Our first monthly episode of wine news! Hear about key stories in the world of wine and join us on a deep dive about the oversupply in Riverland, and what the government could do about it.
Headlines:
3.08 - Wine exports
10.40 - Penfolds releases new Champagne
15.00 - Vintage update
Deep Dive:
18.50 - Why there's grape growers protesting in Riverland
Follow us on instagram @winewithmegandmel
Our first monthly episode of wine news! Hear about key stories in the world of wine and join us on a deep dive about the oversupply in Riverland, and what the government could do about it.
Headlines:
3.08 - Wine exports
10.40 - Penfolds releases new Champagne
15.00 - Vintage update
Deep Dive:
18.50 - Why there's grape growers protesting in Riverland
Follow us on instagram @winewithmegandmel
Hi, I'm welcomed. Oh, we haven't even tested. Let's test. Okay, mine sounded good. Go Hugo.
Speaker 2:Mine sounded good. Are we going to have little baby girl girls in the background? That's pretty cute.
Speaker 1:Hi and welcome to One With Megan Mell. We are here to help you navigate the world of wine. I'm Megan Chris from my master of wine, meg Brotman, and we are back for 2024, 2024, new baby.
Speaker 2:So we're just discussing whether or not we're going to hear little Billie gurgling away in the background. If you do, it just shows that we're authentic and this is a woman, a mother, who can do anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she is four weeks old at the moment, I know right.
Speaker 2:And two weeks ago you decided yes, we can do this. Yeah, and Tom's like okay, and I'm like whatever I did text you the other day saying you're still good for it because we can postpone it, but you're looking very shiny and bright and actually well-slept.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, she's sleeping pretty well and I just like it feels nice to still kind of like use your brain a little bit and not just be, I think you're a natural. Mel.
Speaker 2:You're a natural mum. Well done. She's beautiful everyone. She's a little blondie with big blue eyes.
Speaker 1:She is, we love it, and I have had people asking what my first drink was, and it was, of course, billie Cart. Champagne for Billie, for Billie.
Speaker 2:Yes, so there's Billie Button, there's Billie Cart. Yes, there's more. Oh, billie.
Speaker 1:Button, of course. Oh, my gosh Little button. So much Billie-related wine and thank you to everyone who messaged, and everyone's been missing us, meg. The Instagram has had a lot of messages, people saying that they don't know what to do with their Fridays. Oh sorry.
Speaker 2:So what have I been listening to? Oh, Pods over the UK. Oh, you love that you are such a political person. That's my Friday morning now.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what the fact that you're into your politics and everything. It's a good segue because we are changing up the pod a little bit this year, one in every three episodes, so once a month we are going to do a news episode because we've realised that there's a lot of people listening that actually really care about news and affairs going on around the wine industry, and it doesn't need as much tasting or anything. But we just thought we'd cover some headlines and then go into a deep dive as something that you might have heard floating around but didn't really understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you know, for people who are involved in the trade or are working or studying wine in the trade, it is a whole trade. It's not just about tasting or wine. People think that we, as a job, we just taste all day. That is a large part of what we do, but that's not the only part of what we do, and being across the industry and knowing the industry that you're working in or might want to work in it really helps.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. So, look, this is the first time we're trying it out. It could be a complete disaster. We've got a rough guide of what we're going to do today, but I'm sure it's going to be perfected over the year. If you have any feedback or any tips, anything you want to talk about, make sure you get in touch. We'll be doing it once a month, but let's kick off Meg. So the first thing that we're going to chat about is global wine exports. So they've actually declined by 2%. So this is Australia's exports in the last year. So it sounds bad, but it's actually an improvement on the UB4. So what's going on there? Well, if you think, about it.
