FUTURE FAVOURITES

NOW is the “time to emerge” as the Australian wine industry is riding an exciting wave of great new wines being produced from emerging varieties. The definition of “emerging” varieties is at this stage in the adventure still somewhat subjective and flexible in its interpretation. I believe it should be defined as “varieties new to the country as well as long established varieties which only a small number of wineries produce” - wines that have not caught the wine drinker’s imagination/interest. An example is verdelho, which has been around since the earliest of times, but has still not yet emerged to become mainstream. On the other hand, the Spanish native variety tempranillo, which was only introduced to Australia recently, has so far nearly 400 out of our 2400 wineries producing it, and therefore in this context it is considered to have already emerged into the mainstream.

According to the vinous “bible,” , by Jancis Robinson et al there are 1168 grape varieties used to make wine around the world. In reality there are quite a few more than that,