A Visitor from the Australia Wine Region Article

It is interesting how Blogs evolve. One of the books that got me started on our Amicis Tour blog was Taber’s ‘In Search of Bacchus, Wonderful Adventures in the World of Wine Tourism.’ It’s a great book following his year long journey around the world to twelve of the most interesting wine destinations. Not surprisingly he started with Napa, not only is it the most popular, but it also so easy to get to.

Not long after though he visits the Margaret River district about four hours south of Perth, Australia. I found that especially interesting in part because the area first became popular as a surfing destination, a sport I happen to love. Then the first wineries were all started by Physicians, and of course in my alter ego I’m ‘Dr’ Ralph, a Naturopathic Physician, so I understand that love of art and science that often lead Doc’s into the wine world. And of course I love all things Australian, even though I’ve yet to make it there. But the day is young.

So what is this all have to do with ‘now’? Yesterday I did a wine tour for one of the original winery owners from the Margaret River, Elizabeth Killerby, as she put it, “the fourth in at Margaret River”, thirty years ago. Like the others her husband was a Physician from Perth, and my impression is that even more than here, everybody knows everybody. She is in the states visiting with friends on the way to Whistler to spend the holidays with family, so it was just her and me driving around wine country, visiting tasting rooms and talking about the wine business.

This really is an international business, with many of the same players on the various continents. Anyone who follows the business knows the difficulties that the Aussies wine makers are having. There was a point last year where bottled water was more expensive than their jug wines. The high end makers are even more put upon, high labor costs make it very hard to compete with the infusion of other southern hemisphere wines with much lower costs. The strong tradition of the labor union in the Commonwealth spurred the use of picking machines years ago until now they are the norm.

Tightening immigration and financial regulations made Australia unattractive to their most dependable vineyard workers, the Italians, because of their preference to be paid off the books, aka tax free. Margaret River produces many of Australia’s most prestigious wines, the Bordeaux style blends. These are always the most revered because they age well, and improve over time. They are also the most expensive to produce because the long term investment and slow return on investment makes any CFO wonder, ‘Why are we in this business?’

What impresses me the most is when people make a choice and then point their lives in that direction. With vineyards and wineries that choice often is multi-generational and touches an entire community of people. Many times I pull into wineries with clients and I think the tasting room must be pretty busy, only to find out that the cars are from the workers, it takes a lot of people to run a winery and when that’s over thirty years just think of how many people that touches. To meet and talk with someone who was there at the beginning of a major wine region was a great Christmas present.