Speaker 2:We went from, I think, almost a $2 billion export industry when we were exporting to China to under $1 billion. I think it bottomed out at $870 million. That's huge, so that's huge. That's the GDP of a small nation yeah, just in wine. And that obviously impacts on people's jobs and abilities for regions to survive. But what's been happening? This increase in exports? If you deep dive into it, the number of exports that go to Hong Kong have vastly increased, I think by 600% or something. How does that even make sense? What's happening is we're getting ready for China to open up. So people are sending their wine to Hong Kong. So when the mainland opens up, they are there. They don't have to have that huge shipment, because imagine how many ships, if we do open, will be descending on.
Speaker 2:China. But what do you mean? Open up?
Speaker 1:Because isn't the FDA still not opening up? It's still not FDA, but we've been told that we the tariffs, the tariffs that's it Like. How are we sending it If?
Speaker 2:it's. You can send it into Hong Kong, yeah, and there has, I'll be honest, there has been a lot of grey trade. So grey trade is basically illegal trade. So it gets shipped to one nation and then it gets shipped into, often illegally. They've picked up a lot of illegal imports going into China fromof grains and high-end wines that someone's obviously sending across and then trying to get across. Singapore and Hong Kong have been the two main depots for the grey trade to launch from into mainland China. Yeah, because you can get it in other ways and through shipping, obviously. So I find that interesting.
Speaker 2:But the other thing that we've done and is we've I hate the word pivot, but we've moved towards other export markets. So Korea's really booming. Yeah, we've finally revisiting Japan. We dumped Wine Australia, our marketing body, dumped Japan when China started growing. Japan was a big market for us in the 90s and I remember being in Japan in maybe 2019 before the tariffs came in, and them saying to me we just feel lost. We don't have any representative from Wine Australia here. They used to have an office there. Yeah, no one comes here anymore. We just feel really lost, and this was at a time where the natural wine movement was particularly growing in Japan.
Speaker 2:They're quite progressive there, aren't they? Yeah, it's small. It's never going to be a China, yes, it's never going to be a UK or US.
Speaker 1:It's a small importer, but in terms of volume, you mean it's small, yeah, in terms of volume, but in terms of wine education and confidence and quality.
Speaker 2:It's great, yeah, so we now have a Wine Australia person in Korea and Japan. Yeah, thank God. So we are seeing more exports to those two countries. Vietnam's a really interesting one because they've had very high taxes and they've agreed to slowly drop them. Thailand's doing the same because the Thai government want more tourists to come to Thailand. Hmm, and they believe that high wine prices is a detriment to tourists going out for dinner. It is so you're paying, you pay so much, so you pay. Retail here $10 a bottle of wine. You may pay 30, 35 for that, in a restaurant maybe 40 bucks. You're paying $120 Australian dollars in Thailand.
Speaker 2:When we were in Thailand last year, I drank beer and cocktails. I did not have a single glass of wine. Same with Vietnam. When we were in Vietnam we had one bottle of wine and it was some French longer dock thing, big cooperative wine. That was sort of three euros a bottle. I think we paid 80 US dollars for it. Yeah, and it wasn't even that nice, better off drinking beer. So there's been movement with other countries for our exports. The US is a little bit stagnant. Australia's on the nose a little bit in the US because of what they termed the critter wines. So I don't want to point the fingers at anyone in particular, but very jammy, quite sweet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look, think of the word critter wines and it might give away.
Speaker 2:So we're trying and one Australia, our body, is trying to reposition ourselves. Stop with brand Australia, which is a bloody stupid idea anyway, but don't start me on that Trying to reposition ourselves as more of a premium producer, and that's great for the smaller regions.
Speaker 1:And that's going to take time.
Speaker 2:That's not an easy thing to do, so yeah, if it's done well, it will take time. Yeah, in the UK is down. They're drinking less, they're drinking lower end. I don't know if you've seen cost to living stuff. Cost to living, cosy living as they say.
Speaker 1:Cosy lives.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know if you've seen in the supermarket in the UK now they have locks on the fridges that have the champagne in them. Wow, whereas it used to be. You just speak like a dad. She would go to a refrigerator section they've actually put doors and locks on them.
