Australian wine history

Before European expansion arrived in Australia, the indigenous aboriginal people roamed through much of the country with a semi-nomadic lifestyle. Their population was only around 500000 but were concentrated around coastal regions where life was less harsh. Their lifestyle was mainly hunting and gathering food with no domesticated crops or animals, apart from the Dingo, an Australian type of wild dog. Despite the Europeans arriving peacefully, there were efforts to expel the Europeans by the Aboriginals from their lands. However, diseases like smallpox came with the new arrivals, which devastated their already small numbers and colonies were established. There were no local types of grape before vine cuttings from the Cape of Good Hope were brought to the prisoner colony of New South Wales by Governor Phillip on the First Fleet (1788). An attempt at wine making from these first vines failed, but with determination, other settlers managed to successfully grow grapes for winemaking. Australian made wine was available for sale domestically by the 1820s, and in 1822 Gregory Blaxland became the first winemaker to win an overseas award. Early Australian winemakers faced many difficulties, particularly due to the unfamiliar Australian climate. But because it is also warm, dry, and Mediterranean in coastal areas, ideal for wine production, they eventually achieved considerable success. French wine judges at the 1873 Vienna Exhibition, blind tasted wines from Victoria, but, having rated them highly, withdrew in protest when the origin of the wine was revealed on the grounds that wines of that quality could only be French. In 1877, Phylloxera struck and spread north, being detected in New South Wales in 1884 and Queensland in 1910, destroying vineyards and devastating the industry. South Australia, having banned movement of vine material, remained free of the pest. Western Australia and Tasmania also escaped infection. The pest has not been eradicated and there are still several areas of Australia declared as Phylloxera Infested Zones – most notably large sections of Victoria’s Yarra Valley, where it was discovered in 2005. Despite this, many growers continue to resist planting vines grafted onto resistant root stocks. Australia’s most famous wine is Penfolds Grange. The great 1955 vintage was submitted to competitions beginning in 1962 and over the years has won more than 50 gold medals. The vintage of 1971 won first prize in Syrah/Shiraz at the Wine Olympics in Paris. The 1990 vintage was named ‘Red Wine of the Year’ by the Wine Spectator magazine in 1995, which later rated the 1998 vintage 99 points out of a possible 100. Wine critic Hugh Johnson has called Grange the only First Growth of the Southern Hemisphere. The influential wine critic Robert Parker, who is well known for his love of Bordeaux wines, has written that Grange “has replaced Bordeaux’s Pétrus as the world’s most exotic and concentrated wine”. In recent times, Australian wine has had to reinvent itself after following the trends of the 1980s to produce heavily oaked and over extracted wines which declined from favour around the end of the 20th century. The government encouraged vineyards to be removed due to overproduction and a crash in prices. While Australian wine is dominated by several large companies, these companies often produce low quality bulk wines while smaller producers have discovered regional terroir and are now making excellent wines suited to the climates across this vast country.