The wines of Australia and New Zealand have never been better, but ironically they have never so ignored. Australia is suffering an identity crisis, a victim of their own success.  For many years it seemed the Aussie wine train was unstoppable, and as soon as one label became successful suddenly a dozen imitators followed suit.  Add to that the consolidation of 90% of their wine industry into the hands of five multi-national corporations, and you can see how they started to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.  An industry based on massive price competition with the eye on production levels rather than quality is doomed (many would argue that the rise of Malbec in Argentina is heading down the same path).

Things, thankfully, are changing.  Smaller family run Australian producers are getting more and more market share.  Wines with individual personalities are being made and fewer ‘critter’ wines with a cute label being the main attraction are produced.  Balance is starting to be found.  Never has the bang for the buck from Australia been so great.

The new way to taste and enjoy Australia wine is (like most great wine countries) by region first and foremost.  Australia is not one big vineyard.  Like the west coast of the United States, it has hot regions, cool pockets, geologic diversity, and climatic influences.  Learning these regions is relatively easy, especially because they have great names like Coonawara and Mudgee.  Discovering the pockets of quality suddenly opens up a whole new world of Australian wine appreciation.  A few highlights in a brief primer on Australian wine geography:

•    “South Australia” vs. “Southeast Australia”: Australia is a huge region, as big as the lower 48 in the United States.  When you have a wine labeled as “Southeast Australia” it is the same as if we had wines labeled “West Coast” as in from anywhere from San Diego to Seattle, including Idaho, Utah, and New Mexico.  Yes, the region is that big.  However when you see “South Australia” it’s a far more constricted area, focusing on the regions around the beautiful city of Adelaide.  It is from this spot that many of Australia’s top wine comes from.  The Yalumba “Y” Series wines are a perfect example.

•    Barossa Valley vs. Eden Valley: When the quality of the juice in the bottle matters (and when should it not?) these are two go-to regions to seek out.  They are right next to each other, but have very different characteristics.  The Barossa is a flat region with hotter weather, and contains some of the oldest vines in all of Australia (many planted in the late 1800′s).  The expression of Barossa is concentrated, intense, but polished wines from old vines.  Geographically next door but a world way stylistically is the Eden Valley, which is not really a valley but rather big hills rising hundreds of feet above Barossa.  This is a region of huge geologic diversity and cooler temperatures, thus you can grow top quality Riesling and Pinot Noir (grapes people rarely expect from Australia).

•    The two best kept secrets: Margaret River and the Clare Valley.  If you want to be a wine insider, these are the two spots to know.  Margaret River is on the western edge of Australia, where the Indian Ocean and the Pacific crash together (making this one of the top surfing spots in the world).  It was Robert Mondavi who identified this as a nearly perfect region for Bordeaux varieties (and interestingly, this spot is the most climatically similar spot to Bordeaux in the entire world).  Seek out Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignons (a good one is Ringbolt) for big bang for the buck.  The other ‘insider’ region to know is the Clare Valley, about an hour north of the Barossa.  Clare is high elevation winemaking, with a specifically cool microclimate combined with high levels of sun energy.  What results is a tiny pocket producing some of the best Riesling and Shiraz in the entire world.  These wines, of this quality, would be at least double their price from anywhere else in the world.  A top producer is Jim Barry, who produces the Lodge Hill Riesling and Shiraz from his family’s old vine property.

Fifteen years ago, less than 400,000 cases of wine from ‘Down Under’ were shipped to the United States.  In 2009 that number topped 20 million.  That’s an enormous amount of wine, but more and more of it every year is inching up in quality.  Seek out these specific wine geographies and in particular family owned production.  You’ll be amazed at what you find.