A year ago this week, I was sitting in a café trying port bases with a Portuguese producer. I knew we’d got to the ‘in vino veritas’ part of the proceedings after the winemaker suddenly turned to me and said: “I hate Australia. I hate Australian wine. And I hate what Australia has done to wine.”

In my current role, I hear all kinds of sentiments about Australia, often because the speaker doesn’t realise I’m Australian. Most people aren’t as vitriolic as my man from Portugal: some are admiring and some are neutral. However, it has to be saiid that an increasing number of them are negative, from the Italian CEO who told me that Australians have no viticulture, but instead use high technology and chemicals to get the results they want, to the American distributor who said that “the Australian category stinks. You can’t sell it any more”.

It’s a long way from my first contact with Australian wine, about a decade ago, when I was a copywriter for Cellarmaster Wines. In the late 1990s, it was impossible not to be swept up in the exuberant mood of the day: Australian exports to the UK were soaring, Robert Parker was bestowing lavish praise on various wines, sending their prices to stratospheric levels, and vineyard plantings increased rapidly, as people rushed to be part of the Great Australian Vinous Gold Rush. The Old World didn’t know what had hit it – Australia’s ability to create delicious, consistent, well priced wines tore chunks from their traditional markets, even as it opened up wine drinking for people who had never thought wine might be something for them. So successful was Australia becoming, that you could even hear people say things like ‘Australia makes the best wine in the world’.

People who actually worked in the business didn’t say that, however. What they tended to say – usually at the end of a long, alcoholic night – was ‘you know, wine’s just a drink’. Or: ‘it’s all about what’s in the glass’.

These days, when I hear people saying those things, I worry. Because if I’ve learnt one thing about wine, it’s that the French are right – wine is as much a cultural artefact as it is a drink. The actual taste can be much less important than the associations the wine brings with it. It seems to me that Australia has focused too much on what’s in the glass and, in the quest to make wine accessible, overlooked or even derided some of these intangible associations. This is, I believe, adding to Australia’s current difficulties in the export markets, in ways that are not recognized.

And what difficulties there are. The world has changed a great deal since those heady days: where once the sheer quality of Australian wine stood out in a field of mediocre, often faulty wines, today’s consumers can choose from well made and interesting wines from around the world, as a new generation of winemakers bring professionalism and expertise to both Old and New World countries. New investment in viticulture and winemaking has expanded both vineyard plantings and national ambitions, to the extent that even the smallest players feel ready to take on the world.

Never in wine history has so much wine been produced, from Brazil to north Africa, and all of it has to go somewhere. Where it most definitely is not going, in too many cases, is to the producers’ own domestic markets. Wine consumption continues to decline at alarming levels in France, Spain and Italy, making exporting a ‘do or die’prospect for a number of key competitors.

On top of that, the once reliable UK market, which soaked up so much of the world’s wine, is becoming one big discount supermarket. Thanks to the decline of the pound, the rise in duty, and the relentless pressure to sell onpromotion, the UK is an increasingly unprofitable place to do business. Which is why all eyes are now turned to the US, an enormous market that not only continues to grow, but where consumers are happy to pay realistic prices for decent wines, as well as to the emerging markets of Russia and Asia.

I’m sure I won’t surprise anyone here when I add that the other big change in the global wine trade is the sudden fall in Australia’s fortunes. It’s not just the declines in export volumes and values – Italy and France are also experiencing that, thanks to the global financial crisis. It’s the sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Australian model. Jancis Robinson remarked at ProWein this year that she had never seen a wine country’s reputation fall so far and so fast as Australia’s and she isn’t sure what the industry can do about it. She puts the decline down to two things: the first being that Australian wines being sold on promotion in UK supermarkets has left people with the image of Australia as a cheap and cheerful producer. The second is that Robert Parker’s hyping of certain types of Australian wine – syrupy, alcoholic Shiraz – has proved a curse, because those overpriced wines failed to live up to the hype. Unfortunately, the cheap and cheerful image has stuck. I’m sure many Australians shivered when they discovered that Fred Franzia, the brains behind Two Buck Chuck, has made an Australian chardonnay priced at US$3 - and that his advertising pitch is that Australia has been ripping off American consumers by charging more than this in the past. Even though production of this wine isn’t sustainable, the damage is done. Meanwhile, cases of expensive, unsold Parker point wines continue to clutter distributors’ warehouses, proving to the American trade that premium Australian wine is a poor bet.

