More proof that price is no guide to quality? Or is it the judging?

You decide. This year’s outright winner of the 2013 VISY Great Australian Shiraz Challenge is Pepperjack Shiraz 2012, a commercial red made by Saltram (part of TWE) that is on regular discount for less than $20. It’s usually a great big steak and eggs Barossa Shiraz, fairly typical of the obvious reds that tend to win at wine shows because they stand out like dogs’ balls. The 2012 is only 14.5% but this line often runs into 15 or more.

The under $25 category winner is the 2012 Ingoldby Shiraz, an even more commercial drop with no great pretensions that rarely rises to even modest heights and is often discounted to $10 a bottle. The ultra reliable Campbell Mattinson at the Winefront gives it 88 points.

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Wine magazine, advertising platform or tourist guide?

We’ve subscribed to the Wine Companion website for a while, and we buy James Halliday’s indispensable tome every year. Just recently, the WC magazine began turning up in our letterbox. I marvelled at such generosity until I took a look inside the mag and saw all the ads. You have to work hard to find the articles in between them, and then it’s hard to tell real articles from ‘features.’

The current mag has a ‘celebration feature’ on sparkling wine that is 25 pages long. It starts with details on the Champagne region, and continues with a feature page on each of 13 houses, followed by more pages featuring some of our local makers of sparkling wine. It’s all very congenial, très douce et charmant if you know what I mean, but it looks a lot like a cocktail party where everyone is terribly nice to everyone else because it’s such a perfect day out on the terrace, and the sun is so golden and the breeze is like silk on your skin and …

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The good people at ALDI Australia were kind enough to send me some samples of their wines. As one of the country’s leading retailers, this German supermarket chain has come a long way in the 10 years it’s been operating down under. Over 210 ALDI stores now sell liquor, including a good selection of wines – check the full list here .

On August 1 this year, ALDI also set up an online shop that will deliver to the eastern states at this point. ALDI’s range is pretty limited at present but is expanding. At BWU$20, we’ve made pretty clear that we think we need much more diversity in the wine retail business, that’s why we’re talking about ALDI.

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Lindemans – Death By a Thousand Cuts is one of our pieces that chronicles how corporations have crippled our best wine brands. One of Australia’s greatest wine companies is now making Low Calorie Confections and Fairy Floss, and it seems to be run by people whose brains are filled with the latter stuff.

This week I saw this article in the SM Herald by Eli Greenblat: Lindeman’s splashes out on sunshine campaign, which reminded me of that wonderful doco called Chateau Chunder screened by the ABC some months ago – here’s our take on that story. So I’m reading this piece by Eli, and I’m thinking: Jacobs Creek and others did this idea to death decades ago … they’ve got to be joking.

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That’s the promise made on the cover of Gourmet Traveller Wine this month, and it’s large a promise the tasting team kept. Savvy has had a lot of bad PR, much of it deserved. I added my two bob’s worth in a piece called Marlborough Men and the death of Sauvignon Blanc – How greedy Kiwis trashed their best brand

Being a purist, I said ‘I don’t see a place for tropical fruit and passionfruit in Sauvignon Blanc, nor sugar snaps and green peas. Hold the boiled veggies, please. The fruit characters I look for in a SB or SB-Semillon blends are herbaceous, not fruity: tangy gooseberry, freshly cut grass, hints of lantana and cats pee, backed by minerally, flinty acid. Not that awful sweet & sour lemon acid.’

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At the end of the day, are clichés really a poisoned chalice?

I’m amazed that everyone is so down on clichés. When all is said and done, clichés help to make sure we’re all on the same page. People get clichés, so there are no ifs or buts. What’s wrong with tried and true? I’m sick and tired of people telling me I must think out of the box. Some of us give 110% but not all of us are rock stars. Not all of us want to push the envelope or go out on a limb all the time. At the end of the day, the path of least resistance has a lot going for it.

