Wine Companion a great (big) stocking filler
Australian Wine Companion 2009 - James Halliday
Louise Johnson
James Halliday's Australian Wine Companion 2009 Edition [©James Halliday]
James Halliday’s Australian Wine Companion 2009 arrived today and as it came in the door my wine budget for the rest of the year exploded. It’s perfect timing for our mid-winter party and a great faux-Christmas stocking filler. It certainly fills a bigger stocking than I wear.
Somewhere in my family’s budget we will find more pennies to pay for the treasures I will find as I trawl through almost 800 pages of vineyard and wine reviews. This isn’t the first year this has happened and perhaps next year I will save for the occasion. It also isn’t the first year my “companion” has been too big to fit in my handbag for trips to the wine store – I will have to make lists.
At 768 pages Halliday informs us he has run out of pages, and there can’t be any more, so a further 822 wineries and reviews appear on his website – at cost to view – and likely more will appear online for future editions.
Of course I understand the critics-of-critics, James Halliday’s palate may be quite different to mine and I should learn to trust my own judgement. But, like the rest of us, I prefer an inside tip. A man who has tasted and reviewed 5778 wines to create this tome is more likely to hit the jackpot than I am. I know for a fact that after tasting more than five wines in a sitting all I have to offer is “walks like a duck ...”
So the Australian Wine Companion 2009 is on the shelves and retailers all over the country are stocking up and readying themselves for buyers armed with Halliday-inspired lists like mine.
This year’s edition features 169 new winery entries, which Halliday finds surprising given his gloomy forecast for the industry in this edition and the 2008 edition.
“For many reasons the short- to medium-term future of the industry continues to be clouded with uncertainties at all levels,” he writes.
“Well over two-thirds of the country’s production has traditionally come from the Big Rivers Zone of New South Wales, the North West Zone of Victoria, the Lower Murray Zone (Riverland) and the Langhorne Creek region of South Australia. The Murray Darling system … is in dire straits, with little or no chance of recovery in the short term. If and when moderate flows return, the pecking order of the past will be radically changed.”
If climate change and water shortages take their forecasted tolls on the wine industry Halliday also predicts the decline of Australia’s dominance in the US and UK markets and the emerging Asian markets as lower yields drive up quality and price. Oh dear.
The “despite-the-odds” growth has forced another big change this year with the introduction of Ben Edwards, head of the Australian Sommeliers Association, as co-taster. Halliday admits no man can sample all the wines (perhaps he is with me at the “duck” stage too) and so Edwards brings a fresh palate to the Companion. Has the emperor of Australian wine chosen his successor?
Enough gloom and handing of mantles - onto his selections. In these pages are more good bottles than you could or should drink in a lifetime, unless of course you are a taster and just taking the top off each bottle.
The winery of the year is Brookland Valley, in Margaret River, which Halliday says was chosen from a potential field of a dozen serious contenders (not listed). Brookland Valley pipped Bay of Fires, in Tasmania, at the final post. Brookland Valley has eight wines rated 94 points or greater and four of these retail under $20. Brookland Valley (and runner up Bay of Fires) are both part of the Constellation Wines group (ex-Hardy’s) which Halliday says “refutes the commonly held view that the big winery groups do not make great wine.”
Wines – well, there’s no short list, the red hot favourites in each varietal take 12 pages to list. We make good wine in Australia according to Halliday. I question always the 100 point rating system, especially when there seems to be few rated under the mid-80s (maybe they are online), but that’s a question for another day. There is a handy directory up-front listing the red hot favourites – these will be the ones to buy.
See you at the shops.
James Halliday Autralian Wine Companion 2009 is published by Hardie Grant Books. RRP $34.95. Paperback.
Subscribers to VisitVineyards.com and Winepros Archive can purchase the Australian Wine Companion at 12.5% discount via our book partners Seekbooks, who will post the books direct to you.
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