them are less than ten years old. Some of the Aussie brand names have an exotic charm (Koala Ridge, Wirra Wirra), but the principal varietals, such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, are familiar to U.S. buyers. Nonetheless, winemakers Down Under are carefree about tradition, and some of their practices are downright heretical by American or French standards: for example, blending Cabernet Sauvignon, a red grape from the Bordeaux area, with Shiraz, a Rhone Valley varietal known in France as the Syrah. Labels can be confusing as well; the Australians use a lot of mysterious bin numbers, which are intended to denote wines of special quality.

The real test, of course, is in the tasting, and here the Aussies are doing just fine. Anthony Dias Blue, a San Francisco-based wine-and-food writer who was a judge at last year's Qantas Wine Cup, an annual taste-off of U.S. and Australian varietals, says, "I expected to lose in the Rieslings, Sauvignon Blancs and sparkling wines, but I never in a million years thought we would lose in Chardonnays and Cabernets." Down Under wines, Blue concludes, "are going to be accepted on a par with California. They've gotten their foothold."

But there are some cautionary notes. Critic Robert M. Parker Jr., an early enthusiast of Australian wines, has a relatively cool appraisal of recent vintages in the February issue of his bimonthly Wine Advocate. "I must confess," he writes, "to an overall sense of disappointment with what I tasted; there were too many standard-quality, bland wines." Parker is concerned that Australia may be endangering future excellence for the sake of today's potential profits. A relatively small group of medium- and large-size firms accounts for some 90% of Australia's wine output. Until this year, many of the independent growers who supply such major Down Under producers as Penfolds, Seppelt and Lindeman's were rooting out Shiraz (even though it makes some of the country's most distinctive wines) and replanting with the more fashionable Cabernet Sauvignon.

The Australians are aware that adding to their share of the U.S. market means holding the line on quality, quantity and cost. In the short run, that may be difficult: owing to disastrously bad weather, the 1987 crop was quite small, which could mean higher prices. Beyond that, the Australians are $ struggling to cope with 7% inflation, which raises the cost of such necessary imports as corks and aging barrels. Nonetheless, predicts Bernard Portet, the French-born winemaker at California's respected Clos du Val vineyard, "they're definitely here to stay." Portet should know: his brother Dominique was a founder of Taltarni in Victoria, one of Australia's best boutique wineries.

With reporting by Mary Cronin/New York and John Dunn/Melbourne