|
"Australian shiraz caught in the
crossfire"
by Jeremy Oliver,
Sept. 15th, 2008
Reprinted with permission from
JeremyOliver.com.au
"Len Evans once had such a bad
experience in a restaurant in a certain road in Sydney that when he wrote it up
in his food column, he didn’t mention its name. He thought he was doing the
right thing. What he did do, by damning a single un-named restaurant, was to
damage the reputation of each and every restaurant in that street. He later
corrected his mistake by reviewing each of the other establishments whose
business had suffered as a result of his inexperienced commentary.
Makers of
Australian shiraz are unlikely to receive the same corrective treatment from
Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, the wine columnists for The Wall Street
Review. In their column dated September 12-14, which is accompanied on the
paper’s website by a video offering more of the same, they reveal an
inexperience seemingly at odds with their ages. Which is a nice way of saying
they look as though they have been around enough to know better.
The
article, which is sub-headed ‘Midrange bottles of Australian Shiraz are woefully
inconsistent’, was based on a tasting of fifty Australian shirazes priced
between US$20-50. Other than three wines, including a Dead Letter Office Shiraz
(no vintage specified) and a Pirramimma Shiraz 2004, the wines entirely failed
to impress Dorothy and John. But do Dorothy and John actually list the wines
they didn’t like? No. They mention they could easily have bought 500 Australian
shirazes in that price range, but by failing to detail the wines they dislike,
they have instead damned the entire category. Other than the Dead Letter Office
and the Pirramimma, of course. Readers of their column could well be excused for
giving all other Australian shiraz a very wide berth.
Is some agenda at
work here, or are Dorothy and John just too plain listless? After all, they
stress that it took them ‘several days’ to work through a class of just fifty
wines, which is what most professional wine critics would do in a lazy
afternoon.
Dorothy and John suggest that Australian winemakers take an
alchemistic approach towards their making of their shiraz. ‘“Let’s see: some
dark color, heavy on the alcohol, a bit of sugar, plenty of oak and maybe some
vanilla flavouring and…Aha! Shiraz!” Unfortunately that’s what half our sample
tasted like.’ And ‘They were often both harsh and charmless’. And on the video:
‘They tasted as though they all came from the same big vat.’ Seems like whether
Dorothy and John liked them or not, they were at least more consistent than
their own sub-editor.
From the video version: ‘Then they (Australian
winemakers) just got stupid. They got (Australian shiraz) sweet and overly
alcoholic, they don’t pair well with food.’ Honestly, if I were to bag the major
category by price of any winemaking country in the world, I would be a whole lot
more accountable than this. Journalists should have opinions, but should back
them up with harder stuff. What were the poor wines, and how did they rate? What
were their particular flaws?
Finally, a point simply soaked in irony. I agree
entirely with a point that Dorothy and John are actually making. Too many
Australian shirazes do indeed resemble the descriptors they have chosen. What
most Americans do not fully appreciate is that when Australians sell shiraz in
the US that is fine, elegant, spicy and savoury, the wines get bagged in the
media and trade. Such is the influence of a certain American wine critic that
you can pigeonhole virtually all Australian shiraz sold successfully in the US
into the overcooked, porty, sweet and overoaked category. So that’s what
Australians are making, especially for Americans!
So here, in essence, is
an issue between two entirely different sources of American opinion. And who is
caught in the crossfire? All Australian shiraz priced between $20-50 in the US
except the Dead Letter Office and the Pirramimma, that’s who."
Jeremy Oliver,
Jeremy Oliver On Australian Wine, Sept. 15th, 2008
_______________________________________
Jeremy Oliver is one
of Australia's foremost wine writers and presenters. He is a widely read and
fully independent commentator whose words are published in several countries. In
January 2005 he was named the inaugural Wine Writer of the Year by the widely
circulated Australian Wine Selector magazine.
We encourage our Aussie wine
lovers to check out voices and opinions from outside the U.S. You can subscribe to Jeremy Oliver's
website and keep updated with his tasting notes, ratings,
articles and reviews. It incorporates all of the ratings he makes throughout the
year, plus all of the articles he contributes in Australia and around the world.
In addition to that, Jeremy also writes articles especially for subscribers to
his site. Please note, The Jug Shop receives NO remuneration or other
compensation from referrals or subscriptions to JeremyOliver.com.au.
Subscribe to Jeremy Oliver's website by
clicking here.
|