A recent article in the Sunday Telegraph by Sydney based Phil Mercer conveys the ramifications of Australia’s ongoing drought, with diminished grape yields and increased prices expected.

The article highlights the poor timing of such a problem, with France and Italy, for example, offering particularly good wines this year at competitive prices.

Mercer concludes that the Australian wine industry is beginning to focus on the premium end of the market - something which our Australian Wine Buyer David Berry Green predicted in Berrys’ Future of Wine Report, with the focus turning to “high quality, boutique wines” by 2058.

The intriguing topic of food and wine matching is a perennial favourite of most people in the wine trade (and a lot of people out of it) and as the new manager of Berrys’ Wine Club, I’m no exception!

A successful pairing should enhance the enjoyment of both the food and the wine involved and this was one of the reasons we recently created the Reserve Dinner Party Case for wine club members. The idea is to match the wines in the case with specially created recipes compiled by our talented in-house chef, Stewart Turner, so that some of the stress and strain is taken out of planning a dinner party.

In this month’s case, Stewart’s fabulous recipe for Slow Roast Pork Shoulder with Barbeque Onions, Wood Roasted Peppers and Braised Butter Beans perfectly complements the Sequillo Syrah/Mouvedre/Grenache blend from South Africa. The pork goes very well with the earthiness of the Sequillo, whilst the spices & smokiness of the barbecue onions and peppers complement those characters in the wine.

To find out more about the Wine Club and its benefits visit us online, and if there’s anything which we haven’t covered in our Wine Club FAQs, feel free to ask me by submitting a comment below.

At last week’s Yarra Yering Dinner in Berrys’ Cellars, Mark Haisma, Winemaker at YY since 1997, steered 35 fortunate guests through six wines and one fortified; the final pair coming from the 1980 vintage.

Mark kicked off with a 2006 Viognier and 2006 Chardonnay: both apricot stone and citrus rich respectively; fresh, taut and minerally despite the drought. We then skipped a decade or so to the rare 1992 Merlot: a beautifully compact, yet full wine, lush with herb and earth characters held fresh with some stone fruit structure. A 1991 Underhill Shiraz followed, a single vineyard wine of Hermitage proportions: grilled meat, savoury and herbal notes crammed onto the palate, ushered in by the silkiest of textures; again, still young with 5 - 10 yrs ahead of it.

The final pair, from the 1980 vintage, showed why Yarra Yering is feted among those in the know: the No. 2 (a blend of Shiraz, Viognier and a dash of Marsanne) showed a Côte-Rôtie-esque perfume and femininity; the antithesis of the Underhill. While alongside was the No. 1 which even at 28 yrs old was totally composed and linear, no hint of drying out or fraying.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Mark unveiled a stunning Potsorts, a deadringer for the Douro and the finest Portuguese fortified I’ve tasted outside of Pinhao: still young with rocky blackberry fruit and taut minerality.

So what’s the secret? Terroir, in a word. When Dr Bailey Carrodus, now in his ninth decade, created the estate in 1969, he chose an elevated site, cooled by the onshore breezes and blessed with significant diurnal shift. Heavy canopies are encouraged to shade the fruit, while being dry-farmed from the start has imbued the vines with the wherewithal to look after themselves come what may. Yields are low and up to 30% stalks are used in the fermentation, giving added polyphenol structure.

Just when the rest of corporate Australia buckles under the water shortages, Yarra Yering’s 2006’s have never looked so smart!

Last Friday, we were lucky enough to have Mark Hasima, from Yarra Yering Vineyard, brave the train from London Waterloo and visit Berrys Bros. & Rudd in sunny Basingstoke! He came armed with the new 2006 Vintage of YY and some older vintages of the famed No 1, No 2 and Underhill. Mark is great ambassador for YY; a quintessential strapping Aussie male with forthright views and most importantly a passion for what he does. When speaking to Mark you really do get the influence of his mentor, the owner of Yarra Yering, Dr Bailey Carrodus, a legend in the Australian wine industry.

