No grape variety has played a more significant role in the development of modern Australian wine than Chardonnay. Ken Gargett traces the variety’s history in Australia, explores the region-by-region differences, and picks out some of the country’s finest Chardonnay producers and their wines. Read the full article here.
I love the notes Brian Croser shares about each vintage. He introduces 2025, “as a weak, wobbly Antarctic vortex allowed a pressure system to escape near the Australian continent. The result was the warmest, driest and earliest vintage of my 56-year winemaking career.”
These 44-year-old vines were hand-picked, whole bunch pressed and sent to French oak (one third new). Fermentation took two months, and the wine sat on full lees for eight months.
Drenched in interest as these Tapanappa wines tend to be, barbecued peach, caramelised white fleshed nectarines, pineapple, dehydrated mango and figs lay a most welcome and solid platform. Popcorn, brioche, creme brulee creaminess and roasted cashews continue to add detail with ease. The longer it sits, the more I pick up a caramel drop and a vanilla custard creaminess. Fine ginger spices frame the edges, underpinning the moreishness on offer. A wine with great shape and texture despite being a different expression from those previous, this Tiers 2025 still flies the Tiers flag proudly.
I do have a soft spot for this Chardonnay. It’s not in the same league as the Tiers 1.5m 2024, but it’s a very good one, no less.
I love the notes Brian Croser shares about each vintage. He introduces 2025, “as a weak, wobbly Antarctic vortex allowed a pressure system to escape near the Australian continent. The result was the warmest, driest and earliest vintage of my 56-year winemaking career.
A delightful melange of barbecued peaches and white-fleshed nectarines greets you with lemon zest and juice and a seductive grapefruit acidity that brings the mouth to water. Vanilla cream, Panna Cotta, barley sugar, cashews and almond meal fold into one another with ease, building a silky and graceful presence. The lights are flashing for some more bottle age as a tense acidity swoops in on close and points to a long life ahead. I’d run at the opportunity to take another look in a couple of years.
Scarcebrook included this wine in his top six wines from the tasting, describing “great concentration on the aromatics – vibrant quince, slightly underripe nectarine, elderflower cordial, and lime-scented lollies. There’s depth, concentration, and texture in spades here – it’s rich and round but still quite fresh and juicy, showing ripe nectarine and some crystallised ginger. It rolls across the palate – the benefit of a judicious touch of residual sugar. This wine calls for something a bit heartier – perhaps some roast pork?”
Some fantastic words by Andrew Caillard MW in The Vintage Journal covering the new Chardonnays from our Tiers Vineyard and Tiers 1.5M Vineyard. “The results highlight the quality of the vineyard, the epigenetic evolution of the vines, and winemaking methods,” he writes, placing the 2025 vintage of these fantastic wines into the greater canon of the Tiers Vineyard. Thank you very much for your thoughts and eloquent writing!
Read his chronicle of The Tiers Vineyard, as well as a short history of The Foggy Hill Vineyard, and his reviews of the 2025 Tiers Vineyard and Tiers 1.5M Vineyard Chardonnays.