Speaker 1:Oh no, that's crazy. Yeah, because theft.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, and it's huge. They've noticed a huge increase. So that's sort of where we are sitting with our exports at the moment.
Speaker 1:Things looking up like this 2% decline, do you think it's going to improve?
Speaker 2:Slow, slow, and it should be slow. We need to. You know, china was opportunistic. Yes, we just threw anything at. It Went too hard. And we need to educate. Yeah, grow the markets, bring the people out, show them what Australia's like. We're lucky. We have a very green image. Yeah, people believe that we make clean, green wines, a bit like New Zealand. So we have that sort of image, but we have.
Speaker 2:We are behind the eight ball in terms of exports, but even France and Italy's exports are down. You know, france's exports into China have really dropped. There's just people are drinking less, and it is this massive elephant in the room that we are just kind of ignoring. Yeah, at the moment. Yes, yeah, what do we do? I was reading an article the other day saying these flavoured wines. I don't know if you've seen them. So brown brothers are doing a white chocolate and raspberry ripple.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, mascato, is that the one with Messina? It's like a brandy. Yeah, it's a cola.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's Messina, fancy ice cream.
Speaker 1:Yeah, bloody brilliant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not wine. It's a gateway drink. Yeah, but you're always on to me about you, know it's a beverage.
Speaker 1:It's not wine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's true. Certainly. My son Elliot thinks it's pretty bloody delicious Really, is he?
Speaker 1:into it. That's funny, he's into it. So I haven't tasted it. Have you tasted it? No, oh, no, I have. Actually, we need to get it off. I have tasted it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's. It's a pleasant drink. It's very sweet. I feel like Moscato kind of tastes like ice cream. Anyway, that's the thing. I don't know that I noticed all the chocolate, white chocolate, ripple, raspberry stuff. But why not? Yeah, why not make it if it brings in another segment of market that we hadn't previously had? So there's a lot going on in the industry at the moment.
Speaker 1:Well, speaking of bringing in new consumers and doing stuff that we didn't have before, this is a really interesting one that Penfolds has another champagne now. So Penfolds, an iconically Australian company, came out a few years ago with a few fancier high-end type champagnes that were a collab with a champagne producer, but now they've come out with one that's a way more entry-level price, which is like a nice $80. What do you think is going on there? Why did Penfolds need champagne?
Speaker 2:Penfolds as a brand is going back to being a premium luxury brand they are. Their marketing spend is all about luxury now. So when we think of Penfolds, we often think of the cheaper end of the wines as well, which is part of. Yeah, true, they have those like don't they Rawson's Run and all those Is that branded Penfolds.
Speaker 1:Well, it started out as the Penfolds stable.
Speaker 2:It became Treasury Wine Estates. And it was rebranded as a separate wine, but certainly a certain demographic would still think of that as being a Penfold wine.
Speaker 1:You can still get like a $20 Penfolds, can't you Like a bin, something like that? Yeah, well, there's so many of them I can never remember them, but so they are repositioning themselves as absolute luxury brands.
Speaker 2:They tried to buy a winery in was it Okanagan or somewhere? It was random, very, but the price was too high apparently. They didn't end up doing it, so they're doing a change. The only place that we're seeing real growth but small, but growth nonetheless, we'll take 2% is premium. Yeah, now when you talk to a big company like Treasury Wine Estates, premium is over $15.
Speaker 2:Yes yes, it is. It is around that $25 to $45 mark. We're seeing growth. Certainly, korea is really interested in that area, japan is really interested in that area, so, but it's tiny.
Speaker 1:But like what do you think? Does it, does it seem fitting to you or does it seem wrong that an Australian producer has a champagne?
