New Zealand's wine industry is whipping Australia's hands-down.
Viticulturalist Richard Smart, photo HBT
Does Australia need a winemaker-equivalent of Robbie Deans? Richard Smart, one of Australia’s – and the world’s – best-known viticulturists, has suggested the possibility in a forthright recent article, “Wine Battles between Australia and New Zealand: How Goliath should learn from David.”
Smart traces the changing fortunes of the two countries’ wine industries over the 30-year period from 1980 to 2010. Since 2007, he notes, New Zealand has sold more wine to Australia than Australia has to New Zealand. In 2010, our exports across the Tasman generated NZ$327 million. “This trade is now over five-fold the value of that exported from Australia to New Zealand.”
Richard Smart is well known in New Zealand after his long spell in the 1980s as national viticulture scientist, based at Ruakura. In 2005, the UK’s Decanter magazine ranked him among the “50 Most Powerful Names in Wine”. Australia’s key problem, Smart argues, has been its failure to plant extensive vineyards in truly cool parts of the country. “In failing to do so, not only is it losing export markets, but also a significant part of its domestic market.”
When he arrived here in 1982, a world authority in vine-canopy management, Smart was told by a local retailer that “New Zealand wines were crap and the only decent wines to be found were from Australia. My, how that opinion has changed. New Zealanders are now as proud of their wine as they are of the All Blacks.”
On the surface, Australia has major advantages over New Zealand in their transtasman wine rivalry, with a longer-established industry, a greater range of winegrowing climates and a much bigger domestic market. But things are changing fast. Australia’s vineyard area in 1981 was 24 times larger than New Zealand’s; now it is less than five times larger. New Zealand’s wine exports achieve an average price per litre that is more than double Australia’s. And in the UK – a key initial export market for both countries – the price difference is four-fold.
New Zealand winemakers have shown no mercy to Australia’s in their domestic market. Marlborough sauvignon blanc was recently described as “like an Exocet missile to the Australian white-wine category”. Of the 10 biggest-selling white wines in Australia, eight are now Marlborough sauvignon blancs. The latest bitter pill for Australia’s winemakers to swallow is that New Zealand’s elegant, floral and spicy syrahs, grown principally in Hawke’s Bay and on Waiheke Island, now often triumph over bold, beefy Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale shirazes in key blind tastings staged in Australia.
So, why is New Zealand “whipping” Australia? The New Zealand industry is better organised, says Smart, as it has only one body (New Zealand Winegrowers) for the sector, compared to four in Australia. New Zealand’s wine research programme is more focused on solving industry problems, and “New Zealand is also streets ahead in implementing a sustainability programme”.
And New Zealand’s wines are simply better. “This comment will cause chagrin to many Australians, but if we look at the facts of consumer acceptance and the price consumers are prepared to pay in several markets, it seems irrefutable. The wines are better because the grapes are better because they are grown in cool climates.”
Australia’s early vineyards, says Smart, were located in warm areas to serve a demand for fortified wines and modest table wines. Regions later planted for their supposedly “cool” climates, such as Coonawarra (South Australia), Yarra Valley (Victoria) and Margaret River (Western Australia), are “not really so cool, after all”.
The answer for Australia’s beleaguered winemakers, Smart believes, is to plant extensive new vineyards in genuinely cool parts of Tasmania (where he lives), Victoria and New South Wales. Land with comparable temperatures to Marlborough can be bought for only A$10,000 a hectare, “and is right now used for grazing sheep”.
WINE OF THE WEEK
Haha Marlborough Pinot Noir 2010 ***1/2 ($19.99)
From Fern Ridge Wines, based in Hawke’s Bay, this is one of the best-value pinot noirs on the market. Fragrant and full-bodied, it is deeply coloured, with a strong surge of plummy, spicy flavours, ripe and smooth, and great drinkability.