We tend to fear what we do not know, and when “experts” weigh in with their opinions, it’s as easy to follow them down the merry path of shared ignorance as it is to let them lead you onward down the path of knowledge and informed enlightenment.

What the @$#% am I talking about? Why, it seems that a couple of months ago a wine writer in the UK opined that the Australian wine industry was in trouble because of oversupply, low quality, and pricing strategies that would confuse anyone other than a tax agent. Then a NY wine writer chimed in to agree and then that became a mini-tsunami of “me-too” reports, blog posts, tweets and whispered innuendo (innuendi?) over the following weeks.

The result was that consumers (the ones who read this sort of thing) were scared away from drinking Australian wine and this was not good for anyone other than the Malbec producers in Argentina who’ve been living off the fact that Malbec bears a little similarity flavor and texture-wise to Merlot, the previous pariah of the wine critic world (and besides, mouthing the word “maahlbec” is tres chic compared to the more pedestrian “mayrlowe”).

Along about now you may be asking yourself “just what does this have to do with Torbreck anyway? Torbreck is a great Aussie winery that makes wines that are best compared to the best wines of the rest of the world, not just the best wines of Oz!” And you’d be correct, but for the fact that over here in the US of A we’re awfully competitive and people are as apt to compare RunRig to Yellowtail as they are to compare a Bentley GT to a Volkswagen Beetle. These stories about the wine business freaked people out and caused them to forget about the main question inherent in the realm of wine: Does It Taste Good?

So this was the climate encountered by Dave Powell when he was over here a couple of weeks ago. Rather than be all defensive on the topic, he took the opportunity to put some Torbreck into the glasses of some of the same critics who weighed in on the topic of “the Oz wine biz has screwed the pooch”*. Don’t you know it, they LOVED Torbreck. Retailers who’d sworn off ever buying any wine with a focus group plotting to put a cute animal on its label ordered case stacks of Woodcutter’s Shiraz, Struie, and even the occasional box of The Pict. Writers who’d learned to deign anything from below the equator began seeing the beauty of driving on the wrong side of the road and that their summer wasn’t compromised because it was someone else’s summer. Now, I’ll allow as to the possibility that it was merely Dave’s charm and winning personality that convinced people to trust their own palates, to put away their fears, and to not blindly succumb to the keening and whingeing of the wine media, but ya know, I’d rather believe that all of these people from all of these diverse backgrounds and with all of their contrasting agendas simply enjoyed a transcendent moment as they found that it’s the wine that counts.

Truth is good, and one way or the other, it’s in the glass. Experience it first hand, why don’t you.

(Rant over). (Thank you). (I feel so much better).

D Fredman
Torbreck PR Guy
Malibu**, California, USA

*And maybe to a certain extent, they have, but that’s a topic for another time.
**Plenty of truth in Malibu, but it’s sometimes enhanced cosmetically.

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