Speaker 2:Well, they have a Californian wine, yeah they did something? Bordeaux as well, didn't they? Yeah, they got Bordeaux. Then they were importing into China. When the tariffs went up, they were doing a Californian with 6%. Do you remember this wine? It had 6%, kunawarikabana or something like that, so they shipped the wine to California because they couldn't ship it from Australia, Then it was mainly grapes and then it was sent to very clever agile. But they're a global brand.
Speaker 2:It's like saying it's. They're becoming a Perno Ricca, I guess, global brand and they're taking on a champagne. But it's not branded as Penfolds. It's actually called.
Speaker 1:It says it has Penfolds cross. What is it? Champagne Fino? Yeah, I couldn't. How do you pronounce that? T-i-n-o-t-i-e-n, T-H-I-E-N-O-T?
Speaker 2:T-H-I-E-N-O-T.
Speaker 1:We all know that you can not, notoriously can, speak French, but without a good accent. Yeah, exactly, so we were to ask you Theanot, theanot, theanot, yep, theanot, champagne Fino.
Speaker 2:If you can't pronounce it, you won't be able to buy it. Yeah, this is not good to start.
Speaker 1:We'll have to have a taste and see what it's like. I find it really interesting that something that's positioned itself as iconically Australian is branching out with other internationals like it seems to kind of go against itself. But it must be working for them to have brought out a new one.
Speaker 2:I think it is because their share price has been sort of in the Googler yeah it's not been great and I think I saw on the announcement of that it rose by 12 percent.
Speaker 2:The share price rose on that on the day of that announcement. So I think it's a good move to penfold because it is an iconic Australian brand and if they just focus on luxury items, I think it's great. Some of the marketing stuff, like the rocket ship container thing that they were doing for some wine, I'm less concerned about. I think they've drug the Kool-Aid on some of it. But yeah, why not? You know one, why don't we what we do with Grange? Certainly it's up there with any first class Bodo crew. Yeah, yeah, should it be a French wine? Would it have been better with an Australian sparkling wine? Of course, yeah, but they know their market, they're not stupid.
Speaker 1:No very true, all right. Well, the last headline that we've got for today is a vintage update. So look, we're early in the year, we're still in February, but we must know something about how it's going. How's it going, meg? Oh, no what.
Speaker 2:It's. I've been asking everyone all around Australia and for the most part, with the exception of WA and some parts of South Australia, yeah, challenging has been the term. Ok, Not necessarily at this end. It's been a very challenging growing season. So we had La Nina that we were told by everyone that was going to be gone by October.
Speaker 2:We're going to have a hot dry summer, everyone pruned to that managed their vineyard to that. Obviously, there's no need for irrigation at the moment and we've left a lot of crop on in some places because there's been a number of regions that have had fairly low vintage is the last few years.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's interesting. And now there's been low vintages in the last few years, so people are leaving more crop on this year this year. But that good impact quality in itself.
Speaker 2:Well it could, but I think this warm burst of weather that we've had the last couple of weeks along the eastern seaboard and even in South Australia and WA has we've dodged a bullet. It could have all gone to his blurt, but the quality from what everyone says is great. I think the hunter is saying it's going to be the biggest year on record, which is not what Australia needs. We don't need no biggest year on record, we need a return to normal. Yes, so it's. It's looking good. In the era it's looking good.
Speaker 2:People were a bit worried about ripeness, but these we've just had two, three days of 30 over 30 degrees Celsius. That's certainly brought it in. Yeah, people have had to start picking. It was an early year. Yeah, we have a guy at work called Raf Michael who was saying it's going to be two weeks early. Two weeks early. Everyone else I was talking to was going. I doesn't know what he's talking about. Raf is the vine whisperer. He was completely right. So it's two weeks early. It's a little bit earlier, but I think it's actually going to be a good year. Next week's lovely Sort of 25 to 28 every day. Who picks off?
Speaker 1:first in Australia. Hunter Hunter Around. What now? December?