I believe there are other things as work, as well.. The Australian wine industry is the most transparent in the world. When something goes wrong in Australia, everybody hears about it, making it sound as though only Australia has a problem. The Italians, on the other hand, play things much closer to their chest. More ominously, some Europeans are gleeful about what they see as Australia‘s comeuppance, largely because they have been told for years that their own way of doing things was old fashioned and inept and that the Australian way was the model to emulate; so much so, that the EU has introduced new regulations to allow oak chips and the like, explicitly to encourage the Europeans to do things the Australian way. To discover that Australia isn’t doing so well reassures them that their way isn’t so bad after all. You might be surprised at the depth of feeling around this, as typified by my Portuguese winemaker.

Of course, what Old World competitors think is not Australia’s business, one way or the other, and it would be a waste of time trying to change their minds. The problem is that these things are not simply being said privately - they’re also being said to the same customers, distributors, importers, retailers and buyers that Australian producers need to cultivate. This has the potential to cause real harm, particularly in emerging markets like China, where buying decisions are intimately bound up with questions of face and prestige. These stereotypes about Australia must be confronted head on.

This, of course, has not gone unnoticed by the leaders of Australia’s wine industry, who have realised that Australia’s image as a bargain basement producer needs to be counteracted by an emphasis on Australia’s ability to produce the authentic, distinctive wines that international consumers are now craving. Some of the initiatives that the Australian wine industry has devised are ingenious and effective, such as the Landmark Tutorial. Since it was first announced, I have come across more than a couple of wine writers and other gatekeepers who have been somewhat miffed that they have to apply for the Tutorial, rather than simply be invited. This is great stuff, letting people know that access to Australia’s finest can’t be taken for granted. The result of the Tutorial has been an outpouring of enthusiasm from those people who attended, and plenty of positive international media coverage.

But Australia is fundamentally hampered in this project by the fact that it is an industry speaking with one voice. This is something of a turnaround, because Australia’s unified industry has always been one of its greatest strengths; unfortunately, the fact that the commodity producers and the producers of unique, distinctive wines are often the same people, is a fundamental conflict of interest, especially since the major producers can project their message more forcefully than the many small businesses that create some of Australia’s most interesting wines..

Nevertheless, there is general agreement that one of the things Australia must do urgently is communicate its regional distinctive to the world. As my colleague Robert Joseph says, “regionality is the grammar of wine”. If you want to be taken seriously in the world of wine, you have to offer terroir. For the connoisseur, regionality is critical; but it’s important for less engaged consumers as well. In a time when consumers are looking for authenticity and adventure, particularly in the United States, they need to know that Australia offers a multiplicity of distinct, exciting tastes that can’t be found anywhere else. Regionality also conveys a competitive advantage because, unlike branding or viticulture techniques, it can’t be copied; if a wine has true terroir, it tastes of one place only. Further, regions that are very well known – Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rioja and so on – cast a glamour over all their wines. It’s doubtful whether Bordeaux would be able to sell much of its thin, tannic, weedy wines if it wasn’t for the fact that Bordeaux is home to the world’s most prestigious wines. Famous regions also act as brands, whose very name conjures up a range of associations – think of all those people who still call sparkling wine ‘Champagne’, probably with no awareness that Champagne is actually a place, but with an understanding that Champagne is something special. And, finally, I understand that for some export markets, such as Japan, hard core geographic indicators are essential for market access.

So it’s critical for the Australian wine industry to pursue a regionality strategy, because to much of the world, Australia still seems to be operating under the doctrine of terra nullius: it’s just one vast, hot place that’s the samefrom one end to the other.

However, regionality alone will not big enough to tackle the toxic brew of problems facing Australia, especially given the that Australia’s wine industry is attempting to deliver two different messages with one voice: the first being that Australia produces easygoing lifestyle wines, and the second being that Australia produces unique, distinctive wines. So first I want to take a look at what regionality can and can’t do and then look at some strategies that might complement and boost it.

How is regional distinctiveness created? I can identify four particular ways: Firstly, regions break into public consciousness when they produce great wines. Margaret River, for example, is a well-known area not because someone decided to publicise it, but because it produced a cluster of outstanding wines right from the beginning..

Second, when the right grape meets the right soil, the world is set on fire. We’ve seen this in Marlborough with Sauvignon Blanc; other areas where the right viticulture turned a lacklustre region into a star would include Priorat in Spain and, in the present moment, Sicily. Long a producer of bulk wines, Sicily is attracting favourable attention for its newly emerging distinctive wines – a reward for years of careful viticulture. Brian Croser has called for research into sites and this is very good advice, because the payoff can be spectacular; however, between the first planting of Sauvignon Blanc in Marlborough and the arrival of Cloudy Bay on the world scene, more than a decade had elapsed. Research into site selection is a necessary project, but a long term one.