2025 Tapanappa 1.5m Tiers Vineyard Chardonnay, Adelaide Hills – South Australia
Pale colour. Lovely pure grapefruit, lemon curd, hint tonic water aromas. Fresh and lithe with grapefruit, nectarine, lemon curd flavours, fine lacy textures, some savoury complexity and long minerally/ crunchy acidity. Beautiful flow, purity and length. Ready to drink, but worth keeping for a while. Based on Bernard Clones 76 & 95. 95 points
2025 Tapanappa Tiers Vineyard Chardonnay, Adelaide Hills – South Australia
Pale colour. Intense grapefruit, bitter lemon, flinty aromas with hints of marzipan. Tightly structured but refreshing with ample grapefruit, lemon, hint apricot fruits, supple/ looseknit chalky textures, very good mid-palate volume and fresh resonating/ indelible acidity. Pure, linear and minerally. Heritage clones. Drink now – 2035 95 points
Pale colour. Intense grapefruit, bitter lemon, flinty aromas with hints of marzipan. Tightly structured but refreshing with ample grapefruit, lemon, hint apricot fruits, supple/ looseknit chalky textures, very good mid-palate volume and fresh resonating/ indelible acidity. Pure, linear and minerally. Heritage clones. Drink now – 2035 95 points
Pale colour. Lovely pure grapefruit, lemon curd, hint tonic water aromas. Fresh and lithe with grapefruit, nectarine, lemon curd flavours, fine lacy textures, some savoury complexity and long minerally/ crunchy acidity. Beautiful flow, purity and length. Ready to drink, but worth keeping for a while. Based on Bernard Clones 76 & 95. 95 points
More white peach and less grapefruit than the 1.5m. The nutty lees and a caress of oak provide harmonious complexity. A lingering, fine grip and perfectly balanced acidity complete the picture. ($110.00)
Even though this wine is from a warm vintage, it’s restrained, with a pronounced line of acidity. The aromas and flavours suggest white peach, grapefruit and warm croissant. The components of this creamy chardonnay need time to knit together, but it’s a class act! ($90.00)
I’m reviewing this a little later in the day, so there will be Tiers before bedtime. I’ll fetch my coat. Nectarine, grapefruit, nougat, a little spice and cedar. It’s lively, a grapefruit tang to acidity and flavour, there’s something of an umami character here too – like wakame – a grainy grip to texture with nutty finish of fine length. It’s a bright and zippy expression of this wine. Less gloss and glide than is usual, acidity courses through it, but it’s good all the same. 94 Points
The earliest vintage ever, harvested on the 6th of March, three to four weeks ahead of the average. White peach, pear, grapefruit, cedar and spice, aniseed, a little salted pastry dough too. It’s bright and juicy, a grapefruit and lime zest affair with some white fruit in the mix, a little nougat richness, firm acidity and chalky grip sures it up, and the finish offers zip and limey length. There’s a slight rawness to this wine at present, though I reckon it will resolve nicely with a few years in bottle. Very good. 94 Points
Light-mid yellow; oatmeal and smoky oak aromas, the wine is tensioned and focused with precise lemon and chalky mineral flavours that extend tight, lean and long on the palate. Lipsmacking dry, crisp, refreshing finish. 91 Points
There’s a lot of richness and warmth to this wine. The designated, labelled 14.5% may be a furphy, but there’s distinct breathiness, soupy texture, ripe fruit character and a kind of booze-soaked fruit and nut note that feels pervasive. Sure, the fleshier, pulpier impact of ripe and dried stone fruit, coconut water and nougat all feel apt in the frame, but one can’t help but think what may be if a little tension and extra freshness landed in this wine. 91 Points
The date was the 10th August 1993 and I was hopelessly lost, woefully hungover, and seriously late. For an appointment with one of the most formidable intellects on the wine planet, Brian Croser. An individual known not to suffer fools, and I was definitely feeling like a complete and utter one when I finally managed to find a public phone atop what I now know to be Mount Bonython, and called the winery for directions.
When I—eventually—trudged apologetically into the Tapanappa (nee. Petaluma) lab, Croser was deadpan except to say, ‘That’s the worst hangover I’ve seen enter this room.’ Or something to that effect. He then graciously asked if I first wanted to taste the line-up of wines he’d prepared for me, or head immediately for a pie and pint for lunch. This being how just how tardy I was for our mid-morning appointment. So, I fathomed through the fog: a sound heart, in addition to a great mind. Despite my condition, I elected to taste.
They were all glasses of Chardonnay on the bench: five vintages—1987 to ’91—of finished (meaning bottled) Petaluma Chardonnay; and then five samples unfinished (drawn from barrel). These were of the 1992 harvest although other detail was undisclosed, except that they were all Petaluma dedicated vineyards of origin.
