Beyond Yellow Tail: The New Australian Wine
Australian wine has a problem. For well over a decade, it has almost completely fallen out of the conversation surrounding fine wine in the United States. More often than not, when I recommend an Australian wine to a customer in our Redwood City store, the response is, “Oh, no thank you. I don’t like Australian wine.” But that perspective confuses me. Australian wine is not a singular style. As the fifth largest wine-producing country in the world with over 2,400 producers and 6,000 grape growers across dozens of distinctive regions, growing hundreds of different varieties across all price points, Australia can hardly be considered just one thing.
This June, I got to experience the incredible diversity and quality of Australian wine firsthand. Spending two weeks in Australia, I managed to visit with 80 producers across Victoria and South Australia, tasting hundreds of wines and meeting the incredible people who craft them. Many of these producers have all the drive, attention to detail, and raw talent that you’d find anywhere in Burgundy, Napa, or Piedmont. So why does Australian wine make up less than 1% of the wines that we sell here at K&L?
What we know is that between 2007 and 2014 Australian wine sales decreased sharply in the U.S. During my trip to Australia, I spoke with dozens of winemakers throughout Australia looking for an answer to why this happened. Ultimately, I was met with a number of different explanations.
First, the influence of Robert Parker has always been the elephant in the room of fine wine. In the late 90s and aughts, the incredible sway of the Wine Advocate dramatically changed the way wine was made by certain producers in nearly every region of the world. The bigger, bolder, and more concentrated the wine, the higher the score from Wine Advocate. And when a surprise score from Parker could literally change a producer’s fortunes overnight, many jumped on the bandwagon and altered the styles of wine away from what they had made for years in attempts to chase scores, leading to a homogenization among products, particularly in the case of Shiraz.
Another topic that regularly came up during my trip was the impact of Yellowtail. Those of a certain age will remember in 2001 when Yellowtail suddenly became ubiquitous, showing up at every grocery store in America. It was literally everywhere you look; and, to an extent, it still is. Its affordable price and cloying sweetness attracted a younger demographic who were interested in wine (my younger self included) but didn’t have the budget for Grange (I still don’t). This ultimately introduced an entire generation of wine drinkers to Australian wine, many of whom incorrectly considered Yellowtail an accurate representation of the wines of Australia.
Finally, the 2008 financial crisis was the storm that brought it all together. During the recession, many consumers drifted from premium wines to more value-oriented ones. In the process many importers of premium Australian wine were squeezed out of the market and put out of business, leaving a hole in the market. Many importers didn’t dare take a chance on Australian wine when times were tight.
Over time, there were fewer consumers willing to grab a bottle of Australian wine off the shelves of retailers. On one hand there was Yellowtail, and on the other there were expensive fruit bombs. Fewer and fewer of the wines that make Australia an incredible wine-producing country were available as time went on. Creating a cascade effect, serious Australian producers grew frustrated with the lack of access and interest in the US and started limiting their exports or pulling out of the market altogether. By 2015, the market for Australian fine wine was essentially on life support.
But in the last few years, things have been changing. Recognizing the problem, the Australian government funded a massive campaign to reintroduce Australian wines to the U.S. in 2019. This included tastings, marketing, and a division that reached out to importers to help these wines make it back into the United States. In addition, in March of 2021, because of an ongoing dispute with Australia, China imposed a 200% tariff on all Australian wine, effectively killing Australia’s largest export market. Suddenly, those winemakers who dropped out of the U.S. frantically needed to get back in. And with all of this activity, we’re now seeing a number of new, young, and energetic importers that have an unbridled passion for Australian wines, bringing new and exciting producers that have either never been in the U.S. before, or have been out of the market for more than a decade.
If you’re reading this, you’re obviously someone who is passionate about wine. And for you, this is phenomenal news. We’re now seeing a major influx of world-class wines gain reentry to the U.S., from nearly every region across Australia and in a multitude of styles. No longer are producers out to make the biggest, baddest Shiraz on the market. Winemakers are producing cool-climate styles that harken to the Northern Rhône, as well as Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that are elegant, focused, and balanced. These wines are priced exceptionally well for their level of quality, and, if you take the chance to explore, you will gain a new perspective on what Australian wine truly is and what it is capable of.
This was my experience over two weeks this past June while exploring the regions of Victoria and South Australia. In the time since that trip, I’ve been tirelessly working to source these wines from importers all across the country. Over the next week, I’ll be sharing these experiences day-by-day, region-by-region, bringing you stories from the incredible producers I’ve met on the trail. I hope you’ll read along and take a chance on the diverse and extraordinary wines from this remarkable country.