“UNQUESTIONABLY ONE OF THE WORLD’S FINEST WINE PRODUCERS” The producer is Mr David Powell of Torbreck, a firm in South Australia’s Barossa Valley. I do not know who described him thus; the quote flashes up on the Torbreck website without attribution. Perhaps it was one of Mr Powell’s friends. Perhaps it was Mr Powell himself. There is no law requiring winemakers to be modest, and to judge from the photo of Mr Powell underneath the quote, he is not a man crippled by self-doubt.

I remember Carlsberg beer used to be advertised in Britain as “probably the best lager in the world”. That “probably” must have taken up an entire creative conference. “For Christ’s sake, why are we using the modifier?” some ad man must have said. “Let’s just call it the best.” “Oh no,” someone else would have countered. “This is the UK. Everyone hates show-offs. By saying ‘probably’ we’ll sound modest and reasonable, while really, we’ll still be calling it the best.” Read the rest of this entry »

With so many fine new labels coming out of Australia nowadays, it is easy to forget the ones that have been around a long time. The grandaddy of them all is Penfolds, a firm that has been in business since the 1840s.

During its first hundred years of existence, Penfolds concentrated on fortified wines and brandies. All that changed after the firm’s chief winemaker, Max Schubert, visited Europe in the late 1940s. Schubert was taken up by the Bordeaux winemaker Christian Cruse, who taught him the craft of making first-class wine. The young pupil became obsessed by the idea of making an Australian wine to rival the French classics.   Read the rest of this entry »

One of the charms of wine drinking nowadays is its endless cosmopolitanism. Regular visitors to this blog will have read about Burgundy from New Zealand, Bordeaux from South Africa, Gewürztraminer from Italy and Margaux from New York State. Now we have a delightful Rhône wine from South Australia.

Of course none of these copies is perfect. And the makers would no doubt protest that they are not trying to create doppelgängers of the French classics. But in that case, one is bound to ask what they are doing. Read the rest of this entry »

They have been making wine in South Australia’s Barossa Valley since the 1830s. Jason Schwarz, founder and proprietor of the Schwarz Wine Company, made his first Thiele Road Grenache in 2002, but he is very much part of the tradition, being the son and grandson of Barossa Valley growers.

Mr Schwarz considers himself an artisan.  His approach to winemaking style involves, as he puts it, “purposely low intervention. I like the fruit to speak for itself.” It certainly does that, in resounding tones. Read the rest of this entry »