Speaker 2:Hunter are picking in December. So this has been the discussion. What do they call that wine is a vintage.
Speaker 1:How are they so early?
Speaker 2:So, with climate change one of the effects?
Speaker 1:of climate change is.
Speaker 2:It brings vintage, is earlier and it compresses it, so great varieties are ripening at similar periods, whereas they used to be very much. You know it'd be in the hundred be semi on Chardonnay Chiraz.
Speaker 1:Things are getting more compressed.
Speaker 2:I think the earliest I heard of in the hunter was New Year's Day, but I'm not sure if anyone actually went in December this year, because we did have a cooler year so maybe they didn't. But the hunters usually the first to kick off.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 2:Tassie wouldn't have started. I think there's some Tassie sparkling base that's come through. Yeah, I was talking to your wine maker, leah oh yeah, leah, yeah, and she'd had some stuff, I think, out of Tassie, or it was coming that week, and Yarra Valley certainly, and it brosses certainly, and at South Australia certainly. You know we're, we're in the thick of things. The next few weeks, next two weeks, will be the real boom time, cool, and then it'll all start to tail off.
Speaker 1:OK, so challenging, but not too bad so far. I think it's going to be a good year. There's cities are really certainly locally Yarra Valley cities are really fresh, as we got told it would be, so it's looking OK.
Speaker 2:And the flavours are nice and yeah, I think it'll be good, All right.
Speaker 1:Well, that's vintage and we'll do another update on that next month and we'll have a bit more to say. But now into our bigger topic, where we'll go in a bit deeper this month. It is about the riverland and oversupply and what is going on there, Mac.
Speaker 2:So Australia is in a really bad state of oversupply of wine and, as a result, grapes. So at the moment in tanks there is 2.47 years worth of wine. If China returned tomorrow at their original consumption rates, wow, china's consumption has been decreasing since 2018. Another elephant in the room that everyone's kind of ignoring, most of that because we took to China. Well, it goes back to the 1990s.
Speaker 2:Actually, in the 1990s, in 1996, wine Australia and Australian grape and wine came out with the brilliant 2025 vision. We were going to plant all this vineyard to be reached by 2025. I think that vineyard area was reached in 2010. Because the government had given rich dudes, lawyers plant a vineyard, you become a primary producer. Big tax reductions run at a loss for a few years, more tax reductions, so everyone was throwing money. So we reached what we needed by 2025. Mind you, consumption is not growing, we're just continuing to grow it. Yeah, 15 years prior to when we were due to get there, then we had China, so it wasn't such a problem. China was absorbing a huge amount of wine, millions and millions and millions of litres.
Speaker 1:Wasn't there thoughts that they might be stockpiling it?
Speaker 2:Well, it's so tricky. The other thing that was tied into that is the way the visa system worked for Chinese immigrants pre-COVID was that if you spent a certain amount of money in the country, you got your permanent residency. So people were buying up wine and then they were sending it to China because you had to do something with it. They had no market for it, but they'd done their job as far as visa requirements were required. So we would have immigration officers ringing us saying oh can I send blah blah, blah, blah blah around. It was big business.
Speaker 2:I actually once gave a education to Chinese immigrants who wanted their PR, their permanent residency, and they just wanted to buy wine. And there were 40 people in the room and this was at a Boxhill Immigration Business Office in Boxhill she is okay. So we were. A lot of it was being absorbed and being sent to China. A lot of it was going under brands that had never existed, ben Folds probably being the most famous, but a lot, a lot, a lot of Australian wine thrown into Chinese brands. So no real skin in the game and no marketing presence. China's retail distribution system is completely different to ours. We would normally have an importer than a distributor and then the retailer and the customer. They just kind of have an importer and then they'll sell to their mates who they might sell to their mates who might sell to a wine shop.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't regulated, but anyway. So the Riverland, not just the Riverland, the big inland irrigation areas were churning out lovely, soft, fruity, beautiful red wine. White wine was less successful, planting more red wine. China was taking it all. Fantastic, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then the next thing that came to mind was the Chinese Come the tariffs.
