09, a lot better than the last one?

At this time of the year you do question whether it's even worth writing anything. Let's face it, people are mostly focused on trying to come up with a present for their loved ones that can top the novelty socks, jocks or jammies that were such a 'hit' last year. When they are not doing that they are eating, drinking and celebrating excessively secure in the knowledge that they don't have to come up with their usual lame excuses for such behaviour. 

It's also the time that the popular, well paid or just well known folks in the 'media' take a break. This explains the explosion of clip shows, reruns and countdown to 1 shows over the last month. In between are the 'year in review' programmes which, this year, will be joined by the 'decade in review'.

Why do we need to be reminded about a year we just finished experiencing? Are we that brain dead we can't remember something we just did? We have a theory that these programmes are in fact designed to give certain 'TV celebrities' some airtime. You know the ones. They're either on contract for reasons none of the TV executives can recall, are 'special friends' of said executives or are heading for the 'departure lounge'.

Despite feeling this way we have joined in the fun because we don't want you going to other places looking for your questionable 'summer' content.  We will, however, spare you the agony of just getting our opinion. Happily we were able to get some professional help (no, not that sort of professional help, we can't afford that type of professional help - Ed). Mark Smith and Gill Christian (Coal Valley Vineyard) postponed some of their more important tasks (Gill was meant to go to the tip) to sit down to help us make sense of 2009.

The industry is on a high

We started by asking Mark and Gill what they thought was the big talking point of 2009. "Riesling!. Riesling doing this, doing that" enthused Mark. Gill supported this by saying that sales of riesling had been amazing this year "riesling outsold sauvignon blanc and the chardonnay". Both believe that 2009 had seen a renewal of interest from punters in the sweeter rieslings. Their only concern was that the proliferation of acronyms (FGR, VGR etc) may be starting to create some confusion. 

Gill indicated that a sweeter riesling would soon be joining the Coal Valley Vineyard lineup although it would not have the GR tag. We suggested they could call it the "I can't believe it's not a GR". The look we got in return suggests this may not happen.

Aside from increased sales, 2009 saw some well deserved recognition for some of Tassie's winemakers. Julian Alcorso and Natalie Fryer made the shortlist in the Gourmet Traveller's winemaker of the year, Nick Glaetzer was a finalist in the Young Winemaker of the Year, and his fellow frogmore-ian (is that a word? ... that's not a word! - Ed) Andrew Hood also captured the limelight.  In fact, Mark nominated Andrew's receipt of the Wolf Blass award at the International Riesling Challenge in October as not only a well deserved accolade for Andrew but as another indication of the increasing recognition of Tassie's place as a producer of premium riesling.

So Andrew is now an official legend and living treasure. Not just because his name sits alongside Australia's best riesling producers but because he walked the overland track before it was duck boarded. In fact hardcore walkers now refer to it as the overland highway. "They might just as well put in a bloody escalator!" seems to be the gist of their reaction to all the track improvement work carried out over the years.

Asked if there were any other interesting developments during the year Mark and Gill mentioned the rise of the next generation of winemakers who would carry the industry forward into the future. "Twelve months ago who had heard of Kate Hill ... she has shown three wines ... and each has won a gold medal" Mark exclaimed. 

The other thing that has struck Mark about 2009 is what he refers to as the "rise and rise of boutique beer makers within Tasmania". Gill sees this as another useful addition to the food and beverage industry "its not going to stop them (punters) drinking wine ... it's a useful add on ... it's another reason to come to Tasmania". She went on to explain that she had been conducting her own 'punter survey' and concluded that the more cross promotion she did the better the sales were at the cellar door.

Moving on from the industry highlights we wanted to know if Gill and Mark had personal highlights. Gill was very excited about how the Coal Valley Vineyard business was progressing and nominated the performance of their cellar door sales as her highlight. Mark said his highlight had occurred the night before our discussion when he took the former owners of the Dalrymple Vineyard (Bert Sundstrup and Jill Mitchell) to dinner. Mark had brought with him a bottle of the award winning 2003 Dalrymple pinot. "It was a magnificent bottle of wine ... which puts the lie to the fact that pinots don't age" he went on that he had experienced a similar situation earlier in the year when he tried a 1991 pinot made by Claude Radenti.

Our highlights

You have heard from the professional and sensible amongst us but what do we think? Our favourite moments from 2009 all involve people doing funny stuff.

PJ's amusing but short and disastrous radio career; 

The detail person who put "approximately 7.99 drinks" on their back label;

Discovering our friends are happy to drink worm wee for charity; and

The enterprising cellar door person who filled up the white wine display bottles with water only to come back the next day and realise to their horror that the owner had sold those bottles to a customer.

A cause for concern?

All things considered 2009 was a good year for the Tassie wine industry but not so for some parts of the wider Australian industry. A heat wave in the Clare Valley, bush fires in Victoria and the continuing wine glut has caused havoc with some  producers. In particular the massive over supply in the bulk wine market continues to drive down fruit prices for growers and profit margins for producers. Being lovers of the humble quaffer this leaves us in a bind - yes we like the low prices but we don't like to see the problems that this causes.

The other area that may come back to bite the industry is the proliferation of wine shows. Mark agrees. "I looked in my wine industry directory to see how many wine events there had been in September or October of national status ... 19 in one month!". Too many shows diminishes the significance of them all, as well as making it prohibitively expensive. 

So see ya later the 'norties'

As we said it's not just the end of 2009 it's also the end of the 'norties'. A decade that started with the fear that the world would end because of the Millennium Bug (remember Y2K anyone? - Ed) and finished with the fear that the world will end because of climate change, peak oil and the GFC. This decade reminds us of our teenage years. It was full of angst and excitement but you were so relieved when it was all over.

Mind you, at least this decade saw the Tassie wine industry take major strides in product quality and in gaining the recognition it deserves and of course the creation of the greatest website ever to appear on the Internet (yeah people of walmart ... hilarious!... oh, that's not the one you meant  - Ed).

What do you think? Send us a comment