So, taking a deep-breath or two I plunged in, hoping that any observations I might make—if solicited—would redeem me somewhat. (Even now, many thousands of tasting samples—and a few more hangovers—later, this is the sensory stuff I relish. To be challenged, and then have to attempt to figure out why the liquid in the glass smells, tastes and stimulates in the way it does.)
It soon became apparent that the barrel samples were intended to be the primary focus of this exercise. Croser did indeed request that I proffer unvarnished observations of the wines in front of me.
There were two standouts to my palate: wines two and four. The others were all extremely good, but did not possess the intensity and character of the other two. Wine five was a touch too lychee herbaceous and the acidity was a bit up there.
Wine two had a lavender-like aromatic character while the deep, citrusy pear fruit was already woven beautifully with fabulous oak mouth-aromas. (These observations I’m referencing from the notes inputted on the day into my FileMaker tasting note database installed on a much-loved Apple Powerbook 165c).
Wine four was different but enthralling for other reasons. It didn’t possess quite the same complexity on the nose as two, but—weirdly perhaps as I didn’t have a clue where the fruit came from so no palate memory entry of reference—it smelled like it would become so in time. In my vernacular I describe this as ‘incipient’ or ‘latent’ complexity. It was, however, incredibly intense in the mouth—powerful across the palate—with mouth-aromas lingering long. So an affirmation of my observation about the latent complexity evident in the nose. Or so I deduced as the mist had begun to clear.
From memory Croser just nodded and exchanged words of agreement and—certainly—otherwise. Then came ‘the reveal’. Which, if you’re not acquainted with wine tasting lingo, is the moment you know whether you’ve performed your tasting duties admirably, or really fucked it up. There’s rarely anything in between.
And so. Wine 1 – a blend of Bruce (just a little to the north and east of Tiers) and Shed (Summertown) vineyards. Wine two – Shed plus Aldo’s and Pat and Ted’s, but mostly the Mount Bonython components from Croser’s mum and dad’s vineyard and that of Aldo Bratovic. Wine 3 – Pfitzner (my notes don’t indicate where this is exactly). Wine 5 – Shed.
But back to wine 4—Tiers—the vineyard I’d finally found my way too. As everyone who cares deeply about the history of Chardonnay in Australia knows, Tiers is held in exceptionally high regard. Up there with the revered likes of Giaconda in Beechworth (Victoria), Tyrrell’s Short Flat in the Hunter (New South Wales), and Leeuwin Estate’s ‘golden acre’ in Margaret River (Western Australia). All hallowed ground for this grand cultivar. You’ll find plenty of fascinating Tiers vinicultural detail here. This was my first experience tasting Tiers in its purest, most uninhibited liquid form. The first single-vineyard Tiers would be bottled a few years later from the 1996 vintage.
So perhaps a little redemption for my tardy arrival? We departed to the Aldgate Pump for a steak and kidney pie and—for my part—a pint or two of Kent Town Ale.
So why—thirty five vintages later—do I now relate this? Well for one, it’s a positive thing at any time to get stories out about such exciting discoveries out there—even ones of such distance. These experiences matter in wine. Especially when they pertain to the most important thing that creates such special wine experiences: the unique places that grow the grapes—which themselves may exhibit particularly distinctive, personal clonal properties—and the individuals that have elected to cultivate and care for them. Places which will (hopefully) continue to provide pleasure into the future.
Tiers, and the other special vineyards mentioned above—and others elsewhere that have found their right place to be and matured in the meantime—are important because these are unique plots of land which grow wines imbued with a spirit of place.
But also now because I’d like to single out Pat and Ted’s vineyard from the list above as it provides the bedrock for Tapanappa’s PV Chardonnay. Which, as you might notice from my 2024 Tapanappa review trifecta, is my frontrunner (at least at this stage of its life) in this vintage. Age-wise, it—and Aldo’s, Eric’s, Bruce’s and Summertown Shed—are all honourable contemporaries. Indeed Pat and Ted’s is older—and therefore more mature—than the Tiers 1.5m.
