Along with other members of the Kalamazoo chapter of AWS/Tasters Guild, Donna and I took part in the annual National Tasting Project, focusing this year on Australian wines. The wines, tasted blind, were all very good but most tasters were a bit shocked at the prices relative to wines available to us from other parts of the world.
Americans became used to low priced high quality wines from Australia several decades ago, but Aussie wines available today for less than $15 a bottle are generally limited to commercial wines geared toward the lowest common denominator. One reason for this is that wages for vineyard workers and other staff are significantly higher in that country. Another is that producers of artisan wines have come to realize that consumers are willing to pay more for a good product. Finally, there are tariffs, which will eventually increase the price of all foreign products.
In the next few days, I will be giving my notes on the we tasted on July 13 in Kalamazoo.
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