Another way to put a wine region on the map is through proximity to tourism, because it gives people a chance to get to know the region’s wines, usually when they’re in a good mood. Again, it’s no surprise that Margaret River sells so much wine to Singapore, considering that the whole region is a Singaporean getaway.

Finally, members of a region can collectively decide that they are going to mark themselves out as distinctive, and work together to promote a specific identity. The sparkling wine produces in Franciacorta in Italy are a model for this. The region is less than 30 years old, but the wineries have got together and created their own rules and traditions, including a special name for their methode champenoise wine: they call it Saten, to ensure it’s never confused with any other such sparkling wine. It’s the same strategy that Rutherglen had years ago, when they came up with their own fortified classifications and it’s a great idea if you can get everyone on board and focused on a specific speciality. Perhaps Tasmania should think about coming up with a protected name for its sparkling wines.

Getting consumers to understand that Australia has distinct regions has many benefits, not least of which is that it will help consumers distinguish between Australia’s supermarket bargains and its unique, exciting wines. But regionality is not some kind of universal panacea. The fact is that not every region can make itself distinct in any of these four ways, or at least not quickly. How are regions like Manjimup or Pemberton to break into public consciousness? How will Australia explain the difference between shiraz from the Grampians and shiraz from Heathcote in a quick, readily understandable fashion?

The reality is that Australia cannot possibly promote its 64 regions individually. Australia can only promote a handful of top regions and hope that they cast a halo over all the others.

Not only that, but there is now a general international recognition of the commercial value of regionality. The Chileans want to stamp some identity on their country, which is even more of a blank to consumers than Australia. As I speak, producers in Alsace are fighting to protect their right to list the varietal on the label, rather than simply listing the site. Their argument is that there are 51 distinct sites in Alsace, virtually all of which are currently meaningless to consumers. And let’s not even begin to talk about how many regions Spain, France and Italy have between them, much less Portugal, Austria and Germany.

And this is the Achilles heel in the regionality strategy: the world’s wine producers are collectively sending a tsunami of information to the poor consumers of the major export markets. What the business likes to term ‘wine education’ looks an awful lot like geography lessons and, for most people, it’s all too much. To put this in context, I recently asked the export manager for the Languedoc-Rousillon region to tell me how many of the region’s 115 or so appellations she could list off the top of her head. She said on a good day she could probably name 50.

The Californians are acutely aware of this problem. As they ramp up their export drive, they believe it will be too difficult to educate consumers about regions other than Napa and Sonoma, so they have decided to focus on sustainability, instead. Which is interesting, because there’s no evidence I’m aware of that consumers are prepared to pay a premium for sustainably produced wine; be that as it may, the Californians have identified sustainability as a major issue for the future. And for them, talking about sustainability is helped not only by the fact that the Californian wine industry has produced environmental leaders like Paul Dolan, but also because California itself is a world leader when it comes to environmental legislation. Likewise, the New Zealanders see an advantage in sustainability as a proposition, rather than regionality, because they believe that sustainable practices are a guarantee of wine quality. Once again, this position is congruous with the overall positioning of New Zealand internationally as a green, clean country.

Which brings me to my main point: wine does not exist separately from the country or the culture that produces it. If a wine industry’s message is congruous with the image of its country, then its message is amplified. To take the Franciacorta example again: I asked a member of the Consorzio how he thought the region would get away with asking export markets to pay Champagne prices for what are, after all, virtually unknown wines. His
answer? “We are from Italy, the country of leather goods, designer fashions and sports cars. If we say something is worth paying for, of course people will believe us.”

Or go back to that consumer who calls all sparkling wine ‘Champagne’. That same person will call it ‘French Champagne’ when they want the good stuff. The country and the product are, except in the rarest of cases, inextricably linked.