YY has been a favourite with BBR (see picture of me at YY right) and our customers for several years, with the style being a cross between Australian flamboyance and the Old World’s restraint and class. During the tasting Mark was keen to point out that one of the key ingredients to YY’s success is the vintage variation that the estate experiences (being based in the cooler climate of the Yarra Valley in Victoria). This was very apparent in the tasting, with the open knit and flashy style of 2004 appealing to all (think Elton John), whilst the structured and tannic 2005’s gave about as much away as a Fabio Cappello interview in English! The 2006’s were a balance between the two earlier vintages, looking very impressive (particularly the monolithic No 1).

In an age where globalization and commercialisation are so apparent, where we are drinking brands rather than particular wines on their own merit, it is great and fascinating to see subtle style changes each year, not by winemakers choice but on the decision of Mother Nature. Many wine lovers in Europe lambast the New World for lacking the variation and complexity of the old World regions…well taste three vintages of the YY No 2. and think again my friend!

We should embrace different vintage characteristics as this is what makes wine so interesting. So 2007 Bordeaux isn’t going to be a legendary year to drink in 20 years time. Well to be honest I’m bloomin happy with that, as I need something soft and approachable to drink at some point in the next 20 years!!! Drinking the great vintages is always good, but to really appreciate these you have to drink the vintages where the vigneron had to earn his living!

Today, the Indian wine industry is still in its infancy; however technology exchange in winemaking and viticulture from Europe and Australasia means India is likely to challenge the supremacy of traditional winemaking countries.

Local demand (the market for wine in India has been growing at over 25% per year) and aggressive promotion from the state government means more and more ambitious Indians are turning to fine wine as a mark of social standing.

Berrys believes, if the increasing number of vineyards planted in parts of western and southern India are any indication, India will soon be taken seriously as a fine wine-growing nation.

Alun Griffiths MW predicts: “India has the potential to embrace wine in a big way and the economic muscle to dictate to producers what style of wine they should be making.”

We are in the middle of the 2006 Burgundy Campaign at the moment but I have not lost sight of Pinot Noir from elsewhere. Decanter Magazine commissioned me to write a piece on the best locations in the New World for Pinot – just published in their February 2008 issue, and I thoroughly enjoyed writing it.

Though New Zealand, Oregon and parts of California are most people’s favourite corners my real conclusion is that it is down in part to the real detail of specific sub-regions and most especially to the drive of ultra-talented vignerons with a passion for this grape.

Just what can be achieved was driven home to me last Tuesday at a Paulée lunch with lots of Burgundian friends when a whole host of fine bottles were brought along by the various guests. I brought amongst other things a bottle of Jim Clendenen’s Au Bon Climat Cuvée Isabelle 1996, made from grapes from various vineyards in the Santa Ynez, Santa Maria and Arroyo Grande Valleys of California’s Central Coast. Another guest, by chance, brought the 1997 of the same.

Sitting next to me was Marie-Blanche Lamarche (2nd from right) of Domaine François Lamarche in Vosne Romanée, and she had never tasted a Californian Pinot which had impressed her before but on this occasion, unsolicited, she was full of praise for the two Cuvée Isabelle wines which she felt she would certainly have placed in Burgundy if they had been served blind. Intriguingly the vintages conformed more or less to the Burgundian pattern, with a soft ripe and flavoursome 1997 and a more concentrated, fresher 1996.

Many people appreciate the qualities of the best New World Pinots, but how many wines have been, or might be mistaken for Burgundy? I am not trying to push producers down this path but am intrigued when it happens. Please share your thoughts and experiences.

Following up on my irrigation report last spring, it continues to be a perilous state of affairs in Australia with an ongoing seven-year old drought, evaporating irrigation quotas, rising salinity levels and the devastating October 2006 frost affecting both the 2007 and 2008 harvests.

The Riverland (50% of SA production, which in turn is 50% of total Australian production) was down 30% for the 2007 harvest and is under real threat if the Murray River Basin continues to be tapped by Victorian cotton & rice farmers; then by the wine growing regions in the state.

Berrys’ Buyer, David Berry Green notes: “Prices are set to rise unless the corporates follow Lindeman’s lead & buy fruit from across the globe (for the domestic market initially) rather than face paying top dollar for the sake of provenance.”

He adds: “The whole balance of power has suddenly shifted from corporates back to the growers, who incidentally have actually made some quite interesting wines as a result of such low yields (40 hl/ha vs a norm of 60-80).”

Perhaps Australian terroir will finally have its day, but are wine consumers ready to accept Australian regionality?