Speaker 2:Maybe explain the tariffs because most people probably know, but it's worth going back into. So, as a response to Scott Morrison's ever diplomatic call for an investigation into the Wuhan lab that released COVID, the Chinese with reason, I think the Chinese got a bit upset and slapped a 218 percent tariff on Australian wine. It wasn't just Australian wine, it was barley coal, I think for a while, lobster things that weren't really necessary, and it didn't happen on steel lamb, certain meat from certain abattoirs. So it hit a number of industries. That effectively stopped the trade, because if you a two hundred and eighty percent increase in your cost of wine takes you out of the market.
Speaker 2:Australia was mid priced in China, so we had the tariffs. Things stopped overnight. We still saw a little bit of movement because people had stockpiled wine in China, so that was sort of ticking through. But companies that existed solely to export to China Done. There's no where to go. And where they were taking the fruit from was these warm irrigated areas and large companies Accolade, treasury, wine Estate, australian Vintage, puna, riccardo, lester, degre. We're buying up these grapes and selling the wine into China, being the main market, but there's a tonne where it costs them three hundred dollars a tonne. So that's opportunistic?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. They want the government to step in, like what's happening in Europe, because this isn't just. There's an oversupply issue globally. And so in France you may have seen, there's been demonstrations. They've been setting things on fire because they want money to grub up their vines. So the French government have actually agreed to pay them money to pull their vines out and they're going to plant to almonds and things.
Speaker 1:So I knew that France had done like a vine pull thing, but I didn't realise that they protested to get it.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, there's been arson, what. And the other day a winery in Spain because they're protesting about cheap Spanish wine coming into France I think this was yesterday to 65 million euros worth of wine was. It was 65,000 litres, 215 million euros, and I'm thinking what was the price per litre, because that seems a lot, but anyway it was. 65,000 litres of premium quality wine was drained out of tanks. Oh my God. Yeah, an office was broken into, someone was assaulted. They took Spanish wine when it came over the border and up into the truck smashed all the bottles of wine. So it is global.
Speaker 2:We in Australia are less protesty. Yeah, the French, they love a strike. Yeah, they do. If you go anywhere in France in December because that's Christmas time and trucks have to be delivering stuff, there's always a strike Petrol strike usually start and then it leads on from there. We haven't been doing that. There's a woman in the Riverland now Dilma, I think her first name is who's actually getting it together a petition to take to the government to ask them to pay the growers $300 a tonne just to cover their costs.
Speaker 2:Now in Europe, great growing is subsidised. We don't do that here. We do subsidise a lot of other industries, but not great growing, and I think, in this time of crisis, with a cost of living crisis, that it would be great if the government did do something like that. Or and this is very contentious and political and I'll probably piss off a few people there is a code of conduct that is supposed to be signed between great, great growers and buyers the it is completely voluntary saying that we will pay an honest farmgate price. Blah, blah, blah, blah. The big boys haven't signed it, so they're just taking advantage of the position the growers are in.
Speaker 1:And look it's like. It feels like everyone's in cost of living. That's a fair that all industries are struggling, but wine is in, and particularly this area is in a worse situation because of something that is a government issue. It's it's not our own fault.
Speaker 2:Well, the government backed all this stupid planting. If they hadn't have given all these yeah, these incentives, my father, bloody, did it. He didn't go into grapes but he went into horses. Good way to lose money. Yeah, because he was making a lot of money out of the fashion industry. I'm going to lose it on the farm.
Speaker 1:And like, and the Chinese thing, the fact that they've stopped taking where most of this stuff was going.
Speaker 2:That's not the fault of the industry? No, and China? Well, that's right. Another political thing, thanks.
Speaker 1:Grimo.