The impact of national image on wine can’t be measured, and the link between culture and wine is rarely articulated, but it’s strong enough to make other industries feel either empowered by it, or worried. In the empowered camp are Wines of Austria. Their tag line is ‘a taste of culture’ and their advertising juxtaposes their wines with images of Austrian culture. At its kitschiest, this can come down to talking about ‘Mozart in the glass’, but at its most effective, it links its lively wines to Austria’s culinary and artistic heritage. If you consider that 25 years ago Austria was nearly destroyed
by the anti-freeze scandal, and that today it exports wine at an average price of $3.30 a litre, you’d have to agree that they’re a highly successful boutique industry. Now, let me make myself clear: I am not suggesting that they are successful because they have managed to link wine and Mozart. Their wines are very good and speak for themselves. What’s important is that their wine proposition is reinforced by Austria’s standing as a country of high culture.

Or take tiny Wines of Brazil, who are making a big noise at trade fairs with their music and drumming. When I asked them why they were so optimistic, their export manager said: “Because we have so much to talk about. We have Rio, carnivale and the Amazon jungle. People love Brazil and its way of life.”

In the case of Australia, I believe that the phrase ‘fine wine’ is incongruous with Australia’s national image. How can the industry expect people to believe that Australia can produce great wine, a drink historically associated with the more sophisticated things in life, when Australia repeatedly tells the world that it is a country of beaches, hot weather and nature red in tooth and claw.

Australia actually is a country of beaches and deadly snakes, of course, but it is also far more and I believe that there are things about the country that could be used to amplify and reinforce its position as a producer of fine wines. And if you look at why Australian wines were so successful in the first place, you see many of these elements at work.

An historian friend of mine says Australia suffers from what she calls The Great Australian Forgetting, whereby every generation of Australians prefers to forget what the one before did. She suggests it goes back to the days when early Australians were trying to shrug off their convicts pasts; however it came about, it certainly afflicts the wine industry. Talk to people about recent wine history, and the first thing they’re sure to say is that the industry doesn’t want to go back to the ‘Sunshine in a Bottle’ proposition.

There was a lot more going on than that, which allowed Australia to make its triumphant move onto the world stage.

Of course, the fact that Australian wines were reliable, delicious and well priced, at a time when most wines were unreliable and difficult to understand, is the largest part of the story. But Australian personality played a big role too; before the Australians came along, nobody expected to meet the winemaker. Now, everybody does. The fact that Australians were seen to be down to earth and approachable reflected well on the wines. Also, there was no complicated labelling, which made them easy to understand. What you saw was what you got. So you could say thatAustralia was friendly,  honest and inclusive.

Something else that kickstarted the export boom was the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986, as first Sweden and then other countries became concerned about all types of European produce. Australia was seen as the clean, green option and the Scandinavians quickly embraced its wines.

Finally, Hazel Murphy, who did so much to promote Australian wine, once said that another contributing factor to the success of Australian wine in Britain was, surprisingly enough, the films of Peter Weir. Picnic at Hanging Rock and Gallipoli, along with other films of the era, generated an interest in Australia, a country about which few people knew anything. This was also the period when bands like Men at Work broke through internationally, as did comedian Paul Hogan, and when Australian yachtsmen won the Americas Cup. All these things helped generate an excitement around Australia, the impact of which should not be underestimated.

So, to sum up: Australia became successful through its personality, its honesty, its inclusiveness, its clean image and its cultural products, as well as its wines. All of these elements can still be harnessed to the cause of Australian wine today. To take them one by one:

The impact of personality can be considerable. Everywhere that Chester Osborne goes, for example, he leaves a trail of enthusiasts behind him. Or consider the impact of the Douro Boys, a group of five winemakers from Portugal, who have done so much to put the Douro on the world’s wine map.

People still like the Australian personality very much, even when they’re being critical of its wines. Australia used to understand the power of personality, which is why it sent winemakers overseas so often. Unfortunately, the Australian stands at the major wine trade fairs today are now more likely to be manned by the PR brigade who, as pleasant as they undoubtedly are, tend not to be memorable. Worse are the stands staffed by the men in suits. One corporate stand at Prowein looked like it was run by a bunch of insurance brokers on the make. I certainly didn’t entertain thoughts of
casually dropping in to see what was new, as they looked like the type of people who required appointments and budgets. Such an approach only serves to reinforce the idea that the Australian industry is run by number crunching technocrats. The reality is that Australia is filled with characters – even the corporates have some nut jobs in the drawer somewhere. Let’s put them on planes and get them out and about.

While I’m handing out plane tickets, what about getting some of the young and wildly enthusiastic sommeliers to represent Australia at trade shows and the like? Internationally, the wine industry is overwhelmingly middle aged, so a bit of youthful enthusiasm would do wonders to convince people about how vibrant the Australian offering is.

