Wineletter #254 August 2019

Australia

Overly-extracted; irritatingly bold, excessively alcoholic; are these your go-to Australian descriptors? Wine descriptors. Wine. When it comes to wine, these aren’t the terms you’re looking for, to coin a phrase; but, Australian wine has changed, mate, so sit up. While you’ll still come across your brash, white-noise Aussie wines, more and more of the Lucky Country’s winemakers are taking it back a notch, while making the most of the exceptional vine age they’re graced with.

A massive wine glut, a need to compete for exports, a new genera-tion of winemakers lovingly nurturing a different point of view; all of these things have had an impact. Many of those Next-Genners have travelled and then returned home with new ways of thinking, resulting in some very clever and accomplished winemakers currently plying their art across the ditch that are more than worthy of your attention.

Much like venturing into the gobsmacking New Releases section of your digital music platform, the challenge is that when you’re standing in front of the shelves, you just don’t know what you’re looking at. To aid you in this venture and help you navigate, we’ve ditched the variety- region-winery-type designations and divided the wines into ‘how they taste’ categories. You’re welcome. So climb down from your high horse, cobber, and come in for a cool, refreshing tipple. No worries, mate.