News from Australia- let's make some wine cheap

[Craig Winchell]

http://www.wineindustryinsight.com/ex_n ... 502440.htm

They are really severely glutted with grapes. As I have said before, time to make extremely profitable truly quality kosher wine there. The nonkosher market is glutted, but not so kosher, where everyone is waiting for really decent Aussie wines... but where are they? As far as kosher is concerned, Australia is the home of at worst plonk, at most mass-market commercial wine of decent (but not better) quality. Yet the fruit is there and the technology is there to make much better.

[Joshua London]

Not sure if there is anyone reading the forum who is in any position to bankroll such a project, but I'd love to one day drink some Craig Winchell Aussie wine! [I really miss drinking Gan Eden wines.]

[Bill Coleman]

Not sure if there is anyone reading the forum who is in any position to bankroll such a project, but I'd love to one day drink some Craig Winchell Aussie wine! [I really miss drinking Gan Eden wines.]

Dittos!

[Yossie Horwitz]

I'd love to see some quality kosher wine coming out of Australia. The vast majority of available kosher wines from down under these days is basically drek with numerous better alternative in all aspects including price.

[David Raccah]

Be careful here, what you mean is the product that is EXPORTED here is "drek". There are many very fine wines in Australia that are NOT exported out and are wonderful. Such as Harkham's wines that are not mevushal, along with other wineries as well.

David

[Yossie Horwitz]

Other than the reserve Harkham wine that isn't exported, which Australian wines have you have you had and found to be fine?

[Shawn Johnson]

Beckett's Flat makes pretty good stuff. The K Shiraz is good quality as well.

Harkham? Seriously?

[Yossie Horwitz]

I have never been a fan of Beckett's or K. While the Harkham available here in the US is an unfortunate use of grapes, according to Raccah (http://goo.gl/ydWC1) their reserve line which is not imported here is much much better. I tried to find it while in Melbourne and Sydney last year to no avail but hopefully it will get introduced here at some point.

[David Raccah]

I actually like Geographe K Chardonnay and thought the Shiraz was OK, far better than the other offerings.

David

[Joshua London]

Be careful here, what you mean is the product that is EXPORTED here is "drek". There are many very fine wines in Australia that are NOT exported out and are wonderful. Such as Harkham's wines that are not mevushal, along with other wineries as well.

So, what are the "other wineries"? How many non-export "fine" wines does Harkham produce? Given what Yossie said, that he couldn't find the Harkham wines anywhere in Melbourne or Sydney when he was there, one can't help but wonder if these single winery "fine wine" counter examples are so limited as to be irrelevant to the domestic market. If Hagafen's Prix/black label wines, for example, were the ONLY well regarded kosher CA wines (and these are only easily available directly from the winery, and but for Rogov's published reviews these would only be known initially by word of mouth), I suspect folks would also have a generally low opinion of CA kosher wines?

I've never been to Austrailia, but I am reasonably familiar with the "global" kosher wine market and my first reaction to Craig's comments -- that "As far as kosher is concerned, Australia is the home of at worst plonk, at most mass-market commercial wine of decent (but not better) quality" -- was general agreement.

So, again, what are the "other wineries"? How many non-export "fine" wines does Harkham produce?

[Yossie Horwitz]

Harkham makes a number of wines not exported (http://goo.gl/lNtOz) which I have not yet tasted and I'd love to hear from David which wines he was referring to. In the interim, Jancis Robinson recently liked another Harkham wine - their 2011 Aziz Chardonnay: http://goo.gl/4qas9

[Mark Sztar]

I haven't posted here in a while but I'm currently in Israel and doing some wine research tonight and have stumbled across this thread.

Interesting idea Craig... Half of me can see it failing but the other half thinks it has potential...

Just two points to note:
1. The kosher Australian wines discussed in this thread in no way what-so-ever represent the kind of wines currently being made in Australia.
2. The non kosher Australian wines for sale in Israeli wine shops again do not represent the current style of Australian wines.

What kind of wines does the kosher market want to see from Australia? And what price point are people looking for?

This thread has given me some ideas for when I head back home...

[Yossie Horwitz]

1. The kosher Australian wines discussed in this thread in no way what-so-ever represent the kind of wines currently being made in Australia.
2. The non kosher Australian wines for sale in Israeli wine shops again do not represent the current style of Australian wines.

Mark - can you elaborate?

[Craig Winchell]

Well, I'd like to see something akin to Grange, kosher so I can enjoy it. But there's more than Syrah in Australia- Rhonewise, they are also known for their rich, full bodied Grenache. They make fine dry Riesling, richly textured dry Semillon, and well balanced Cab, Cab-Merlot and Cab-Syrah. I suppose most of the reds Australia is known for are massively fruity, high alcohol, highly colored and somewhat sweet (largely from the high alc). Big wines, no doubt. Whereas the kosher stuff is little, sweet, low acid but round enough. Big problem with Australia is that they "put all their eggs in one basket" in terms of style for any particular varietal or blend, largely due to a market order by the government. They gave Australia a standard of identity winewise, but the glut of fruit weakened the perception of the standard, as fruit became cheap and so did the wine, and the care with which the wine was made. What I'd like to see are the old-style, high quality reds and bone-dry whites (and nothing so esoteric as sparkling Shiraz).