To the second Australian trait: honesty. When I was a school kid, it was an iron clad rule that anyone caught bullshitting had his or her head flushed down the toilet. A bit of peer pressure of the toilet flushing kind is long overdue. Here I am pointing my finger at those corporate bean counters and young gun winemakers who seem to think that creating virtual vineyards and bogus brands for the export market are a good idea. Recently I tried to track down the brand owners of some labels I thought were interesting. What I found were websites with no contact details and brands that had arisen out of nowhere, with no owners willing to identify themselves. Worse, a prominent Australian design company told me that a number of their clients were developing Bordeaux and Burgundy look-alike brands for the Chinese market - choosing their copycat European brand names from the telephone book. There’s no way anyone doing this is working to develop a brand that will stand the test of time – this is nothing but opportunistic piggybacking on those who have worked hard to build real brands with roots in real soil. Worse, it’s this kind of trickery that validates the criticism that Australia is not interested in terroir and heritage.

Also due for a head flush are those wineries who send out press releases boasting that their wines are Old World in character. For a start, they never are. The real damage, however, is the implication that the term ‘Old World’ is a virtue – it just reinforces what the real Old World competition is already saying loudly enough.

Also in need of a bit of a bit of a reality check are those winemakers who claim that high alcohol content in wine doesn’t matter as long as the wine is balanced. Unfortunately, high alcohol matters a lot. Not only are Western government beginning a massive crackdown on alcohol, but international cuisine moving in an ever lighter direction. When even the Amarone producers want to talk about how fresh and delicious their wines are, you know that the days of the alcoholic blockbuster are over.

Another area where plain speaking would be helpful is in the wine media. There has long been a ‘speak no evil’ policy operating among the wine press – with some very honourable exceptions – where wines that don’t come up to scratch are gently passed over, unremarked, unless they come from the big companies, in which case wine writers are happy to give them a well deserved kick. I know the rationale is something like ‘there are so many good wines out there, so why focus on the bad ones’, but the reality is that what Australian wine writers will not say, for whatever reason, the international gatekeepers will say – and loudly. Better for under performing wines to have a chance to rethink themselves here in Australia than on the export markets.

To the third characteristic: Australia’s ability to be inclusive. The great international achievement of the Australian wine industry is the way it brought wine to people who would never have thought it a drink for them. But, surprisingly, one group has been almost completely overlooked: Australia’s multicultural population. The Australian wine industry has largely ignored Asian Australians, Lebanese Australians, indigenous Australians and so on. In this it’s not alone; winemaking internationally is, by and large, a European preoccupation.

But in Australia’s case, this is not just an unfortunate oversight, but also a major strategic error. For a start, there is the issue of what talent the wine industry is missing out on – could there have been a Testuya of wine, except he or she went into medicine instead?

The reality is that the next major markets for Australian wine will be China, Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. The French are already making their presence felt in these markets, either through joint ventures, through trade fairs, or through tastings. In a region of the world where ‘face’ and prestige are so important, the French make a compelling case, as they bring all the cachet of Bordeaux, Champagne and Burgundy with them.

Australia’s strategic weapon is its geographic and cultural proximity, as well as its wines. What better way to demonstrate this than by having Australia represented by Asian Australian winemakers, sommeliers and so on, who share cultural and ethnic affinities with these countries, but who speak with an Australian voice. This would be a very powerful proposition.

There are many ways to encourage more people to engage with the wine industry, from working with notable chefs to reaching out to student clubs at the nation’s universities.

But I have been dismayed, on the occasions when I have raised this issue, at the response of various people in the wine industry. Typically, one or two people have said: “but Asian winemakers would want to make sweet wine”. Others look blank. One senior trade official even suggested that the reason that Asian Australians were disenfranchised fromAustralian wine was because they were disenfranchised from wider society. In what other industries, he asked me, were Asian Australians prominent?

It was an easy answer. Medicine. Law. Finance. Dentistry. And, of course, gastronomy.

To the impact of Chernobyl and the question of Australia’s clean image. Robert Joseph is convinced that Australia could tread the sustainable path – personally, I’m not so sure. Consider: 90% of Australian wine sold into the UK is sold on promotion, which means that one in three bottles is given away for free. There’s a lot of precious Australian water tied up in every bottle. Is it sustainable for a drought stricken country to be handing out its water like this? This is something the market will eventually sort out, but for the moment, I see this as a dubious proposition.