Like Tiers, these founding vineyards in the nascent winegrowing region of the Adelaide Hills were all planted between 1978 and 1983 and would later be classified within the Piccadilly Valley sub-region (a so-called Protected Geographical Indication, or G.I.) which was formalised in 2000. They were all established with similar clonal material also. Or at least they were assumed to be, which is yet another fascinating—and complex—local vinicultural tale.
Twenty-twenty four is not the first vintage where I’ve had the PV in—or near—the top tier either. In 2021 it was the equal to the 1.5m although the Tiers was in a class of its own that vintage. In 2018 it was only just pipped by the other two. In ’18 the trio were among the finest chardonnays from anywhere in the land.
Of those 2018s that I was fortunate to encounter in my half-blind line-ups, that is. These included Giaconda, Leeuwin Art Series, Hoddles Creek Syberia and 1er, Oakridge 864 Aqueduct Vineyard – Henk, Tolpuddle, Moorooduc McIntyre; Flametree S.R.S. So the PV was in magnificent company.
While researching this piece it was also interesting to discover—for me at least—that at another tasting of Chardonnay barrel samples included in a larger tasting Brian presided over in 1996 (to which I punctually arrived) I had the Mount Bonython selection second only—again—to a Tiers/Bruce combo. Sexy was one of the words I used on the day to describe it too.
The two other vineyards which make up the balance of the ‘24 PV are Bussell’s (nee. Bruce’s, cited above), which sits immediately to the west of Tiers, and Wilson’s which, if my notes are accurately recorded from the ‘96 barrel tasting, is what was then referred to as St. Margarets. It is located in the Basket Range to the north. So these are both Piccadilly Valley vineyards of eminent pedigree.
So too is Aldo’s. And here’s another serendipitous reason to be publishing these words now. It was on the Sunday of the long-weekend just passed—8th March, 2026—that I was delving into my tasting note database to reference my impressions of the barrel samples noted above.
Now, Aldo (Bratovic) and I reacquaint ourselves every once in a while, but we’d not communicated for a year or so, until he dropped by Frewvilleland to say hello on Tuesday 10th. (I do four shifts a week on the deli and occasionally assist on the cheese bar should you desire or require any counsel on other delicious fermented things derived from meat and milk).
I was somewhat preoccupied—and also close to clocking off—but called him shortly thereafter. ‘Let’s catch up was the gist’, but among other things I learned that the beautiful grapes grown on his Mount Bonython vineyard were no longer headed for anonymity at Pernod-Ricard—albeit into some pretty classy Orlando Chardonnay—but were returning to their original fold.
With the 2026 harvest—and this is affirmed in per comms. by Lucy Croser—Aldo’s Mount Bonython-grown grapes will reunite with those of her grandparents Pat and Ted’s vineyard. ‘The Chardonnay cosmos has spoken to me,’ I quipped to Aldo. Who, as an individual committed to science, immediately replied: ‘Don’t get all spiritual on me, Tim.’ But I will nevertheless reiterate: spirit of place. In it is everything meaningful.
For those who may now be enthused to make a trip to this special place for Chardonnay, or one who has already made a pilgrimage near the mount of Bonython, you might be wondering how on earth I could have got so mislaid that day, hungover or not.
Well, this was before the Heysen Tunnels connected to the South-Eastern Freeway, when one had to negotiate the winding climb up Mount Barker Road past the Eagle on the Hill unaided. Pre-mobile, let alone smart phones. So no Google, nor Apple mapping to guide the way. This is an excuse of sorts I put to the (hopefully) younger people reading these words. As to why my directional bamboozlement was not only down to a day on the booze.