Speaker 2:And but. There are deep, inherent structural issues within the industry. But even if China returns to the current consumption, we've still got two years worth of stock. That's not getting any younger, it's not getting any better. And we're harvesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so surely the stock is is getting like we know why in it In.
Speaker 2:France they get paid to distill it. Can we not get some sort of subsidy to potentially distill the stuff that's really past its best and that can go into fuel? Yeah, you know there are Outlets.
Speaker 1:I'm guessing it's not super premium stuff, that's in banks?
Speaker 2:No, and at this stage those people would probably take seven cents a litre. I mean, we heard that there was an bulk wine expo late last year that Australian wine was being offered for 20 cents a litre.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:That would be well below cost of production. It's just, it's heartbreaking and the thing that in this article about the petition in Renmark I think it was she said she was a hairdresser on the side, her husband was a great grower and she said I'm getting less clients. They're cutting their hair every three months now because they don't have money. The restaurants are closing down. Oh my God they would have these flow on the steps.
Speaker 2:The cinemas are not doing as well, so it is a whole community. So what? There's got to be something that we can do.
Speaker 1:And it's really a government thing right, like if people are listening and want to do something, like it's really like we can say buy Riverland wine branded stuff. That.
Speaker 2:Well, it's hard to find. Yeah, I mean we're going to do an episode next week on that, just so that we to show support. But you have to deep dive, so I did it online. So because Dan's gives where it's from and because on the label it just says Australia or South Australia, you don't really know where it's from. So I particularly want to next week have wine from Swan Hill and I want to do some Riverland wines, so you don't know where it's from.
Speaker 1:Cask wine seems to be.
Speaker 2:Berry, ren Mano, obviously from Ren Mano. They sell it. But these young I've just come back from judging young guns of wines and some of the people are buying some of that fruit. We need to reposition, visit them. We need to reposition them. We shouldn't. Why is Australia producing some of the cheapest wine in the world? Because our wage costs are so high. It makes no sense. So it's almost like we have to explode the entire industry, this bulk area of it, this volume area of it, and restart, re-imagine.
Speaker 2:The Riverland has been great Muscato country, a great Fianna country or San Giavesi or, but smaller volumes, but these guys don't have the money to replant. You know, and this isn't the first time that the larger companies have stopped buying grapes, and it's not their fault, that you can't say, or you bankrupt yourselves to help the dudes up in the river. Totally, yeah, it's business, yeah, it's business. But there was incentives to plant vineyard. It's gone, horribly pear shaped. That was incentivised by the government, the Liberal government, just letting you know. Borderline 2, political, yeah, anyway, I think everyone knows where I stand. So help them out. Just, we've got a glitch. Fingers crossed, china could open up, we may, here in the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 1:We don't know.
Speaker 2:But it's still not going to absorb everything. We have to restructure the entire industry.
Speaker 1:Cool. So then, if people see definitely not cool, but cool as in now we're informed. So if people see these protests happening in the Riverland that's what it's about, and hopefully the government listens Go and visit.
Speaker 2:Go and visit. Go and visit. That's the best thing you can do. Go up there, griffith, griffith, ren Mano.
Speaker 1:Locks.
Speaker 2:Swann Hill, mildura, yeah, anywhere along the Murray River. Do a tour down the Murray River, yeah, and, you know, buy half a case of wine. They're cheap wines, there's some really premium wines as well.
Speaker 1:Good stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go to the local restaurants, get your haircut there.
Speaker 1:So we?
Speaker 2:That might be a bit dodgy, but get, Because you know I've just come for the hairdresser and you have a relationship with your hairdresser.
Speaker 1:This is true. I'm sure they have bus hairdressers off their backs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sure they do. Well, she sounded lovely.
