Aussie or French - you be the judge......

Why are Australian wines better than French wines?

Firstly…..how do you answer this question objectively?

The answer is obvious, you can’t!

Wine is an emotive product and has the ability to create great passion. Wine relies heavily on the consumers state of mind and in any debate over the merits of French wine quality compared to Australian wine quality emotions will quickly take over. In some way this is positive proof of the importance of wine in our society for where would we be without emotions!

Here are a few of my ideas which may help you and your sales team when confronted with the question…..why should I buy Australian wine?

Wine is a complex product, its characteristics are shaped by such attributes as region, grape variety, climatic conditions, soil type, winemaker, winery and wine style, all of which will influence a particular wine. It is true to say that both French and Australian wines are influenced by the same set of attributes however there is one distinct difference between our two countries, and that is our winemakers knowledge base on how these attributes affect our wine…… and it’s all a matter of history!

French wines are often classified as “Old World” along with wines from Spain, Italy, Germany and Austria. The “Old World” can generally date their wine origins back beyond the Roman Empire, some 2000+ years of winemaking history. Grape growers and winemakers can draw on centuries of practical experience when making their wines, a history unrivaled in any other grape growing region on the planet. Over the centuries these grape growers have been able to figure out which grape varieties grow best in which regions, not through science but rather through the process of Natural Selection. Over time vineyards are often abandoned due to factors such as drought, tough economic times, a death in the family or some other such reason, and through this process the “Old World” has managed to work out the best “survivor” varieties and the regions they do best in. It is no accident that Cabernet Sauvignon is found predominately in Bordeaux, Shiraz in the Rhone, Pinot Noir in Burgundy and Riesling in Alsace. These are the “survivor” varieties that were best adapted to surviving the centuries of relatively poor viticultural practices.

Obviously the vignerons of these regions are proud of their history. Many of the current grape growing and winemaking families can trace their heritage back hundreds of years, working the same patch of dirt year after year, using similar techniques to those used by their descendants many hundreds of years ago. This type of history makes for a wonderful story however can lead to complacency. “If it ain’t broke , don’t fix it” mentality works in many instances however can be a dangerous state of mind in such a dynamic consumer driven industry such as ours.

Over time, and as a result of the natural selection process in France, the Fench vignerons have placed a greater emphasis on the region rather than the grape variety when it comes to the taste of their wine. The world has become accustomed to recognizing that a Burgundy will not taste like a Bordeaux or that a Chateau Neuf du Pape will be quite different to a Champagne. It seems obvious to us now that the reason for this is that these wines are made from different grape varieties but prior to ampelography (the science of classification of grapevine species) consumers differentiated wine styles by geography rather than variety.

Nobody will deny that geography plays an important role in how a wine will taste, however it is the grape variety that truly determines the characteristics of a particular wine. Change the percentage of Merlot in a Cabernet based wine from the same vineyard in Bordeaux and you obviously change the characteristics of the wine. Traditionally this has been of no consequence to the French wine industry as it was not an issue of quality of any one individual wine as such rather an overall quality expression of each individual region.

In 1855, Bordeaux wineries were ranked in 5 classes (1st growth, 2nd growth…….5th growth) in an attempt to differentiate superior wineries from inferior wineries. This was the first indication that the French wine industry recognized that “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others” (George Orwell’s Animal Farm). A set of extremely strict rules were set out governing the classification system and in 150 or so years since its inception only one winery in Bordeaux, Mouton Rothschild in 1973, has managed to successfully change its classification from second growth to first growth. Such an inflexible system does not promote innovation and experimentation within the regions wine producers as they know it will lead them nowhere.

In 1935 the French wine industry collectively put in place the Appellation system, designed to protect the then established French wine brands and the quality (and quantity) of wine released from Appellation regions. The rules governed such things as permitted grape varieties, yields, alcohol content, cultivation, maturation practices, and labeling procedures. Wine producers were told if they did not follow the rules, they were not allowed to use the Appellation label. That is to say, if you produced wine from the Burgundy region for example and you did not strictly follow the rules set out by the French wine industry, you would not be able to label your wine as Burgundy. It was not good enough that your vineyard was located in the designated region of Burgundy. Follow the rules and get a classification, allowing you to use the regions branding, or go it alone and see how you get on. These were the options facing the French wine producer and to nobodies surprise most of the vignerons followed the rules.