Tiers is a place I’ve visited many times now and it never ceases to make the heart beat a little faster with expectation of what may be at the end of the journey. An impomptu tasting directly from barrel with the man himself of the 2023 Tapanappa Chardonnays in July of that year is another I recall (so considerate, thank you). As well as then also having a peek at the single-vineyard Foggy Hill Pinot Noir clonal and block components afterwards.
The only other vineyards which’s thresholds I’ve passed more would be those of Panayiotis ‘Bunny’ and Yvonne Peglidis, and the hallowed ground of A.P. Birks Wendouree: both in Clare. Actually, thinking about it, I’ve also spent good bit of time at De Bortoli’s singular Dixon’s Creek property in the Yarra over the years.
The pictures illustrating this story were taken on the 5th March 2021. I’d asked for permission beforehand to do so, of course, and Brian instructed me to give him a call when I arrived. Which I duly did, only for him to relay that he was at the Uraidla Bakery getting breakfast croissants for the vintage crew. He thoughtfully asked if I wanted one, but I declined saying that I’d only just finished a double Sausage and Egg McMuffin®. To which he replied, ‘Tim, you’ve gone down in my estimation.’ A comment with which I was quite pleased, because I didn’t realise that I was particularly up there anyway.
So, to be clear about the directions. After exiting McDonald’s Frewville—or Adelaide’s Finest Frewville if a ham and cheese croissant is more your thing—head up Glen Osmond Road to the South-Eastern Freeway (a.k.a. Princes Highway) and ascend; take the Crafers exit, which is the first one after passing through the Heysen Tunnels; go straight over the roundabout, through Crafers village, and turn into Piccadilly Road; then lower the windows and follow your nose—or smart phone—to the turn-off for Spring Gully Road.
Another few hundred metres along the north side of the road and you should arrive at the gateway to ‘The Tiers’. So: fifteen minutes from Macca’s to Tapanappa, and one of the great Chardonnay vineyards of the world. Get lost in the wine.
Brian Croser has been in the Australian wine industry for over 50 years. He helped build it. Now he’s watching it struggle — and he’s got a lot to say about why. This is a big conversation. Brian sits down with Brendan Carter from Bottleshock to talk about what’s actually going wrong, what the industry refuses to confront, and where the opportunity is if people are willing to look at it honestly.
The core argument: Australian wine is world-class. The top echelon from $20 a bottle up can compete with any country on earth. But we’re nowhere near achieving our share of global premium wine markets, and the reasons are as much about politics and emotion as they are about economics.
They get into:
→ The false wars — inland vs cool climate, grape grower vs winemaker — and why they’ve been holding the industry back for 50 years
→ Why Australian vineyards are “sticky” — we tolerate losses far longer than California or anywhere else, and what that means for oversupply
→ Four years of inventory sitting in cellars across the country
→ Why government intervention is the kiss of death and market forces have to drive the correction
→ The Italian parallel — what happened after their postwar oversupply crisis, the introduction of the DOC system in 1963, and what Australia can and can’t learn from it
→ China’s shift from mimicking Bordeaux to doubling down on Marselan and Chinese identity — and why that matters for us
→ The Southeast Asian opportunity — $8 a litre in Asia vs $3 in traditional markets, a growing middle class, and the natural fit between Australian wine styles and Asian cuisine
→ Why Australian wine’s best distribution channel might not be Australian restaurants but Southeast Asian ones
→ The case for a value-based levy instead of a volume-based one — and why the current system lets the spending power of industry funding depreciate year after year
→ What the AWRI has achieved globally — smoke taint, Brettanomyces, screw cap adoption — and why we need to refocus R&D on premium grape quality rather than capacity building
→ The immigration argument nobody in wine is making — 51.5% of Australians are either foreign born or have a foreign-born parent, and what that means for the food and wine culture we’re building
→ Why a smaller, more premium, more focused industry is where we’re headed — and why that might be a good thing Brian also talks about the speech he’s about to give at the very last University of Adelaide graduation ceremony — 150 years from the university’s first lectures. This conversation is essential viewing for anyone who works in, sells, or cares about the future of Australian wine.
