How many types of wine does Australia make?

How many types of wine does Australia make? Quite a few you would, at first, guess.

While this statement is true, I would like you to consider this answer. Two. Australia makes two types of wine.

The first type is the one we all buy from BWS or Dan Murphy’s or First Choice or any of the Coles and Woolworths shops. It is the very drinkable, consistent, un-vintaged wines in all styles that the other big two players in the wine industry in Australia produce. Constellation and Fosters.

The second is the family or small company owned, regional, varying and definitely vintaged types of wine that we all enjoy drinking when we get to know them.

Over the course of the last 20 years, the export boom in Australian wine has meant that the vast majority of Australian wine has been made to an exacting, consistent but ultimately bland “product”. People overseas know what they are getting when they buy our wine. This has helped our industry immensely as people got value for money with lots of fruit, flavour and a guarantee of quality.

 “Wine has become Australia’s fourth-largest agricultural export by value, at some $1.2 billion a year. Australia has captured 7 percent of the global market and 5 percent of the United States market.” (New York Times 2003)

 The other blade on this two edged sword of success, is that the wineries themselves become targets for “beverage” companies. Penfold’s became Southcorp, which became Foster’s Wines; part of the Foster’s Group. BRL Hardy’s became Constellation Wines Australia, part of the enormous global Constellation Brands conglomerate.

Probably a lot of the brands you are drinking are controlled by these two companies. Names such as Hardy’s, Nobilo, Banrock Station, Goundrey, Houghton, Omni and Stanley are part of the Constellation stable. Foster’s brands include Penfold’s, Lindemans, Rosemount, Saltram, Wynns, Metala to name a few.

This consolidation of the production of Australian wine has produced benefits for the industry and consumers alike, but as our wine industry has matured into a world class player, we may have lost a little something. As the collective national palette has matured along with our taste in wine drinking – there is a feeling that the true nature and complexity of our various wine making brands has been sacrificed to the god of consistency.

The Australian newspaper recently published a story on “Australia’s First Families of Wine”, a collection of 12 well known winemaking dynasties who are seeking to re-introduce a sense of regional distinction into our wine. On a recent trip to the Barossa, I had the good fortune to taste and discuss this very idea with a couple of young (well, youngish) small, family owned wine companies.

Marco Cirillo (Cirillo Wines) and Simon Cowham (Sons of Eden) live and breathe wine. It’s in their blood – Marco is a 9^th generation winemaker and Simon has the boots to prove he is man of the land. Their shared passion for regionality or even subregions within the well known areas of Australian winemaking is not about a French style system of control, but mare about regaining the subtle distinctions that can truly define the taste of a wine.

People in Australia are now making the distraction between Barossa, McLaren Vale and Heathcote Shiraz; Coonawarra versus Margaret River Cabernets. As an industry, this idea of regional differences needs to be nurtured if we are to overcome the image of “industrialised” wines and truly embrace the passion once again. And it is the “Families” who will once again be the pioneers.

Top 10 wine companies1. Foster’s Group – 21.2 per cent market share

2. Constellation Wines – 13.5 per cent

3. Small manufacturers – 10 per cent

4. Pernod Ricard Aust. – 10.2 per cent

5. Supermarkets private label – 5.6 per cent

6. Yalumba – 4.6 per cent

7. De Bortoli – 4.6 per cent

8. McWilliams – 3.8 per cent

9. Brown Brothers – 3.4 per cent

10. Fine Wine Partners (Lion Nathan) – 2.9 per cent

Total market share for Beverage Companies = 53.4%

Source: AC Nielsen