Another issue, I believe, is to look at how perceptions about Australia impact on the wine industry. looking at the impact of the perception of Australia and it culture on the wine industry. This, I think, is probably the most important issue of all. When you have a moment, log on to Tourism Australia’s website and see how this country is sold to an international audience. What is emphasised above all about Australia is its nature and how relaxing a place it is. Now, having spoken to tourism experts about this, I understand that every country has to have a quick, easy to understand selling point. For Ireland, it’s green rolling hills, for England it’s beefeaters and Buckingham palace, and for Australia it’s beaches and sunshine. I get that. The problem is that Australia’s admittedly spectacular natural wonders are the only thing being emphasised. Even when food and wine is mentioned, it’s done almost exclusively in the context of how great the view from the restaurant window is.

Australia is a sophisticated, modern country, the source of Broome pearls, pink diamonds and opals, Oscar winners, yacht builders, and excellent coffee, where the vast majority of people live in cities hugging the coast line, and whose culinary culture is world beating in its variety and inventiveness. Yet there is virtually no recognition of this. We’ve suffered the egregious advertising campaign asking people ‘where the bloody hell are you’, only to have it replaced by stills from the Baz Luhrmann film ’Australia’, which features a dusty interior, plus Nicole Kidman, dressed in 1940s clothes and sporting a face that doesn’t move.

So while the Australian wine industry is emphasising its cool climate winemaking and diverse terroirs, everything else the world hears about Australia emphasises its heat and plays up the country as either a place full of yobs, or else backward old fashioned types who haven’t caught up with the modern world. The more I thought about this, the more I wondered if any other industries were being affected by these stereotypical images. It’s interesting to note that neither Sydney nor Melbourne made it onto the ’top food cities’ lists in the last year, despite their culinary wonders. Not only that, but a June 5th story in the Sydney Morning Herald claims that a number of high flying business people are so worried about how tired Brand Australia is becoming, that they want to convene a Brand Australia Council to lobby the government.

Now I don’t want to advocate corrupting democratic process or anything like that, but I do believe that a $2bn export industry has the right to have its voice heard. The Australian wine industry must make the case, at the highest political levels, that the way this country is marketed is damaging. Because no matter how hard the industry works, or how ingenious its ideas, everything that is does is being undermined by Australia’s international image.

Further, the wine industry could do well to make alliances with other Australian cultural industries. Here I’m not speaking of sponsoring plays or ballets, however worthy that might be. I’m saying it would be good for the wine industry to strategically liaise with those creative artists who can open doors to new audiences for Australian wine: how would it be if Australian sparkling wine was prominently featured next time Colette Dinnigan did a Paris runway show, or some lively Australian wines appeared next time a play directed by Neil Armfield wowed New York?

There could be another payoff to such an undertaking. It is striking how little the Great Australian Wine Project has penetrated Australian popular culture – we have yet to see an Australian film like Sideways or Bottle Shock, or to read the vineyard crime novels that are so popular in Germany. Australian children, who learn all about MacArthur and his merino sheep, learn nothing about James Busby and his vine cuttings. Perhaps engaging with the creative industries could change that.

Finally, while we’re at it, let’s ask Cate Blanchett to be our Wine Ambassador. After all, she’s the living embodiment of Australian wine – classically trained, sophisticated, international, recognisable and yet uniquely Australian.

The most important thing to remember is that, in a world awash with exciting wines, wine will never be just about what‘s in the glass and that wine is not just another drink. Australia continues to create delicious wines at a very reasonable price. But this is no longer enough. Australia has worked hard to make wine accessible and in doing so, has opened new markets and new generations to the virtues of wine. The goal now must be to elevate Australian wine and make it an aspirational product, which means taking it seriously, at every level.

Make no mistake - there are tough times ahead for the Australian wine industry. The competition is fiercer, money is tighter and it may be that recent changes in consumer behaviour will be permanent – that people want distinct, authentic, interesting wines at a lower price. The global oversupply of wine is going to result in nasty contractions, while the project to sort out Australia’s best sites is going to be a long term one.

But in the short term, there are ways we can get people excited about Australia again. The goal should be, that when some journalists asks an impertinent question like “How can your winemakers justify charging so much”, the answer “because it’s from Australia” should be a sufficient answer.

Felicity Carter is editor-in-chief of Meininger’s Wine Business International, the world’s only global English magazine. With correspondents and analysts based in more than 30 countries, it is the only publication that focuses on the workings of the international trade, without taking a specific point of view. It is published by the German company Meininger Verlag, now Europe’s biggest wine and spirits publishing house.

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