Australian wines are moving beyond their ripe and rich reputation

Open this photo in gallery:

For more wine advice and reviews, recipes, restaurant news and more, sign up to receive our Good Taste newsletter in your inbox every Wednesday.

Selected writers and sommeliers working in Britain and North America were recently sent a dozen different samples of cabernet sauvignon-based wines from the 2015 vintage. Seven were made by historic wineries from Australia, while the rest were selected from leading estates from other parts of the world famous for cabernet.

Billed as a global comparative tasting, the May 12 virtual masterclass was a benchmarking exercise used by Wine Australia to market the diversity and range of its wine styles, in this case cabernet sauvignon wines produced in Coonawarra, Eden Valley, Margaret River and Yarra Valley. The international selections were top notch, including the likes of Chateau Montelena from Napa, Château Pichon-Longueville Baron from Pauillac in Bordeaux, and Don Melchor from Chile’s Maipo Valley.

Cabernet sauvignon vines were among the collection of grape varieties imported to Australia by James Busby in 1832. It has become the country’s second most widely planted red grape variety, representing nearly 16 per cent of total plantings and resulting in a range of affordable plush and flavourful wines as well as some of the most age-worthy and collectable examples. As the recent tasting showed, prime examples of cabernet from Australia must be counted amongst the very best in the world.

Unfortunately, the mainstream impression of Australian wine is stuck in the ripe and concentrated camp inspired by the easy drinking and affordable legacy of the Yellowtail brand and the menagerie of copycat critter brands. Ripe and rich models of shiraz, cabernet and chardonnay are fixed in many consumers’ mindsets.

Based on the number of recommendations that say something to the effect of “This is not your typical Aussie shiraz…”, it would seem many writers and influencers have a correspondingly limited scope of knowledge. As Wine Australia’s head of education development Mark Davidson explains, consumers and the wine trade are used to seeing references to Napa cabernet or Willamette Valley pinot noir, which point to a region and a popular grape variety grown there. When someone refers to Australian shiraz, it’s not as meaningful. “There’s endless variety of regionally expressive shiraz coming from across the country,” Davidson says.

Canada has always been a solid market for Australian wine. Lindeman’s popular Bin 65 Chardonnay brand was originally made for the Canadian market and went on to become a global sensation. Wolf Blass Yellow Label cabernet sauvignon ranked as the country’s bestselling red wine for many, many years. More than a decade since the Australian wine boom went bust in North America and other key markets, Wine Australia and the industry have been looking to reconnect with wine lovers.

Consumers can only embrace what’s available on the shelves and wine lists, hence Wine Australia’s push to keep in front of wine buyers, sommeliers and media in the hopes of expanding the range of products. A recording of the cabernet tasting is hosted on Australian Wine Connect, an interactive platform designed to be a resource for Australia’s wine industry, which includes producers spread across 65 regions.

With travel restrictions in place for Australian citizens until the middle of 2022, the portal allows buyers from across the world to network and meet producers, learn about new wines as well as the people, places and processes that make Australian wine unique.

E-mail your wine and spirits questions to The Globe. Look for answers to select questions to appear in the Good Taste newsletter and on The Globe and Mail website.