Everyone knows the Australian wine industry is a basket case. We keep telling the world that is the diagnosis. Additionally, the industry projects forlorn hope of any recovery because of the apparent negative change in the global demand for wine.
There is no denying that big changes to the global wine industry are in train and inter alia this is ringing in change for the Australian wine community.
I would make the case those changes have been apparent and predictable for at least the past 25 years and that the strategy to make the necessary adjustments have been defined by the economic forensis applied to the historic performance of the global and Australian wine industry by economic analysts like Professor Kym Anderson. We can learn a lot about the future by the dispassionate analysis of the past as provided by Professor Anderson and his co-authors and Peter Bailey of Wine Australia.
What can’t be predicted is the response of the Australian wine community to the proffered analysis, their willingness to even read it, think about it and act on the evidential trail, finally developing a coherent strategy for the whole Australian wine industry free from sectorial and self-interest.
The willingness of the industry to assimilate the economic evidence and to act on it in a logical, concerted way is influenced by the perceived opportunity of the future.
The golden era for the modern Australian wine industry was from 1985 to 2001 during which production quadrupled, fuelled by export growth, against a domestic economic background at least as challenging as today. I know, I was there enduring it, 22 percent interest rates while trying to build a business.
United by the apparent market opportunity, the Australian wine community rang in the changes to create by 1994, an industry structure fit for purpose, that has largely remained unchanged to today, no longer fit for purpose.
Today the Australian wine community is fragmented around sectorial and self- interest, as what’s in the vineyards doesn’t match the changing wine market demand profile. The opportunity is confused by the lack of resolve to accept the economic evidence and to devise and adhere to a new whole-of-industry strategy.
The good news is that the required resources to adapt to the evolving market are still in place for the Australian wine community. They just have to be harnessed to the right strategy.
The false wars
The Australian wine community fundamentally recognises there are two distinct segments in our industry. On the one hand, the few very large bulk and branded commodity businesses built around the high productivity hot inland vineyards dominating chain retail shelves, and on the other the proliferation of small premium wine businesses mainly in the cooler coastal and highland regions, with their regional and individual stories, dependent on wine tourism, direct sales, on-premise and independent retail.
There is an historic rivalry between the two segments, as though what is good for one segment is bad for the other. The inland producers maintain all Australian wine is premium wine, that they are the engine room of the industry producing 70 percent of the wine by volume and paying most of the research and promotion levy and therefore should have the most say in its application.
To the extent such a numerous, disparate and fragmented premium wine community can agree on anything, they lament that Australia’s international premium wine reputation and image is detrimentally dominated by our discounted branded commodity wine segment. Australia has been pigeon-holed as a hot desert, irrigation dependent, industrial producer of branded commodity wine with a token cool climate offering.
So dominant is this perception that Tasmania has reputedly sought to separate its wine image from that of Australia’s, an act of marketing secession if not geographic.
Then there is the skirmish within the war, between the grapegrowers and winemakers, mainly in the inland areas, as though they are competing for a share of the same profits.
These are fictitious wars and battles, amplified by globally diminishing sales and profits.
There is another way. Both segments can mutually benefit, first by recognising the economic realities, then working together and developing a strategy to adapt to the changing marketplace.
Economic realities
The global market for non-premium wine has been shrinking for the last two decades, at about two percent per annum by value. This contraction is expected to continue in the future, displacing commodity grapes, mainly from high productivity vineyards in all the major wine producing countries.
Competitiveness in the global bulk and branded commodity market is driven by cost, price, scale and market power. Australia has been disproportionally successful with branded commodity wine in key export markets. Consistent with global trends the market for branded commodity wine in Australia is shrinking.
