Australia has produced some very popular wines over the years and has a climate conducive to producing bottles considered some of the best in the world. Other surrounding countries such as New Zealand and Fiji are now getting in on the act however and are growing their stakes in the market by experimenting with innovative wine production.
In the news recently was the high-profile contentious issue of wine producers being able to mix together red and white wine, and call the end product rosé. The traditional method of producing rosé wine involved taking the red grape skins out of the juice mixture early on in the process so that only a little of the colour ends up in the final product.
However, this method has been somewhat ‘adapted’ by some producers who are feeling the pinch in the recession and many are simply adding a small amount of red wine to white and calling it rosé.
Countries such as France, widely considered the finest wine producing country in the world, were not best pleased with this “mutilation” of rosé wine and did not wine glasses or decanters in pubs. However, some countries, including those surrounding Australia have allowed the wine to be produced, and it is certainly paving dividends for their wine producers. A spokesman from the New Zealand alcohol authority defended his country’s move by stating that people are free to consume whichever wine they wish. They never market their blended rosé as wine made in the traditional way and the difference in pricing makes it quite obvious this is a different product entirely. The spokesman argued that if people can make milk chocolate in a thousand different ways, why can the same not be done for rosé?
The blending together of some of the most popular wine varieties is another practice that is really taking off in Australasian countries. In Fiji for example you can buy Sauvignon Blanc mixed with Chardonnay and Merlot blended with Cabernet Sauvignon. Mirroring the laid back approach of New Zealand, the Fijian wine makers suggest that wine is able to be blended just as easily and with the same success rate as whisky. They state that companies all over the world, and in particular Scotland, produce some very fine blended whiskies that not only often taste superior to single malts, but that are also able to sell at more modest prices. Next they will be telling us which tableware we must use when consuming the wine, stated one official.
It is clear that the Fiji natives like this blended wine, with over 100,000 bottles of the stuff consumed last year. When compared to the wine consumption of some of the top bottles in the world, this figure is relatively low, but considering that the population of Fiji is not much more than 750,000, you can see just how successful this wine really is. Fiji plan to sell their blended wine all over the world and seeing as the product is cheap to produce and sells for less than most classic wines, it is likely the export will do well.
Tags: new wine, wine, wine glasses, wine regions
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