Aussie Shiraz - time for a comeback? Or not...

WINE TALK
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After having a transcendental experience with a 2009 Torbreck RunRig I picked up earlier this year on a whim (you know you’re in too deep when you pick up a $180 wine on a whim…), I wondered if it might be time for good ‘ol Aussie Shiraz to mount a comeback. But after searching the inventories of the local giants, the category remains shockingly dead. With most, probably 90% of the listings are for late 1990s/early 2000s vintage offerings that probably never sold. Heck, even WHWC only has 19 listings for “Shiraz”. I’ve always loved the wines that brought grip and acidity along with the ripe fruit (leave the Northern Rhone lookalikes to the Rhone, I say), and surely many others did, but it was hard to tell from some critics’ notes if you’d be dealt a Torbreck, or a gloop-fest that only a DrBigJay could love. As for Cali Syrah, there are some I’ve enjoyed, but they’ve always seemed to lack the complexity and unique personalities I find in the best Barossa Shiraz; maybe vine age is a factor.

I don’t think Parker or anyone at TWA can regain the credibility they lost in this segment. I would say there’s room for a new critic to make themselves heard, but with virtually nothing being imported, there’s not even anything to criticize. What a sad story…

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Its a shame indeed.

We still drink a fair bit, and fair to say also, its as good now, if not better, than ever.

The style of wines seem as if it is just much more balanced and even, as well as being more diverse than ever.

2010 and 2012 have produced some cracking shiraz, with more to come…

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So do we!

2010 in particular is being talked about as an all-star year.

As you can see, I’m a newbie on this board (and fairly new to wine generally) and although I know it’s US/Euro dominated, I’ve been a little surprised at the lack of discussion on Aussie wines generally, and in particular shiraz.

Nick, when you referred to TWA’s loss of credibility, are you referring to TWA’s championing of all our biggest wines resulting in the inevitable blowback of all our wines being perceived as over-oaked, hot, over-alcoholic, fruity monsters?

Despite all the press over here about the export-facing side of the business, the penetration of our wines into the US/UK/Euro markets must be horrible. A friend ITB has said that in his export markets almost no-one wants to even look at Aussie wines at the moment due to the unbalanced fruit bomb perception. We’ve also exported on price/volume and not quality.

A couple of examples from WHWC (not a stooge for them, but they do do a great job of shipping me cheap burgs and Barolo out here).

The Glaetzer Amon Ra, which WHWC is carrying, is a big and beautiful wine and worth a guernsey in anyone’s cellar. A 2004 we enjoyed recently had softened a treat - velvety, liquid chocolate and dark berry fruits (choco-berry, one of our scribes calls it). Paul, are you a fan of this wine?

At the other end of the scale, WHWC is also carrying the Yangarra Shiraz (2010) for sub-$20. It’s not a small wine, but it is well balanced and great QPR. I believe it may come from the people behind Kendall Jackson and La Jota in the States.

Not much else to speak of on their website, but there’s plenty more good stuff out here.

The Barossa is surely always going to produce bigger wines, just as in Rioja and Ribera. I don’t think the average summer maximums in the Barossa and Napa are much different either. Balance has to be the key, wherever.

Agree with the original point - we need a new champion. Perrotti-Brown is trying, but no-one is really listening (except when she gave 100 to Grange).

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I have been a fan of Torbreck wines for a long time, especially the entry level woodcutters shiraz is great bang for the buck without being unbalanced or “fruit bomb” But i dont see it much on any shelves here in Denmark, neither do i find much other australian wine, except for the supermarket cheap stuff

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It also would be nice to see producers other than the largest and most commercial. Sadly, we’re not so lucky here in NYC.

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If the $AUD takes a good tumble I think there will be a bit of a shiraz renaissance from Down Under. There are many world class wines and some of the wines have evolved toward an even higher level.

No pun intended, but it was money for jam selling to to the US market prior. I hope the exploratory wine lovers have a good crack this time. Don’t be lured toward the shiraz we put on our pancakes. We now sell that to the Chinese.

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I agree, if the AUD falls a bit, we might see some places start to explore more regions of Australia that are would probably do very well right now but don’t get the time of day because of the perception that they’re all fruit bombs.

Surprisingly enough, I’m actually starting to see things from the Hunter make it to the US…I’m not sure how well it is selling but I think that has more to do with the price and old perception than the wine itself…

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+1. This has always been a terrific little overachiever, year after year. And it improves over short to mid term aging as well.

