THIS WEEK'S INTERESTING WINE NEWS

NEWS FROM AROUND THE GLOBE

FAREWELL WINE from the HOME of SHIRAZ - IRAN: Shiraz, Australia’s favourite grape is believed to have originated in the area around the town of Shiraz in Persia, that is now known as Iran. Persia, along with Georgia are considered to be the two oldest wine producing countries in the world, with a winemaking history that goes back at least 7,000 years.

In Iran, since the Islamic revolution in 1979, alcohol has been illegal. Local residents can be punished by being stoned (literally, and no pun intended) or lashed if they are caught drinking. Despite this long standing prohibition, Iran has a problem with alcoholism. In fact, so much so, that the government is in the process of opening 150 rehabilitation centres, for alcoholics and drug addicts. Maybe they should have conferred with the American infidels as to how to make Prohibition work successfully! After all, it worked so well in the USA.

Now, to tighten control over this “evil western corrupting influence” and make its citizens more religiously correct, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance is looking to ban the word, “wine”, from all publications, both in hard copy and online. This would be an extension of the current policy, of every book already being reviewed by the Ministry, to ensure they comply with the tenets of the Revolution, i.e. to “stop the cultural invasion by the arrogant western powers”. Maybe they should also ban western items such as cars, TV’s, computers, telephones, etc. By the way, nuclear power generation was created by the arrogant western powers – surely they should be rejecting that as well!

One has to wonder how they can reconcile this latest move with the fact that wine is mentioned in the Koran. For over 7,000 years of Muslim rule, it has been OK to make and drink wine (in moderation), but suddenly, for the last 37 years it has been evil and against the tenets of their religion that tolerated it for so long. It is even present in their literature with their greatest scribe, Omar Khayyam, referring to it often in his writings.

Thus whilst most of the countries in the world are embracing wine as enhancing cultural civility amongst its population, the birthplace of Australia’s favourite grape variety, Shiraz, is about to ban any reference to wine at all. It is so sad but I am sure that it will help overcome their country’s problem with alcoholism.

On a much more positive note elsewhere in the world:

AUSTRIAN WINE: The Winestate Magazine's Austrian Wine Tasting (the first of its kind in Australia), is happening on March 17. A limited number of tickets to the tasting are available from Winestate Magazine.

I have a keen interest in Austrian wines, having visited there last year for the Austrian Wine Summit. I was impressed with the quality of their wines, especially those made from Austrian native varieties. The native white varietals are led by Gruner Veltliner, which is just starting to showcase its talents via Adelaide Hill producers such as: Hahndorf Hill, The Pawn, the Eccentric Wines, K1 by Geoff Hardy, Loom Wines, Longview Vineyard along with Canberra’s Lark Hill Wines. Quite amazingly, at last year’s Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show, all 10 Gruner Veltliners entered were awarded a medal, with 2-gold, 3-silver and 5-bronze medals being awarded.

The native reds are led by Blaufrankisch and Zweigelt, two lighter-style red wines that make me think of a Pinot Noir that has been working out at the gym - just a bit bigger and musclier than a Pinot. Whilst there is a teaspoon full of wineries growing Blaufrankisch here, the only winery that I know of that is growing Zweigelt is Hahndorf Hill.

The bond between Australia and Austria continues to grow with well- known and respected Austrian winemaker, Berthold (Bert) Salomon, having bought a 50 hectare property 20 years ago, on the slopes adjoining the Finniss River (Fleurieu Peninsula), which he planted to Viognier, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Grenache and Mataro.

The Aussie flagship wine is the Alttus Shiraz, which is only produced in exceptional years and matured for longer than the rest of the portfolio before release, with the current release being the 2010 vintage.

These days he is involved in two vintages a year, here and back in Austria at the family’s Salomon Undhof winery - the Sal’mon Groovy Gruner Veltliner is available here at Dan Murphy stores.

JAPAN: It has just been revealed that in 2015 Chilean wine outsold French wine in Japan, by some 80,000 litres. This is the first time ever that France has been nudged out of its No.1 position in Japan.

In 2010, Chile used to be No.5 imported wine (Australia No.7), then Chile signed a Free Trade Agreement with Japan and their wine sales took off. In 2013, they were No.2 by quite a way behind France (Australia still No.7). Hopefully as our Free Trade Agreement with Japan has started to kick in (lowering import duties), we will have a similar rise in sales. Whilst we can’t hope to catch up with the Chileans, it would be great if we could ramp up enough to move into third, or even better still second place. This push could really be helped if for a short space of time, say the next 12-24 months, Wine Australia, had a significant promotional push in the Japanese market.

NOTICE: Most of the content of the last few blogs has been about wine matters occurring overseas, mainly because there isn’t much happening here due to vintage. Once vintage is over and people start doing more interesting things here in Australia, there should be a lot more local content in the weekly blog.