By essentially forcing the vignerons to conform to a uniform set of rules within the region they were located it became easy for one region to develop a reputation for one particular wine style. Ch.Neuf du Pape became known for easy drinking reds utilizing the 12 common varierties of the region, Beaujolais become known for lighter reds made from Gamay, Burgundy was known for mid weight reds based on Pinot Noir, Champagne for sparkling and so on……Furthermore if a region became famous for one style of wine, then all those producers within that region become famous for that style of wine, and if each region is famous for an individual style there is no need for the regions within France to compete against each other. It’s a group approach to success, if the group succeeds then each individual member of that group benefits from the success.

This has obvious advantages, certainly when it comes to marketing French wine to the world, however the disadvantages of the strict constraints placed on wine producers certainly outweighs the marketing advantages gained by Appellation system, as a result the wines released under the Appellation system are often poor quality. The system effectively does away with innovation. The French winemaker becomes a puppet, following the guidelines set out under the Appellation system. There is no need to learn new techniques or experiment with different products, in fact the opposite is the reality, for innovation and a departure from the regional style will lead to declassification of your winery and you will no longer be able to use the regional Appellation branding.

In 1979, as a result of the constraints of the Appellation system, the French industry created a new classification, Vin de Pay. The restrictions placed on producers wishing to label their wine Vin de Pay are far less than those wishing to use the Appellation system, allowing those producers more scope to experiment and innovate however the French public see this new classification as inferior consequently the Vin de pay wines sell for less than the Appellation wines.

As a result of the restrictive French classification system the wine producers of France have no alternative but play down the importance of the variety and the individual winemaker in determining the quality of the wine and instead hang their hopes on one word….terroir. It’s a term the French use to describe the unique qualities that a wine draws from its soil, water and environs. It’s a word that evokes emotion in every Frenchman. It’s a word that helps describe the very best and the very worst of French wine. One word, not backed by any scientific research, simply a word that describes everything that is French about a wine. They have been so successful convincing the world that their terroir is simply the only terroir that can make the world best wines that we have begun to adopt it into our own English language! I concede that there is some truth to this statement as quite simply many of the world great wines are produced in France however not ALL the worlds great wines are French.

The vast majority of French wines remain as they were centuries ago, poorly made and lacking fruit expression. Often the wines are a reflection of the cleanliness of the winery and their equipment used in winemaking more so a reflection of the quality of the grapes and the definition of the region.

The French wine industry had a wakeup call several years ago when Australian wine surpassed French wine as the preferred wine of UK consumers. As a result of this many French producers begun to employ new techniques, taking note of the “new World” style to ensure a more marketable product. There is change in the French wine industry and countries like Australia, Argentina, Chile and South Africa are driving it (our wine styles atleast).
The New World dominance of the world wine market has its grounding in the 1980’s when a wave of new wine drinkers, myself included, began experimenting with different wine styles. We struggled with the leaner, poorly made, restrictive styles from France and went seeking more generous wines that exploded from the glass with fruit expression and weight. In these days the wines from Australia were well made, almost clinical wines with fruit and oak (in the case of reds and Chardonnay). They may have lacked finesse but they were a good drink! They were unsophisticated wines for the unsophisticated palate, great value for money and immediately appealing.

The Australian wine industry is grounded in science rather than history. We do not have centuries of grape growing knowledge to draw on nor the advantage of Natural Selection of varieties and their most suited regions. What we do have is a well informed, highly educated group of wine professionals with enthusiasm for Australian wine and a passion to produce the best. We also have ….terroir! We did not immediately recognize it as terroir and certainly did not utilize it in the early days of the Australian wine industry however we are now coming to understand the importance of our ancient, fertile soils and our brilliantly warm and dry climatic conditions in creating uniquely Australian wine. An early attempt to catagorise our unique Australian terroir was the phrase “Sunshine in a bottle” and quite simply it is now OUR phrase. It is our Terroir!

“Sunshine in a bottle”is a good start but we have come to understand that it is only one aspect of what makes Australian wine so good. Our soils are ancient, fertile and varied ranging from Black silty loams in the Hunter Valley, gravelly sands in Margaret River, Grey sandy loam in the Adelaide Hills, red clays in Heathcote and obviously the famed Terra Rossa of Coonawarra (to name only a few). What other country in the world could offer such a diverse range of soil types to its grape growers? Sunshine and soil combine with water and wind to produce our unique Australian Terroir.

Most regions in Australia can boast older vines than in France. Phyloxera devastated the French wine industry and many vineyards became commercially unviable and had to be pulled out. As a result France lost many (actually nearly all) of its famed old vines responsible for producing many of the great wines of the late 1800’s and early to mid 1900’s. Aside from a couple of small, well contained areas in Victoria, Australia is free of Phyloxera and we can be proud of the fact that we have many of the oldest vines in the world, still bearing commercial quantities of fruit, here in Australia.

