Trophies a Golden Drop in the Bucket
December 14, 2024 | POST Newspaper Article ‘On the Grapevine’ by John Jens
JJ’s Preface
The elephant in the cellar. There are so many great stories in the Australian wine industry. Some good. Some not so good!
Australia has an annual seven capital city wine show program which is one of the world’s finest. 85 or 90% of the judges are winemakers or wine writers from the eastern state’s mainland. Eastern state wine lovers are not aware of how successful Tasmania and Western Australian wines are on this show judging circuit. These two states between them produce a maximum of 4% of Australia’s wine and … less in certain years.
In comparison to most eastern states and national wine writers, James Halliday gave very high ratings and reviews to many of Western Australia’s finest. He told me in about 2016 that he was criticised by industry people in the east for being so pro-Western Australian. But if you evaluate James’ figures, they correlate very strongly with the results of the masked capital city one show system which – as I said – is largely judged by the eastern states’ own winemakers.
A wonderful and considered Victorian pinot noir winemaker also chided me gently for my wine show statistics … but we can assume that if his Ranges (GI) region, or heaven forbid, even his own winery, had won 9 consecutive best pinot noir trophies at Melbourne, that they/he would be lionised - and deservedly so - for being a great achiever in the pinot world. Ditto for Mount Mary from the Yarra Valley with Cabernet Sauvignons.
That is, the east largely decries and devalues their own judges in the capital city shows … but would they if their regions had the extra-ordinary WA and Tasmanian success rates?
An opinionated New South Wales wholesaler who often criticises other wine businesses activities, recently had a personal opinion piece published on Nick Ryan’s The Australian Colour Magazine’s Top 100. The nation’s most influential annual wine column. He complained that New South Wales produced far more than 5% of Australia’s wine yet it was only given five of the 100 spots in the top 100. It is not fair.
Surely this should be based on quality and value and not on your state of origin? Because the eastern states consumers and wine lovers do not know these figures … as they’ve never been put in front of them … if they are mentioned, then the east’s oenophiles can become a little defensive. The figures are below. And of course, the key point is that the two states that dominate the Australian capital city wine show circuit only produced 4% of Australia’s wine. Which of the major varieties are/will be left for New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia in the years to come?
No one is meant to mention these figures. Yep, the elephant in the room.
