DAN'S WINE BLOG - CHANGES

2024-08-16

Geographical Indicators (GI), which in Australia tell simply the wine drinker where the wine comes from, have a much, much bigger role in the “Old Wine World”. There they come with a plethora of rules and regulations attached to them. Things like what varieties you can grow, how high a yield you can achieve in your vineyard, how long the wine must be matured before release and even in some regions, when you are allowed to start picking your grapes.

These are all rules which are unknown to Australian winemakers who can do “what they bloody well like” other than a few health-related rules.

It is illegal for Bordeaux producer to make the iconic Aussie blend of Cabernet/Shiraz as Shiraz is banned from the Bordeaux region.

The same type of GI rules apply right across France, Spain and Italy and they are a yoke around many winemakers necks. Some like the producers of the “Super Tuscan” reds in Italy, thumbed their noses up at these rules and created exquisite wines which far outsell the traditional wines from the same region, but can not be labelled as DOGC.

Now little by little more and more European winemakers are abandoning these AOC, DOGC etc rules and instead being creative and making the very best wine that they can. For example a few Bordeaux producers have added small amounts of reds from Languedoc/Roussillon (Grenache, Carignan or Mourvedre) or from Rhone (Syrah or Grenache) so that they can no longer label their wines as AOC Bordeaux but rather have to label them as “vin de France” instead.

However as the Tuscans found out many, many years ago (and Aussies have always known) IF you make superior quality wine, people will buy it despite it not being “appalated”

So progress is starting in Europe as the more adventurous of winemakers seek to make their wines even better, whilst at the same time officialdom crawls forward in its battle with climate change.

As I have mentioned before Europe is busily inching forward with PIWIS (fungal resistant grape varieties) as well as some regions are allowing previously banned varieties to be planted- under massively restricted conditions. For example, in Bordeaux six new red varieties can be planted, including Tempranillo BUT they can comprise no more than 5% of the vineyard nor 5% of the final wine blend and the final wine can not bear the official AOC designation.?

Thus they are moving ahead with a speed more akin to that of Stevenson’s “Rocket” rather than with that of a “Bullet train”, but they are actually moving ahead.

Meanwhile here in the Antipodes, some of the more progressive companies spread their risk, like Victoria’s #BrownBrosWines who bought vineyards in the cooler Tasmania in 2010 as their insurance against climate change. Cooler climate regions have flourished, for example, Tumbarumba in the foothills of Mt Kosciuszko has gone from two vineyards to twelve producers in the last few years.

Furthermore, over the last decade a considerable number of wineries have started producing wines from Mediterranean grape varieties which are more heat and drought resistant than the “classic” European grape varieties. To put it into context at the turn of the century Australia was producing wine from around 85-95 different grape varieties, whereas today that number is 155 (as at V-2023).

For example, the “coolish” #AdelaideHills’ first Gruner Veltliner was produced by #HahndorfHillswinery in 2010 whereas today there are 40 Gruner producers in “The Hills” and their best wines can go toe-to-toe with their Austrian counterparts on the world wine stage.

Well that’s it for another week- have a good one, stay safe and always #chooseaustraliawine and when possible enjoy #emergingvarieties.

Cheers

Dan T