One of my favorite wine writers, Andrew Jefford, is halfway through a year as the wine-writer-in-residence at the University of Adelaide, while he researches a book about Australian terroir. On November 10, he delivered a speech—“Falling in Love Again: Australian Wine and the International Press” at the National Wine Centre in Adelaide.
The speech is quite meaty and thought provoking, with the first part, about wine writing, mixing together allusions to ancient Greek literature and an overall review of why people appreciate wine and the value of good wine writing. He laments the fact that, unlike in the theater, or in cinema, or in literature, or in art, or in music, which all have their share of critics, there are no good wine critics.
“Most wine writers spend the majority of their time distinguishing between the good and the excellent via adjectival enthusiasm and often minutely nuanced differences in uniformly high scores,” he says. “They all know that the truly bad exists, but comprehensive demolition jobs on bad wines or bad ranges of wines is rare. Individual wine writers ignore them; magazine tasting write-ups simply list them as also-rans. It’s death by polite hush.”
He goes on to say that “…this reluctance to criticize among wine writers is a failing. Honest, well-argued criticism is useful if uncomfortable for those producing wines which are less good than they might be. Without criticism, though, improvements will be slow in coming, mistakes will be perpetuated for vintage after vintage, and success may elude the ambitious.”
From my own, limited wine writing I know that it is difficult to criticize a wine that may not be to your taste or that seems to suffer from some inherent fault. Unlike a book, or film, or some other art form, wine is a living thing, which can change from bottle to bottle and over time. And taste, in wine, like everything, is certainly subjective. When I visit a winemaker, I am hesitant to repay someone giving so generously of his or her time with a critical wine review. But I agree with him that readers are owed an honest assessment of the winemaker, the winemaking, and the wine, and that an honest winemaker should appreciate fair criticism.
Much future wine writing, he says, will happen on the Internet (which, to those of using this communication medium, is encouraging), and he predicts that the best writing will be available through paid subscriptions, while the majority will remain free “from enthusiastic and sometimes talented amateurs” (gulp…does that mean that I’ll never have an answer for my wife when she asks: “Just when will this blogging thing begin to pay off?”)
He pulls even less punches in his tough assessment of Australian wine. The litany of problems he cites includes the maturation of the Australian wine market (“Australian wine is no longer novel”); overproduction, drought and high costs; the strong Australian dollar; and the fact, he says, that Australian wine is no longer fashionable. At this point, there must have been a lot of wiggling going on in the seats at the National Wine Centre in Adelaide.
But he was just getting warmed up, citing a number of international journalists who provided him with often-negative opinions about Australia being “increasingly synonymous with cheap wine,” that the advertising was “stale and very corporate, “ and that high-priced Australian wine was “heavy, alcoholic and oaky.”
Much of Australia’s export success, he suggests, is due “to the creation of something called Brand Australia.” The problem, he then adds, is that “Brand Australia is faceless and formless.” It’s true, he says, that “French wine producers are often criticized for failing to create a Brand France, and instead dissipate their efforts with an excessive focus on regional individuality.” He then adds that “France needs to be more Australian, [and] Australia needs to be more French.”
“Misjudged acid addition,” he says, is the major fault of Australian wine. He feels that “there are too many wines whose hard, soulless finishes speak of a winemaker who knows how to make wine, but doesn’t know when to stop.”
He also criticized the current trend among some Australian wine producers to harvest their grapes earlier in order to reduce alcohol levels. “Harvesting under-ripe fruit robs the wine of potential personality, articulacy and sensual appeal, just as harvesting over-ripe fruit will rob it of inner life, sap and vitality.”
There’s a tremendous amount of other good information in this speech, and it’s a pleasure to read. One of the comments that follow the speech text has a link to an audio recording of it. If you have the time, it would be worth listening to it, as well.
