See a full write up in Adelaide Now (via Winebiz).

Tasmania Unbottled is coming to Australia for the fourth year running with events held in Brisbane (September 8), Sydney (September 12) and Melbourne (September 14). It’s a fantastic showcase of Tasmania’s famous cool climate wines and excellent produce. Booking is via the Wine Tasmania website.
Can’t make it but want to see why Tasmania has such an excellent reputation for premium quality wine? We’ve picked out this bargain from Cellarmasters. It’s Riversdale Estate Grown Tasmania Sauvignon Blanc 2010, a trophy winning sauvignon blanc with a string of wine show awards and a bargain at $15.99 a bottle considering the amount of effort that goes into each bottle.

It has been tough for wine producers in Australia due to the strength of the Aussie dollar and the over production of popular wine varieties throughout Australia. While this might mean cheap wine for consumers, it’s hard on the wineries. We’ve seen a doubling of plantings in Australia since the mid nineties partly driven by tax benefits at the time. Now we’re seeing a massive increase of new producers bringing the total up to about 3000 at this time. Combined, with the high exchange rate, it’s a very tough market for wine exporters.

On the quality of Australian wine, Rob Geddes sings the praises of Hunter Semillon commenting that it’s the best place in the world to grow Semillon resulting in a crisp, light, dry, low alcohol wine that is delicious.

He also thinks we’ll be drinking a lot more new varieties such as Tempranillo and Tannat with Rose wine also gaining in popularity.

The new champagne is called Ice Imperial. It will be launched in Australia at Hamilton Island Race Week but is unlikely to be sold in bottle shops. Elsewhere in the world it has only been available at selected resorts and bars so far. An Ice Imperial Gift Pack has been sold online overseas so we’ll see whether Australian consumers will be able to buy Ice Imperial online.

In the interview, James Halliday discusses how difficult it is for consumers to make a decision when buying wine. He speaks of the price bands that consumers expect. At the cheaper end, consumers expect to buy wine for under $10 these days. Wine at this price level often has to be heavily discounted to bring it into this price band. It doesn’t mean that that there are no good wines for under $10 but a large volume of wine is priced at under $10 and the quality varies tremendously.

In the middle bracket at under $20 the volume drops off considerably and over $20 is in the fine wine category. Again, James Halliday makes the point that price doesn’t necessarily equate to the quality of the wine and the prestige, label and reputation of the winery plays a part in the price of the wine. He does say however that fines wines in Australia are making more of an impression overseas. He cites Andrew Jefford, one of UK’s most famous wine writers saying that top Australian chardonnays now compete favourably with the best Burgundys. The big Australian red wines are not faring so well however and are often criticised for being too generous and too alcoholic.

Getting back to the cheap end of the price range again, it’s going to be hard for consumers to sort out the best wines to buy in the under $10 price bracket after the wet growing season. This year’s vintage suffered a lot in many areas particularly for red wine varieties. South Australia and Victoria were hard hit whereas Western Australia and the Hunter Valley were ok. White wine will be better as the cooler days due to cloud cover were favourable for varieties such as chardonnay and riesling.

James Halliday’s 2012 wine companion is available for sale on the website or from booksellers.

This event started off ten years ago as a small Canberra event to find the World’s best Riesling and is now a world class wine event. This year, the competition has broken previous records for the number of entries and the number of countries that are represented. In all there are Rieslings from 10 countries for this year’s challenge.

The chairman of the event, Ken Helm, says that the growing popularity of the event reflects the resurgence in popularity of Riesling as a great table wine.

More details are on the Riesling Challenge website.

This is our pick of riesling wine to buy online. There are some good buys at the moment so check out the selection.

The purpose of AFFW is to educate consumers and industry professionals on the characteristics of Australia’s best regional wines. Australian wine is the largest import in the UK and yet the price of Australian wine is declining. The need is there to compete on quality rather than price and raise the understanding and appreciation of Australian winemaking.

The twelve names that form AFFW are:

• Brown Brothers (Victoria)
• Campbells (Victoria)
• d’Arenberg (South Australia)
• De Bortoli (NSW)
• Henschke (South Australia)
• Howard Park (Western Australia)
• Jim Barry (South Australia)
• McWilliam’s (NSW)
• Tahbilk (Victoria)
• Taylors (South Australia)
• Tyrrell’s (NSW)
• Yalumba (South Australia)

Between them they have 1200 years of winemaking experience. The chairman is Alister Purbrick from Tahbilk who is a fourth generation winemaker.

The launch of AFFW is on 31 August at the Sydney Opera House. More details on Winebiz.

He also gives an overview of trends in the Australian wine industry. These are some of the points he highlights:

• There is a marked trend towards chardonnays with lower alcohol content – 12.5% to 13.5% rather than 13.5% to 14.5%.
• 2008 red wines especially those from the Barossa and Clare Valleys and McLaren Vale are better than their 07 counterparts.
• The percentage of Western Australia wines is higher, partly because of the popularity of sauvignon blanc and sauvignon semillon blends. Also there are large scale plantings in the state gaining in maturity and quality.
• The trend towards screwcaps over corks continues.