It is believed that Penfolds Kalimna vineyard has the oldest commercially bearing Cabernet Sauvignon vines in the world! Right here in the Barossa! Langmeil have Shiraz vines in the ground in Tanunda that date to the first years of Selesian settlement in the Barossa in the 1840’s. The French again downplay the importance of vine age in the production of fine wines, again hanging their hat on the their terroir but I am sure they are secretly jealous of the fact that they have very few vines in France that are older than about 50 years and we are making commercial quantities of wine from vineyards planted well over 100 years ago.

The French winemakers can convince themselves that vine age is not important however we know that Meshach could not be made from grapes grown in a 10 year old vineyard. Meshach is predominately made from vines that went in the ground in the early 1900’s!

As a result of Phyloxera, France must plant the vast majority of their grapevines on phyloxera resistant rootstocks. These rootstocks are most often from a grapevine species not native to the European continent therefore not entirely suited to the growing conditions encountered in Europe (the species is often a hybrid American species). It is well documented that grapevines planted on their own roots outperform the same variety planted on a rootstock when ranked by quality rather than quantity. It is true that rootstocks can lead to higher yields from a vineyard however in the winemakers eyes generally higher yields means lower quality!

Old vines, on their own roots, in ancient fertile soils coupled with our ideal growing conditions in Australia make for the perfect combination when it comes to producing great wines. These old vines are an asset that we, the Australian wine industry, should protect at all costs and promote at every opportunity as they may prove to be the key to securing a position at the top of that international quality ladder.

There is no denying that Australian wine quality rivals, and most often surpasses, French wine quality at every price point. The UK market is proof that this is indeed the case however we have one distinct disadvantage and that is our image. Marketing Australian wine to the world (and in particular the UK) in the 1980’s was simple, use the “sunshine in a bottle” phrase and the wine will sell, and it did, however at a cost to our image. We were seen to be cheap and cheerful, delivering quality wines at an affordable price. We quickly gained a reputation for producing good cheap plonk preventing many wines from gaining the recognition they deserved. When we decided to market our premium wines to the world we foolishly used French and German wine terms to describe our wines thereby setting these wines as our benchmark and what we aspired to produce. Australian Shiraz was marketed as Hermitage (Grange Hermitage…..our most famous Australian wine described as Hermitage!), Hunter Semillon being sold as Rhine Riesling and many white wines being described as White Burgundy. By naming our wines after famous French wine regions we were setting the wines of these regions as the pinnacle. We were being judged as to how closely our wines matched the wines of these regions. Our wines could never be superior, only similar.

Things began to change in the 1990’s when the EU forced the Australian wine industry to cease using European names to describe our wines. At the time it was seen to be using bully tactics and many Australian producers were opposed to the change but in hindsight it is probably the best thing the EU, and in particular France, could have possibly done for us! Grange was no longer a Hermitage, it was now identifiably an AUSTRALIAN SHIRAZ! Margaret River no longer produced the best White Burgundies in Australia, they now produced Australias best CLASSIC DRY WHITE, and the Hunter Semillon no longer hid behind the veil of Rhine Riesling and became one of the most internationally recognizable Australian white wine styles. Thank you Europe, you have no idea what a favour you did us…..or perhaps you are now starting to understand!

A second marketing problem faces us now, our lack of high cultural image that will help us sell wine in emerging markets. A great deal of wine produced in traditional “Old World” countries such as France, Italy and Spain is of questionable quality it continues to sell in the international marketplace as it carries the romantic and cultural image of the country it comes from. This is particularly true for many of the emerging Asian markets where consumers feel safe buying wines from countries with long histories and strong cultural background in wine. Often the romance associated with the country of origin is as appealing to the consumer as the wine itself. Australia will struggle to compete at this level and have failed in our attempts to convince the world that science is better than culture when it comes to making good wine.

The challenge ahead for our Australian wine industry is not one of quality but of image. Our wines compete on the international stage with the best the world has to offer, often coming out on top, yet we are struggling to cement a place at the top of the ladder as a producer of the worlds truly great wines. A place many would say (outside Australia) we so richly deserve. Matthew Dukes, well known and respected wine writer from the UK states “I have more pleasure drinking Australian wine than even the great wines of France.” High praise indeed, and he is not alone, yet this is not enough to cement that position at the top of the ladder. What is the answer? I wish I knew……I guess we will continue to promote our wines in the international market place and foster such programmes as Wine Australia’s “Regional Heroes”, pitting our wines against the best in the world.