Is this a winery or an oil refinery?

WINE TALK
41

You can get Max going on this stuff, I will wait to play this game over here. Someone needs to start a thread how they are waiting 6 years for their 2000 BDX futures, but they have no doubt it will be pristine and from the original source when it arrives.

42

I actually RTFA. It was an interesting read, but completely overlooked the higher end market. Would have been interesting to see more discussion around the disconnect between the ever higher ratings and general stylistic prefence changes of the higher end consumer away from the mollydooker type style of wines.

43

Yellowtail is to wine what Chevron is to gas. Funny too, you can always tell the point score-whores when they pull their Beamer’s up to the tank, fill up with 91 Octane, and exclaim:

"I ain’t puttin’ no fuckin’ 89 in this baby!"


Cheers Larry…who love ya, baby!

44

…hark! …and the shade of the wine gave shelter from the sun?

45

HAHAHA. [rofl.gif]

46

Chuck from the Jug Shop in CA…with a very interesting opinion piece…

http://www.jugshop.com/newsletters/downunder/DUD33_YTresponse_web.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

47

Daniel, interesting article and it definitely hits the nail on the head in a few places, but this quote really made me laugh:

Yes, the top 25 wineries produce 90% of the country’s wine. But that leaves some 1,950 wineries, most of them quite small and family owned, to make up the rest of a vibrant and diverse industry. All of this coming from 65 growing regions spanning a country the size of America.

I mean, can you imagine? 1,950 wineries? That’s like… a lot!

Ahem. Let’s talk about another region of the world dominated by big brands, namely Champagne - surface 0.004% of Australia, for the record. In this tiny plot of land there are about 5,000 small growers/producers.

I like how he introduces a number that looks big out of context and say that it’s nothing to sneeze at, when actually it is. Only 2,000 wineries in a country the size of Australia is actually ridiculous.

EDIT: are there really only 2,000 wineries in the whole of Australia or is that a typo?

48

So if I can run a fuel tank farm with 10 million plus gallons of JP-8 for the Air Force, does that mean I can run the bulk storage aspects of this place? Hmmm… -mJ

49

Guillaume, I enjoyed this quote…
"The fatal laziness I defined earlier is also reflected in America’s poor understanding of Australia as a winegrowing nation. It was only five years ago that Robert Parker’s guide to Australian wine regions declared riesling and gewurztraminer as important grapes of the Yarra Valley, Heathcote wineries like Jasper Hill and Wild Duck Creek were listed as part of Bendigo, and while writing about regions like the Swan Valley, he overlooked Tasmania and the Mornington Peninsula. There is an Australia out there which most do not know. If they did, many criticisms would evaporate."

50

This is a shot I took of the Columbia Crest tank farm in Horse Heaven Hills, Washington.

51

Funny, but I liked even more the part where he bashed distributors and retailers [wink.gif]

52

Hard to know where to start here. Much as with the North American continent, Australia is large enough to span a range of climates. These go from alpine to dry desert, dry savannah to tropical rainforest. Aside from the issue of available water, much of the area of the continent (remember this is a continent) is not suitable for viticulture for winemaking.

That out of the way - consider that the Australian population is 21.8 million people - for the entire continent. With the combination of small population numbers - though right for how fragile and dry the continent is - and where Australia is in the world, it is not that surprising that the numbers of wineries in Australia are not that far over 2000.

Of course, there are many more growers than there are wineries, just as in many other parts of the world. I don’t have the 2008 figures to hand, but the just over 2000 numbers of wineries are probably the 2006 year data.

The diversity of the regions, and then the producers and styles within those regions, is to me the most interesting part of the Australian wine story. There is a lot more to Australian wine than Barossan shiraz, as good as that can be. Wines like rieslings from Eden and Clare, cool-climate spicy shiraz from Great Western or Canberra, Hunter Valley semillon and Hunter shiraz, fortified muscats and tokays from Rutherglen, the yearly release of the 100 year old Seppeltsfield Para (the 1909 has just been released), unique sparkling shiraz like the Primo Estate Joseph, etc.

Perhaps you may wish to have a look at the critic’s descriptions of the wines they were exposed to during the Landmark Australia tutorials earlier this year for more information on the history and diversity of Australian wine?

53

We are all at fault…all sheep…except for Max, as he only sells BDX!