For many people in the UK getting into wine in the 1990s Australia was new and vibrant. The ‘sunshine in a glass’ mantra, coupled with labels in English, often with cute animals on them, helped sell a lifestyle-liquid and establish the country as a source of reliable, easy-to-drink wines. The geography was not relevant to people in far-flung export markets, despite the fact that Australia comfortably covers a greater land mass than Europe. Tasmania was devils and Boags beer and if there was any wine, it didn’t escape – any more than the Tasmanian tiger escaped its fate at the hands of the colonisers.
Principally, two places captured the imagination: Coonawarra and the Barossa Valley. The former probably because of its photogenic, ghost-like railway station and white-training shoe-ruining red soil, named – for no entirely obvious reason – in Ferrari-like Italian: Terra Rossa. The Barossa Valley’s export fame in no small part was because of Barossa Valley Estates, the large company who were responsible for many of the value wines imported by Oddbins, before the supermarkets Jacob’s Creekified everything.
The Barossa was the home of Shiraz, but also Cabernet, Chardonnay, Riesling, Semillon and so much more. Bit by bit, Coonawarra became known for its distinctively After Eight scented Cabernet Sauvignon. The blockbuster rich Barossa Shiraz wines, many from the oldest vines in the country, similarly came to define its region of origin.
McLaren Vale, however, had something of an over-diversity image issue. The biggest producer going south from Adelaide was Penfold’s
