Australia makes delicious good-value wines, full of fruit and flavour, plus a growing range of fine wines. The australian style is accepted, and copied, the world over.

The distinctive Australian wine style emphasizes brightness, freshness and retention of primary fruit flavour. The wines reflect the sunny climate: they are soft, fruity and flavour f ul; they are "user friendly" in that they provide just the style of wine that the market demands; and they display their charms from the moment they are bottled. This description is, howeve; a generalization that will be proved as much by the exception as by the rule. The very best wines are complex, tightly structured and long-lived: Semillon and Riesling whites can be magnificent when 20 years old, Cabernet Sauvignon reds at 30 years, and Penfolds' Grange Hermitage (made from Syrah) at 40 years or more. While large companies make highly polished, predictable wines, the remaining 700 producers make wines of every grade of quality and style. Fifty million cases are produced annually, of which well over 11 million are exported to markets in Europe, NorthAmericaandAsia.

The vine first arrived in Australia from the Cape of Good Hope in 1788 and was planted in Governor.
Its cultivation spread rapidly - away fro the high humidity a summer rainfall of the coastal areas, first Sydney's western suburbs and the Hunter Valley, and eventually to Tasmania, Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria. Win production on a commercial scale was seriously under way in these locations by the end of the 1830s, and expanded continuously through to the end of the century. Australia's wines remained largely ignored by the wine world, however, until a century and a half later. By then, some-what less isolated globally, encouraged by an extremely enthusiastic domestic market, and with the massive aid of technology - irrigation transformed vast areas that were hitherto far too hot and arid - Australian producers were making the sort, of wine that was in demand internationally. They suddenly found that their wines were being appreciated and acclaimed throughout the world for quality and value. The reputation of winemakers from this part of the southern hemisphere is still growing, and their wines will continue to surprise and excite as their potential is fully realized.