New Releases from Australia, Part 1

The dry rieslings of Australia’s cooler regions (yes, they have them—and quite a few) are among the world’s finest examples of what seems to be a disappearing breed. Dry riesling thrives in Australia’s local market, due in part to the country’s obsession with seafood drawn from the waters that abut virtually all the major population centers. These wines also make sense in a country that is home to a staggering number of Asian restaurants and markets. Sauvignon blanc is increasing in popularity, and the finest examples from the Adelaide Hills, especially, can compete with the best from New Zealand. A case can be made that the chardonnays and pinot noirs produced on the Mornington Peninsula, just south of Melbourne, are as elegant as any in the New World. And western Australia and Coonawarra continue quietly to send out some of the best-balanced and most complex cabernet sauvignons to be had outside Bordeaux.

Of course there are the rich, full-flavored shirazes from South Australia, that for better or worse have created the nation’s vinous reputation. There has been much recent success with grenache, with some astounding wines made from vines more than a century old, planted alongside equally ancient shiraz vines. Viognier is coming into vogue and the best examples, usually from cooler spots, more closely resemble riesling than the full-throttle viogniers produced in, for example, California’s Central Coast. Tempranillo has slowly begun to establish itself as a viable grape, and there are increasing plantings of Italian varieties in warmer regions, often with encouraging results. Then there are the numerous regions and wine types that continue to fly under the American radar, such as the Hunter Valley, which produces singular dry semillon and elegant, understated shiraz. Heathcote, working with what is probably the oldest soil on Earth, produces potent, deeply flavored but not usually heavy shiraz that can stand up to the best of Barossa or McLaren Vale. And the fortified muscats and tokays of Rutherglen must be counted among the greatest and most complex sweet wines of the world. There are also the tawny ports of South Australia and Victoria, the rieslings of Tasmania and western Australia, the cabernets of Victoria, and on and on.