The global market for premium wine has been growing at three percent per annum by value over the same period, has paused currently but is expected to continue to grow into the future.
The premium wine market is changing, with preference drifting from traditional heavy red wines (Cabernets, Shiraz), to white, rosé, sparkling and lighter bodied reds (Pinot Noir, Grenache).
Competitiveness in the global premium wine marketplace is driven by wine quality and style and the authentic regional and producer stories that define the country and regional image in that marketplace. Australia has been disproportionally unsuccessful in key premium wine export markets.
The Australian domestic market for premium wine is growing (20-year average of six percent per annum by volume) but imported wine is taking a disproportionate share, currently at 30 percent of market value and growing at three percent per annum.
Australian investment in grape and wine R&D has been diminishing in actual dollar and purchasing power for the past two decades. Given the proven superior returns R&D investment has provided the Australian wine community in the past, there is an imperative to reverse this decay.
Additionally, the priority of Australian R&D investment has dramatically shifted from grape and wine quality improvement and resilience, to extension and so-called industry capacity building. If the Australian wine community is to succeed in the premium wine markets of the future, it needs to reinvest in grape and wine quality improvement and adaptation to climate change.
Red herrings
In the analysis of the Australian wine industry’s history, the bubble of US growth from 2000 to 2008 and the bubble of Chinese growth from 2010 to 2020 should both be ignored.
The US flirted with overripe Australian Shiraz and became disenchanted with the variety, style and Australian wine. It disappeared down the drain.
The Chinese flirted with wine in general and the promise of investment triggered visas in Australia.
Chairman Xi ended the romance.
Both of those markets are returning to their pre-bubble status, the US way under- indexing in the success factors for Australian premium wine in tune with our traditional European markets.
A strategy
Professor Anderson handed the Australian wine industry the insights that would enable it to escape its malaise, in his paper ‘Globalisation and national commodity cycles: the case of wine in Australia.’
He compared the resilience and success of the Californian and New Zealand wine industries to Australia’s failing industry. He identified the steep inverted V of the measures of Australia’s international competitiveness in wine from 1985 to 2023, peaking in 2001. New Zealand and the US industries are dominated by their premium wine offerings. Australia by contrast is dominated by its non-premium offerings. Therein lies a learning and a message.
Australian winemakers are not in control of their own industry strategy because of disunity, the ‘false wars’ and the disfunction of the plethora of industry bodies including Wine Australia, to which the government dictates a majority of non-industry key appointments.
Australia’s biggest market failure is that of premium wine in our traditional European and American continent markets. Add to that market failure, the growing invasion of expensive imported wine into the Australian domestic market, and the largest opportunities for future profitable growth for Australian premium wine have been identified.
How do we unlock those markets for Australian premium wine? By sustained promotion of our premium wine regions and the winemakers, their terroirs and stories, to reverse the adverse image of Australia as a premium wine producer. That promotion is necessary in export and the domestic markets.
How do we fund sustained effective promotion? By industry levy based on value not volume where the large companies do not get a discount because of their size. The imperative is for the industry to devise and control this promotion.
What is the effect of this promotional strategy on the non-premium wine producers? There are no negative consequences for the branded commodity and bulk producers and there is upside from the improving image of Australia as a supplier of wine. A value-based levy treats non-premium producers more equitably than the current volume-based levy.
In what other ways can premium Australian wine become more competitive in all markets?
Improving grape and wine quality provides a sustainable competitive advantage in all markets.
That applies to non-premium as well as premium wine. Promoting the effort and dedication to quality improvement moves the Australian wine image dial in the right direction.
How can grape and wine quality be continuously improved?
Primarily by investing in research in vineyard and winery to understand and control the drivers of wine quality and to provide the extension and education infrastructure to enable industry to apply the research learnings.
How is this research to be funded? By an increased value-based levy to replace the current volume-based levy, matched by Commonwealth funds. Again, the industry needs to control the application of the funds to avoid their dissipation to less effective projects. Again, for non-premium producers, there is no detriment, there are significant research benefits, and the levy is more equitable.
