Aussie wine toasts success as French fail to impress
The 2006/7 list of award-winning wines, produced annually by the off-licences’ representative body, doesn’t feature any French wines in its key categories. The only two representatives are a rosé and the reserved category for Champagne.
The NOffLA range unveiled in Dublin yesterday comprises 15 wines from old world and new in three price brackets: under €8, under €14 and under €20.
This selection of wines was chosen by a panel of 17 wine experts and will be exclusively marketed in the 330 member outlets of the National Off-Licence Association nationwide.
The NOffLA Gold Star Awards list is a commercial promotion designed to promote its 330-member stores and in turn help them sell wine.
That market, worth €800 million in Ireland a year, remains highly fragmented in terms of both production and distribution.
Tiny family winemaking operations can still thrive, as can the good old stand-alone off-licence.
But a growing portion of global market share is being concentrated in relatively few hands: major wine brands (such as Jacob’s Creek and Gallo) and big retailers (such as Dunnes, Tesco and Aldi).
Which is whereNOffLA’s awards come in. By selecting a quality range — in a manner that is apparently free of politicking or commercial pressures — and promoting it throughout its member stores, the organisation is fighting against competition from the big supermarket chains, and pushing for independence from the mega wine brands’ ability to dictate terms.
Because of the way the list is constructed, not alone is NOffLA helping to simplify and democratise wine, it is also helping broaden consumers’ tastes and helping them discover an eclectic array of quality wines.
Yes, they are simplifying the consumer’s choice from among the thousands of wines on the shelves in this country. But because they’re chosen through a rigorous ‘blind’ tasting process (where tasters are ranking and rating wines whose identities and price they don’t know) it is apparently beyond prejudice. This is arguably the most worrying bit of news for the battered French wine industry.
That Spain and Italy would be favoured by blind tasting comes as no surprise to wine lovers. But even aficionados will be surprised by those countries’ dominance of European wines at all three price points.
However, the apparent abandonment of French wines in the NOffLA list may be an illusion akin to those induced by a glass of wine too many. Two years ago, the same list featured in one category not one but two whites from the grossly underrated French region of Alsace. So it seems that French absence is no more than a happenstance in the tasting room. The French will be back. But in the meantime consumers will have learned that the common belief — that good wine comes from France — is not wrong. It’s just not the whole story.
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