Speaker 1:And she's supporting her husband, tom used to do like podiatry. He used to do a week like. He used to get flown somewhere rural to do a week of podiatry somewhere rural. Oh wow, and it was Griffith. So one week I just went with him for fun and I had no idea that Griffith is like little Italy. Yeah, it's fantastic. I like the first morning I just walked into the first like coffee shop Daly thing I saw and this man goes ciao Balla and I was like I love these plates.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great, and it is the food bowl of Australia.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I mean, the produce is phenomenal. The produce is amazing.
Speaker 2:So don't go to Noosa this year. Don't go to the Gold Coast. Get in your car, if you're on the East Coast, and drive to Griffith or Smiljura or Swamp, swan Hill or Rin Manu. I love that I've just packed, done a whole little trip that we're going to do post vintage. Yeah, yeah, I just really I feel for them. We can't blame the big companies, we can't blame the government. No, we have to find solutions rather than constantly focus on problems and the past. Yes, exactly, but one thing that they could potentially do which is I've actually bought a wine that was sent to us by Tempest too is, look at no one, low alcohol In mid-strength, because they can do volume. You don't want to have huge great prices. You want to have an honest great price, but you don't want a huge great price. It is a growth area, so why not? So I've bought a little Tempest too 6.8%, lightened up Pinot Noir for us to taste.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've never tasted a Pinot.
Speaker 2:Noir bit this late. They sent this to us.
Speaker 1:So this is our final drop for this week.
Speaker 2:This is just a final drop and just maybe this is a solution. I love it. I'm not saying it is, but it will help. And go out, people go out and buy this, yeah, because even if you think you're buying for the bigger companies, the flow one is to the grower yeah, that's the last stop. And then to the hairdresser. No one gets a haircut during vintage. Oh, that's quite fresh and cherry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what? I've never thought of Pinot Noir as a low like I've only had Shiraz and stuff, because in my head it's like the so much flavour there that if you take out a bit of flavour there's still a lot to compensate from what you've got. But it always makes sense to choose high and slow alcohol in the first place, so it's not too much of a movement from where you've come. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it ripens earlier, so it keeps the acidity. So you, can pick it with lower alcohol anyway, so you don't have to de-alcoholize as you're saying as much. This has got lots and lots of cherry fruit. It's still. You know, alcohol is there for a reason. It has a slightly cooked fruit profile on the mid-palate, but it's. I think this is going to be awful, do not take offence. Tempus 2. God, it's almost a seltzer-y thing from this. It's so fruity.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, yum, that would actually be nice in the fridge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think the fridge would knock back that bit of a hole in the mid-palate where alcohol sits because that's what chilling your wine does? It knocks back the alcohol, yeah, so this may then make it a little bit longer. Maybe that's where we need to go. So, gen Z, you are the guys who are drinking the no one lows.
Speaker 1:And look, it's still got flavour. I think the flavour might be a bit more simple than other men who are, but actually, well, I'll probably. I'll take the rest of that, yeah 6.8%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, how many standard drinks does that equate to in a bottle? Four, four in a bottle, yeah, so you and Tom could happily polish off that whole bottle tonight or whenever, and drive home.
Speaker 1:I have to wait an hour and a half after every drink to feed now. So this is half as much alcohol and she's a very she's a very hungry young lady. She's very hungry. She doesn't make it easy. I haven't really had much alcohol yet.
Speaker 2:But I'll. I'll pop it in the fridge before I leave. Yeah, good one. So it just says Penin Y 2022, south Australia. It will be from the inland region somewhere, yeah.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So that was our news episode for the week. Definitely let us know what you thought and, as I say, if you have any, anything that has come up in wine that you want us to explore, that you just weren't entirely sure and you want a bit more background or something, we'll do the research for you. That's it. Just let us know and we'll get into it. So back into normal episodes for the next few weeks. Next week, as Meg mentioned, we have Riverland, so we're going to taste some of these wines that we think buying them could actually do a little bit to help out the region. So we will see you then and until then, enjoy your next class wine, enjoy the girl what the, and I'll see you next time. Bye.