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Just want to give a shout out to Dan Standish and Jaysen Collins in the Barossa Valley. Dan makes wine under his own label which I’ve not had (“The Standish” is reputed to be really good) and with Jaysen at Massena. I can testify that their The Eleventh Hour (100% Shiraz, made from 60 yo Greenock vines rescued at “the eleventh hour") is just superb, especially at the ~$35 price point. It’s hard to find here in the states - only 35 or so cases were imported into the US for the 2009, but I got one of them through Ian and his crew at Wine Library, and I’m hoping they can do the same for the 2010 when it comes out. I’ve been following it since ’06 and have some of each of the years since in the cellar and am trying desperately to NOT DRINK anymore because it just gets better and better with age. They seem to really let the wine make itself as each year I can really taste both the place and the climate in the wine (insofar as I understand either the terroir or the weather, never having been there − someday!).

Their “The Moonlight Run” Rhone Blend (Grenache, Shiraz, Matero, Cinsault) is also very tasty; the ’09 is drinking very well now, and at ~$24/btl is a great QPR - I think WL still has some.

If there’s a ShirOz “comeback”, these guys are part of it IMHO!

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Many thanks for the cheap shot, Nick. Hope you feel better.

You should know that it was Parker who brought Run Rig (and the other Torbreck wines) to the attention of American wine consumers and I followed with similar scores on more recent vintages.

My feeling is that the better wines from Barossa and McLaren Vale will have to earn their way back gradually by continuing to produce the same (or better) level of quality but at a much lower price. If the Greenock Creeks, Kaeslers, Clarendon Hills, etc can come in at half what they used to sell for, they might just regain market share because the quality is as good as ever (and they have proven their ability to age).
MrBigJ

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There are some terrific wines being made by the next generation coming through in the Barossa. Shiraz has been dialled back with less new oak, less alcohol and some whole bunch in some cases. Check out Ruggabellus, Eperosa, Spinifex, Rojomoma, Sami-Odi, Tim Smith Wines, Yelland and Papps and you’ll find some perfumed, ethereal wines that may change the way you view Australian red wines. There are also some fabulous Grenache and Mataro wines now being made off seriously old vine plots also.

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Jay, I don’t see a cheap shot. Maybe he should have phrased it as, “an overripe high alcohol overoaked wine that got high scores from Jay Miller and other critics that some people like, but of which some people can’t even swallow a sip without gagging.” I used to like that style, esp. Sparky Marquis, I don’t any more. And there is no critic anywhere on whom I can rely for Australian wines, not WA, not Tanzer, not whats his name in Australia (J. something); I would go further than Nick and say, I can NEVER tell from ANY wine critic whether I’ll like an Australian red wine, while I do rely on critics for guidance in red Burgundy (not white) and Spanish wines (I look for the word “balanced”), and which vintage of Giacosa has the best QPR (it used to be 1999).
Harvey Steiman nailed Leeuwin chardonnay before Tanzer or Parker understood it (they did not give it enough air).

Meanwhile I’ve been drinking wine much less often, but the average quality has gone up, and a Wirra Wirra Chook Block 1998 was easily one of the best wines I’ve had in 2013. So I went to wine-searcher. Unfortunately it’s now well over $100 US everywhere. Big and rich and ripe, but no glop. Easily available at $45 not too long ago.

To me Aussie glop comes from any one of the following or combination thereof:
Overripe so the terroir is seared out of the wine.
Too much oak or badly cured American oak.
A certain Shiraz flavor of simple cherry or raspberry jam and cloying candy which I also associaet wuith overripeness.
A slug of vodka on the finish.
Plus two non-gloppy flaws:
Tannins that feel very powdery in the mouth, or acidity that does not seem to correspond to the riperness of the wine.

Aussie shiraz without any of the above issues still easily compete with the best wines in the world for my palate. And they don’t have to be lean or delicate or Bordeaux-like, nor are they limited to Hill of Grace and Rockford.

But there is no critic I trust to find a big rich Aussie red without glop. There are hundreds of them, but I can only find them by trial and error, or aging the wine.

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Exactly. While Jay may feel I’m taking “cheap shots”, I’m not accusing him or Parker of any dishonesty or perfidy, I’m merely pointing out that their palates are at the extreme end of the bell curve when it comes to tolerance for those characteristics typical of extremely ripe wines - surmaturite, heat, glycerol, etc. This resulted in a runaway feedback loop between TWA scores and wineries who continued to chase them, while most consumers, even those who are normally fans of ripe Bordeaux and Cali Cab (like me), were left in the dust and voted with our dollars.

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And I commend you for that, and for Amon Ra, but to me, those two wines bear no resemblance to an army of others that got similar scores that lacked any semblance of balance or structure.

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I have always assumed / suspected this to be the case. But I just don’t see those kinds of wines regularly for sale here, and the few I know about that are good and in a more elegant style seem very expensive to me (for example, I like Jasper Hill Georgia’s Paddock and Penfolds St. Henri, but I don’t think those offer compelling value at $75+ nowadays). I have never seen or heard of a single one of those labels you just listed.