These are the positive initiatives the industry strategy should embrace.
In defence of non-premium wine
Just in case this paper is misinterpreted as a continuation of the ‘false war’, Australia has and needs to have a viable and vibrant non- premium wine segment. It supplies a yawning domestic market opportunity where it has a considerable competitive advantage, and it very successfully occupies a significant place in export bulk and branded commodity export markets. The vast overhang of inventory and fruit at harvest threaten its ongoing viability by destroying grape and wine pricing power.
The large and necessary supply adjustment to the non-premium grape and wine segment seems to be gaining momentum. This is a necessary and painful adjustment that should have happened incrementally over the past 20 years. Once supply-demand balance is restored, the expected continuing diminution of the global non-premium wine market should continuously inform the commercial decisions of Australian grapegrowers and winemakers. The considered balancing of supply and demand for the non-premium segment is a necessary defensive strategy. That doesn’t preclude applied technology and will power elevating the best of inland region fruit into the ranks of premium.
The defence of our non-premium wine segment should be a part of the whole-of- industry informed strategy, founded on economic evidence and constructed without fear or favour to sectorial or self-interest.
Oh, for a perfect world!
After a succession of quite cool vintages in the Piccadilly Valley, the 2025 vintage turned everything around, being the warmest, the driest and the earliest vintage on record. The result is a wine that displays slightly more richness and generosity than previous vintages. But interestingly, it has retained a nice acidity, which keeps its lively crispness. Certainly, the earlier picking would have helped retain that acidity. The aromas are a combination of fig and nectarine, while the palate displays generous ripe stone fruit, albeit held with that fine lingering acidity. There’s a slightly creamy lemon curd richness in the middle palate that gives further weight without dominating. 95 Points
Considered, ripe and generous, this Piccadilly Chardonnay comes from the warmest, driest and earliest vintage on record at the winery. From 40-year-old vines, the fruit was whole bunch pressed to French oak (33% new) seeing five months in oak on full lees. A thrilling opening with Portuguese tart, custard powder and popcorn captured my attention. Lemon meringue and lemon zest frame a core of yellow peach fruit. A delicate creamy undertow comes with the territory and this release doesn’t miss. Fine ginger spices sizzle with a vibrant acidity for now, but rest assured, this will age a treat should you have the patience to hold out. Great stuff. 94 Points
Medium-light straw hue. Straw bale, grapefruit flesh, smoked chicken meatiness, tonic, peanut oil, lemon barley before richer and riper stone fruit, quince, white choc/coconut ball, balsa wood, dried fig and café latte creaminess. A wine of power and presence. Texturally sublime, with the winemaking supplying a fine drivetrain for the long, persistent flavours. The vintage showing its hand with bigger than usual ripe peach fruit while retaining an unexpected sharp and long thrust of potent acidity. No denying the class of winemaking but it may need a little while for the acid to calm down. My points may seem miserly in the future. 93 Points
The 2025 vintage in the Adelaide Hills is the warmest, driest and earliest vintage on record, certainly providing a change and a challenge for the winemakers. That said, early indications are that it will provide excellent wines, although in its own image. The vines used here are in excess of forty years of age, making them some of the oldest in the region. Fermentation was in French oak barriques with one third of them new. Maturation continued through to October of the harvest year with the wine on full lees in those barrels. 2,000 dozen made. There is definitely an extra level of richness to this wine than what we have seen from their recent vintages. The colour is a yellow gold and there are pronounced aromatics throughout. We have notes of hazelnuts, stonefruits, a hint of flint, peaches, apricot skins and oatmeal. The oak is integrating well and there is good intensity. Rich and ripe, there is some serious length here with a fine line of acidity. Enjoy this over the next eight years, during which time the wine will surely climb a little higher when it comes to the score. 94 Points
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