How long can I keep this up for? Let’s go with the flow and see for ourselves. We’re all in the same boat here, and the proof is in the pudding. Once the genie is out of the bottle, it’s too late for a paradigm shift. I know the ball’s in my court, and I’m willing to step up to the plate but let me give you a heads-up: I’m no genius, I’m no smarter than the average bear. I don’t mind collecting the low-hanging fruit; I’m happy to leave the cutting edge stuff to the leading lights.

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Dave Powell has lost his company and faces bankruptcy

‘I’m deeply distressed and saddened by the events that have unfolded at Torbreck over the past week,’ Dave Powell told the press. ‘It was never my intention to leave Torbreck and to have lost the company, my hard work of 20 years, and my sons’ inheritance is an absolute nightmare for me.’

Earlier this month, news broke that the winery’s owner Pete Kight and the board of directors made a decision to part company with Dave Powell. ‘I was offered a deal five years ago when I had my back to the wall financially,’ says Powell, ‘which my lawyer told me not to sign. In extremis and under the illusion of goodwill I signed it anyway and that one stupid mistake has cost me my life’s work. I was offered a ‘job’ after losing Torbreck, selling my own wine on commission.’

Dave Powell is now facing bankruptcy, living in a house given to him by friends, and driving a borrowed car. He has written an open letter to his fans and customers, which you can read here . In it he claims he was screwed by Kight, and let down by his partners. Kight says he gave Powell plenty of opportunity to buy back the farm, and a big expense account. There’s talk of a $92,000 tab from Danish strip club, a $15,000 lunch at Tetsuya’s and more here.

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The big guns didn’t just lose, they were disgraced

In the foreword to the report on the results, Editor Peter Simic tells us that this is the eighth annual challenge, and that ‘we have also purchased top iconic wines normally not entered into any competitions, giving a fascinating “too hot to handle” head-to-head competition.’ That’s a pretty clunky sentence for a publisher of Peter’s experience, but a what great idea!

Indeed, near the end of the 20 pages of reviews we find Grange and Hill of Grace sitting in a corner like two school boys who’ve misbehaved in class. It’s the class of Shiraz and blends $200 +, with a couple of fancied Guigal Cote-Roties keeping  them company. IMHO 3 stars out of 5 is a disgrace for wines that carry price tags in the $600 – $800 range. The class winner is Exile Barossa Valley Shiraz 2008 at $220.

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Give me Cabernet or GSM, Merlot or Pinot – anything but Shiraz

‘Shiraz is the wine on everyone’s lips,’ writes Huon Hooke in his latest newsletter. ‘About 28% of all Australian wine is shiraz, more than one in four bottles – an almost incredible statistic.’ The latest Winestate magazine is running the World’s Greatest Shiraz Challenge, and has rounded up almost 600 wines. There’s even a website dedicated to the variety http://www.shiraz.com.au/ , which turns out be more about food.

‘Shiraz is Australia’s distinctive red,’ writes Andrew Corrigan in Winestate, ‘ and our most famous offering to the world of wine.’ Then follows the usual list of Shiraz Greats starting with Grange, Hill of Grace, Mount Langi Ghiran and the rest. Yawn. How did it come to this? As usual, Robert Parker had a lot to do with it, flying down under in the nineties and giving 99 point scores to massive Shiraz reds from McLaren Vale, the Barossa and Heathcote.

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August 31, 2013

Lafite and Latour

‘Suspects were arrested in China holding more than 32 Million Dollars of fake wine by the Yanti police,’ the Wine Cellar Insider reports. Police apparently arrested10 suspects and seized more ore than 40,000 bottles of fake wine in one raid.

Some of the wines being counterfeited were Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Chateau Latour, Chateau Mouton Rothschild, Chateau Beychevelle, Chateau Pichon Baron. ‘Lafite has become the poster child for forgery in China,’ the article says, ‘where it has been reported that there are more cases of the iconic 1982 vintage of Lafite floating about than were actually produced by the château.’

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