white shiraz

[pianistimo]

it's an australian wine and i've had two glasses.  mmm.  it has something like 'thirsty lizard' on the front and i don't quite understand the 'white shiraz' as it is a red wine.  but, it is sooo good!  i didn't realize australian wines were so good.

[lisztisforkids]

I just drank a bottle of Yellow Tail Shiraz form Australia, and I agree, Australian wines are tasty. Come to think of it, wine is just plain tasty.

[pianistimo]

yes!  i keep having one more sip.  this stuff is smooth.  (had to correct some spelling there - was using 'f's for 's's.')

[_____]

Australian wines are some of the best in the world. Try any Shiraz from Coonawarra or the Barossa Valley.

[ahinton]

There are indeed some excellent wines from Australia; no doubt "ada" will contribute an endorsement from within that country! Speaking as one whose Australian wine experiences have all been outside the country of origin, I should add that there are doubtless even better wines IN Australia (i.e the ones that the australians don't export). The precise significance of "white shiraz" escapes me, however - and it seems that no one has yet addressed this here; does anyone know anything about this?

There was a somewhat alarming persuasion a few years ago that resulted in all too many of the lesser Australian wines to be over-oaked, but this fad seems to be dissipating, fortunately.

There is also a tendency (in these days of wine-making predominantly for early consumption) for many wines to have a somewhat higher alcohol content than was once the case; this is especially true outside France and Germany (although the extremes of temperature in 2003, which enforced unusually early harvesting in Western Europe, meant that even many French wines' alcohol percentages were higher than usual). I find that this is, in many cases(! - sorry!), a backward step in wine-making; indeed, some reds which pack a 14.5% or higher alcohol punch are almost more remarkable for their alcoholic nature than for their actual taste (as though pretending to the fortified wine status of ports and the like). Australia has not exactly led the way here, but it has certainly not shied away from it; indeed, a sizable proportion of the Antipodean reds with the most frequently occurring higher-end alcohol content are Aussie shirazes.

On another tack (though not unrelated), one may perhaps be forgiven for assuming that those in the various areas of the wine profession (growers, négociants, wholesalers, retailers, writers, etc.) may feature among that relatively small minority of people who favour the much-vaunted "global warming"; not only has "climate change" been attributed (although the jury remains out on whether or not this is correct) to the fact that more wines are being made in England today than for many centuries (even though production quantities remain comparatively small and overall quality has a long way yet to go), but it has been put forward as the principal reason why Germany is now at last producing credible reds - yes, even shirazes! There are certainly some ongoing geographical changes in and expansions of the "old world" of wine production (i.e. Western Europe); it will be interesting to observe over the next decades just how far and in what directions this may go.

On a more negative note, in a week (last week, that is) in which the world has been obsessed with the "fallout" of the North Korean nuclear issue and the UK media has been banging on about the most pernickety details of political correctitude as to how Muslims should be treated, one major UK daily newspaper bucked the trend last Saturday by devoting its leading article to forthcoming laws which will enforce inclusion of health warnings on all wine bottles, just like those which have been printed for some years on all cigarette packets; this is literally intended to be a catch-all situation, even to the extent of including all major-name first-growth top-vintage red bordeaux that are made available for sale! Whilst this is an EC directive in the offing, rather than yet another piece of dénomination d'origine brittanique nonsense from our own increasingly ridiculous not-so-new-Laborious "nanny state", one wonders not only at the sheer pleonastic absurdity of the idea itself but also how it could realistically be policed in practice. For one thing, whereas cigarettes are manufactured, packaged, sold and smoked within a comparatively short time, some wines (even in today's early-consumption market-place) will have been laid down for years; will this mean that retailers will suddenly become obliged to assume responsibility for adding "appropriate" labels to existing stock, just as bottlers will have to add them to newly bottled product? Secondly, as this legislation will cover the entire EC, what will happen to wines imported into EC countries from other wine producing countries such as US, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina which are not, of course, governed by EC legislation? - will it become a condition of import that these countries have nevertheless to add such EU-approved warning labels to every bottle of wine they export to EC? Two thoughts occur to me about this. One is that the French - as delightfully famous for great wine-making as for reading agricultural regulations selectively and then sensibly interpreting them to suit themselves - would surely sooner explode nuclear devices beneath all EC government buildings than agree to the imposition of this rubbish. The other is the question of where this might lead; presumably, the first victim to follow would be packaged food (as in "10 Beefburgers: Warning - consumption of more than one burger daily may raise cholesterol levels and cause heart damage" - or "Scottish Still Mineral Water: Warning - consumption of more than 2 bottles [2.5 bottles in the case of consumers on renal dialysis] daily may cause peritonitis") - in other words, when you get up in the morning, don't do anything at all without prior written governmental approval and consent...

I have heard some crazy things in my time, but this is surely one of the craziest!

Best,

Alistair

[pianistimo]

dear alistair,

i think i'm beginning to love the scottish in you!  well, actually i did from the beginning - but i couldn't quite put my finger on exactly what did i like.  your thoughts travel too.  and, you do put quite a bit of effort into answering questions precisely and then adding detail.  much like bernhard (btw, where has bernhard gone?  is he practicing and teaching?)   now bernhard lives in england, too, right.  somebody has to look him up.  i'll think he's dead if he doesn't post soon.

my parents are here for a short vacation and they bought the australian wine.  if it weren't for them - i'd have just picked something that i was familiar with.  i don't know why - but i am very uncreative in the local epps.  i think it's that i don't want to stand around deciding and have someone think i'm a wino.  even on the occasion in december when we get a case of beer (usually happens once a year - and it lasts until april) - i feel wierd going out with a case.  but, it's cheaper that way.  and, as you know - scottish people (and irish) like quality AND a bargain. 

i didn't realize the shiraz had a higher alcohol content.  i am not a connoissour of wine - so it could have fooled me.