Why does everyone like to drink Australian wine? Australian wine production is obviously small, accounting for 4% of the world (northern Australia is too hot to grow grapes). However, Australian wine is very powerful in China, and its market share actually ranks second, second only to French. Why is the share of Australian wine in China market so high? An Australian wine merchant friend who has been rolling in the wine sales industry for many years said this. First of all, Australian wines have a good global sales and a good reputation. Consumers trust the quality of Australian wines. Secondly, after China and Australia sign the FTA, China will reduce the tariff on Australian wines, so people think that the price of Australian wines has an advantage. Friends of wine merchants also said that Australian wine tastes rich and full, which is more suitable for China people's tastes. ?
What are the tastes of China people? This is actually difficult to say. Just like eating vegetables, northerners have northerners' tastes, southerners have southerners' preferences, and China people's dietary tastes have never been unified. Because wine has gradually entered daily life in recent years, people's understanding and acceptance of taste is not as detailed as traditional food, but there are still differences. For example, my friends who have just started drinking red wine like sweet, dry, fragrant and dry.
Is Australian wine really more cost-effective than other countries' wines because of the tariff reduction? ?
First of all, you need to know what the tariff is. All kinds of taxes on a bottle of imported wine add up to about 48%, but the tariff is only 14%, which is the real part of the reduction and exemption, while the China-Australia FTA stipulates "five-year phased reduction and exemption", which means that the reduction and exemption will not be completed until 20 19 years. Moreover, tariff reduction saves money for importers. Whether this 14% will be given to consumers depends on the importer's mood. ?
Let's look at another data-ex-factory price. Among the top ten countries exporting wine to China, the average ex-factory price of Australian wine is the highest-7.71USD, almost twice that of France (excluding tax). In other words, Australian wine is not cheap in China. Because Australia's labor cost is expensive and the cost is higher. So I really don't think Australian wine is cheap at all. What are the advantages of Australian wine? Well, it feels like a wine merchant friend said three bullshit sentences, but in fact he still conveyed a very important message to us-the stable quality of low price, which means that Australian wine is very competitive among cheap wines.
Australian wines are very good at building brands, such as yellow-tailed kangaroos, which are basically drunk. It is difficult to avoid a wine, from friends' parties to the company's annual meeting, and various wine bureaus, you can drink it carelessly.
The yellow-tailed kangaroo itself does not rely solely on the taste to achieve today's huge sales, but relies on a series of advanced marketing methods. The yellow-tailed kangaroo was originally aimed at the product fault in the American wine market-there is no noble oak aroma in cheap wine, but everyone wants to drink this high-grade aroma. Therefore, in order to cater to American tastes, the yellow-tailed kangaroo has brewed wine with oak barrel flavor, and at the same time, the price is very cheap (which can be achieved through special brewing technology), so it is particularly popular in the American market. Coupled with highly recognizable wine labels and gorgeous colors, people will never forget. Before entering the American market, the winery also reached close cooperation with American importers through equity transfer, so that the products can be quickly promoted as soon as they arrive in the United States. Of course, Australia is worth buying more than cheap wine within 100 yuan.
Transformation from cheap industrial wine to wine production.
In the past, Australian wines took the cheap wine route in order to grab the market with established wine countries. Later, it was found that it was impossible to compete with Chile and Argentina, because the labor force was cheap and the production cost was much lower, and it was totally useless to fight the price war. Only powerful big wineries can afford this price, and other wineries begin to cultivate according to local conditions. So now Australia is no longer the world of cheap wine, but the most diversified wine producer in the southern hemisphere. Due to the complexity of soil, almost any grape variety can find a suitable geomantic treasure. Australia also has its own production division, which is divided into three categories: zone, region and sub-region. Among them, the sub-production areas are still under development. Theoretically, the finer the division of producing areas, the smaller the area, and the better the quality of wine. But it's different in Australia. ?
Because the tradition of Australian wine is cross-regional blending. At first, in order to have a stable yield, grapes from different places were collected and brewed together. This brewing method is not only aimed at high-yield and cheap wine. From dozens of bottles of yellow-tailed kangaroos to thousands of bottles of wine king Gramsci, they are all mixed and brewed across production areas.
There are no complicated restrictions on the laws of legal producing areas in Australia, so winemakers are willing to explore the characteristics of different producing areas, full of creativity and proficient in various blending ratios. Australian winemakers are obviously more flexible in understanding the producing areas than Europeans. They can plant the grape varieties they think are suitable in any producing area, and in some mature producing areas, they will gradually form a distinctive producing area style and variety flavor. ?
Nowadays, more and more new Australian winemakers prefer to brew wines from a single producing area. Therefore, a number of wines called "regional heroes" have gradually emerged in Australia, which can show the characteristics of regional customs. ?
Like the beauty contest in Hunter Valley.
Riesling in Clare Valley and Eden Valley.
Mount Adelaide and Chardonnay on the Magaret River.
Black Pi Nuo in Mornington Peninsula.
Barossa Valley and Shiraz in Heathcoat.
Kunavara is mixed with Cabernet Sauvignon of Magritte River and so on. ?
Must-taste Australian grape varieties?
Although there are many varieties of grapes grown in Australia, only two are particularly famous. The variety of red grape is Syrah, which is actually Syrah in France. The white grape variety is Semillon. These two varieties have been trained by the Australian Customs, and both of them can show their unique flavors. Semillon in France is basically nothing special except brewing expensive rot. But in Australia, it has become a representative variety. It grows on the red volcanic soil of Hunter Valley. When young, the acidity is quite high, but it has the potential of aging for more than ten years. The more you put it, the better it tastes, which is rare in liquor.
Shiraz is a grape variety that made Australian wine famous in one fell swoop, and its planting area is also very extensive, and the style of wine has also undergone great changes. Let's talk about Shiraz dry red brewed by a single variety. The most traditional Barosa producing area is bloody as a beast. The alcohol content is generally not lower than 14.5 degrees, with heavy tannins and rich fruit flavor. Generally, when you smell this wine, you will have the urge to eat meat. However, in recent years, Shiraz with floral fragrance, pepper flavor and elegant and restrained aroma is more popular, mainly from low-temperature producing areas, so some producing areas in Australia (such as West Scott and Hunter Valley) have also begun to rise elegant Shiraz. ?
There is also a mixed wine based on Shiraz in Australia, which is not only common in the old world, but also invented by Australian winemakers.
How to choose a winery is different from the old world. There is no official grading system in Australia, so it is useless to look at wine labels and find no information about quality.
However, there are many authoritative scoring systems and purchasing guides in Australia for your reference.