Certainly, I don’t make that blanket statement having tried everything in my local wine shops or being some kind of expert on Australian wines, so I could just not realize what great things are under my nose. But, just speaking as a rank-and-file wine enthusiast, I’d love to see more concrete examples of good Australian wine, made in an elegant and ageable style, and which are available at retail in the US at competitive prices. I know that sounds like I’m asking for everything at once, but I think you can make that statement about a lot of wine (including syrah) from California, France and elsewhere.

Otherwise, I think so many of us have just moved on due to the excesses of the exports back a decade ago, and the burden (fairly or unfairly) sort of falls on Australian producers and exporters to remake the case for why we should go back to searching for Aussie wines. I don’t see any indication that is happening at least yet.

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Seems like a gaping hole for someone to become the Garagiste of Australia, assuming they could establish a track record and build some trust.
Aussie shirazes are too much of an unknown crapshoot for me right now, but I’m routinely impressed with rieslings in the ~$15 range.

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Well said. Something or someone has got to engineer the turnaround.

Otherwise, while I believe and appreciate the Aussies informing us that there are all these great little producers that we’ve never heard of and who are different from and better than what turned a lot of American wine enthusiasts away, it’s not really changing anything on the ground here.

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There are plenty of terrific wines being made in Australia. People’s understanding of the various regions is often too simplistic. We parse France into square meters and talk about the difference in Burgundy from one vineyard to another, and the various regions in Bordeaux and the Loire, and then talk about “Australia” as if it’s the same thing as say, Chinon.

Except it’s more like, say, Europe.

So in certain regions, like the Barossa Valley, which is pretty big, the temps are pretty hot and you’ll get big, ripe wines. Not all are over the top, but you’re not going to get restrained, cool climate wines any more than you will along the Mediterranean coast in Italy or France or Spain.

But there are other regions that are much much cooler and there’s nothing between them and the south pole except the cold ocean. Those regions are not making high-octane wines. Very much the opposite.

The problem is that the Australians were too successful in convincing everyone that they made good, enjoyable wine for under $15. They were so successful that people didn’t want to pay anything more because they got pretty good stuff for the low prices. So why pay more? Especially since a lot of the higher-end Barossa wines were pretty much more of the same - big fruit, plush, etc.

Argentina is developing the exact same problem with their Malbec - I had a great Argentine Cab Franc the other day but for $30, who’s going to buy it? Spain did it also to an extent, especially with Cava.

So Australia needs to teach people that there are other wines besides big reds. And it has some very interesting wines. Their Riesling can be really good, and so can their other whites - Albarino, Semillon, etc. And they have plenty of grapes from the south of Spain and from Portugal planted, but they’re also making wine in regions very much unlike Barossa. Look for wines from Heathcote, Macedon Range, Tasmania, maybe even Frankland River, although that’s a bit warmer.

The Yangarra was picked up by Kendal Jackson a few years ago - they used to do Bordeaux varieties and made the only good Merlot I’ve ever had from Australia, but they decided to concentrate on the Rhone/Spanish varieties and KJ pretty much left them alone to do their thing. Warm weather wines, but done pretty well for the prices.

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by GregT » Today, 12:18pm The Yangarra was picked up by Kendal Jackson a few years ago - they used to do Bordeaux varieties and made the only good Merlot I’ve ever had from Australia, but they decided to concentrate on the Rhone/Spanish varieties and KJ pretty much left them alone to do their thing. Warm weather wines, but done pretty well for the prices.

I agree! Warm weather wines from Australia will generally be bigger wines. They may not be for everyone. During summer time, most of Australia’s wine regions (except maybe Tasmania) will get a fair lick of sun. Heathcote, Macedon and the Great Southern all cop plenty from December through Feb. The key is balance. If the wine is well made it shouldn’t matter how much sun the grapes take unless it’s a belter of a summer, provided of course you like the overall style.

The price point is another key issue. As soon as a wine is well rated, it ratchets up massively. Greenock Creek, Clarendon Australis and Chris Ringland happen, and then everyone started chasing the ‘f-bomb’.

The wineries are not doing a good enough job getting their $20 - $40 product out there. I have only heard of some of Jeremy’s examples, but we have plenty more. You don’t even have to go to the off-the-beaten-track wineries. Glaetzer is making a solid shiraz called “Bishop” for under $30 and the Best’s Bin 1, under $25, is consistently a good wine. The Langi Cliff Edge would come in at sub-$20, and it is sound as well.

Hear hear! We need a new champion, and a better export effort.

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Great posts, Greg and Nick. I have little doubt that, with access and guidance to the right wines, I and many others would really kindle a new love for Aussie wines. I hope someone or something comes along to facilitate that, and I hope the Australian wine industry does well enough in the meantime.