When Australian wine producers look at the runaway success in China of fellow winemaker Penfolds, there is envy in their eyes. And who wouldn’t want even a tiny slice of Penfolds’ sales in China?
Yet despite its success in China, Penfolds has been frustrated at not being able to keep up with demand for its popular Bin 389 blended red wine. But when West Australian winemaker Jeff Burch of Howard Park looked at Penfolds’ dilemma, he saw an opportunity.
The big red question
Chinese drinkers clearly have a thirst for Bin 389, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz, and Burch and his winemaker Janice McDonald decided they will help quench it, though their version will not have the trademark name, of course.
“We’ve just produced our 389,” he said. “It’s Cab Shiraz, it’s the same percentage as 389, although we didn’t go the full hog on the American oak. It’s French oak and then American oak after that.” And, he says, “The price is A$75 ($51.94), exactly the same price as Penfolds [Bin 389].”
The newly launched Howard Park red, A.S.W., is named in honour of his wife and winery co-owner, Amy, whose maiden name is Wee. Their new wine is made from Margaret River fruit and is 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, whereas Bin 389 is sourced from multi-regional South Australian fruit and generally has a 50-50 mix; the 2016 vintage is 51% Cabernet Sauvignon and 49% Shiraz. Still, Burch happily admits to being inspired by Bin 389 and refers jokingly to himself as a “copycat”.
If Burch can sense a potential new market for the quintessential Australian red – no other wine country in the world embraces a blend of Bordeaux and Rhône grape varieties quite so enthusiastically – then maybe there is something to it. And with Penfolds in the throes of trialling a Californian blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz, the idea doesn’t seem quite so outlandish.
Could Penfolds Bin 389 help save a classic and unique Australian red wine down on its luck in its own country, and prove the inspiration for Australian wine sales in one of the fastest growing wine markets on earth? Maybe.
But there’s a question. Are the Chinese drinking Bin 389 because they love the imagination behind a blend of two distinctly different grape varieties? If so, that’s good news for producers like Jeff Burch. Or are they drinking Bin 389 because they know and trust the maker, Penfolds?
The wine producer is lauded by Chinese wine drinkers for its premium wines like Grange. The success of Penfolds has made its owner, Treasury Wine Estates, the number one importer of wine into China of any country in the world.
“Penfolds are doing a great job of exposing Chinese consumers to a wide variety of red wine styles, varieties and blends which allows other Australian winemakers to pick up on various trends and vary their China offering to suit, just as Jeff Burch has done,” says Alister Purbrick, chief executive of Tahbilk in the Nagambie Lakes region of Victoria. Tahbilk exports its Old Vines Cabernet Shiraz into China and Purbrick reports that it has been selling well. However, he suggests that Chinese consumers are still learning about Australian wine, particularly red wine, and “by and large don’t have any preconceived ideas about variety or style”.
Chinese-born Melbourne-based wine producer Kandy Kensington of Kensington Wines sees the Penfolds brand looming large in the minds of Chinese wine drinkers. “Cabernet Shiraz blends or Bin 389 succeeds in China because it’s under the Penfolds brand,” she says, adding that her company, which exports Australian wine to China, has no intention of creating a Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz for that market in the near future. “We may try some Cabernet Shiraz in due course, but it’s not because of the intention to copy Bin 389,” she says, adding, “there are other importers keen on the Cabernet Shiraz blends from Australia, though.”
A traditional blend
One Australian winemaker with perhaps the biggest investment in the unique Aussie red is Robert Hill-Smith, chairman and proprietor of Yalumba Wines. Few companies have worked harder to promote the blend since its inception in Australia’s colonial times in the 1890s. Hill-Smith believes Cab Shiraz can flourish in China. “When considered on its merits, the Aussie blend stacks up,” he says. “We hope great Cab Shiraz or vice versa will become an Australian storyline and a fashion. For us, it’s a major focus in 2019-20. The Chinese don’t have any historical reason to not consider it.”
He is supported by experienced wine marketer Robert Geddes MW, who consults in both Australia and China. Geddes MW believes that a blend that is so typically Australian, that reflects the creative drive of a winemaking country not held back by traditional European wine regulations, will be important to Australia’s “cultural wine identity” in China.
Can one wine really make a difference to Australia’s wine fortunes?
Yes, it has in the past, he argues, so why not again? After all, when Jacob’s Creek Shiraz Cabernet Malbec was first produced in 1973, it went on to become Australia’s most popular dry red and one of the country’s first global wine brands, taking the British market by storm and establishing a foothold in Europe for its maker, Orlando. Other Australian winemakers followed suit.
Today, Jacob’s Creek is owned by Pernod Ricard and the brand and blend that worked so many decades ago in Britain continues to work hard for the company in China. “Jacob’s Creek has been exporting to China for many years now, and Shiraz Cabernet blends are a significant contributor to our success, representing about one-third of our volume in that market,” says Darryn Hakof, marketing director for Pernod Ricard Winemakers.
Other Australian producers report promising sales trends for the archetypal Aussie red.
Berton Vineyards, which sells Bonsai Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz into China, believes it is very much a growth area. “We love this blend as it makes great wine from the Riverina area – the two varieties are complementary and Riverina Cabernet is not as intensely tannic and structured. The Shiraz rounds out the wine, making a lovely juicy wine with great balance,” says marketing manager Leigh Berton.
Langmeil Wines in the Barossa Valley produces three Shiraz Cabernets and one premium blend for China, the Legendary Cabernet Shiraz, and James Lindner, co-proprietor, says drinkers there take his total production. He says Australia’s ability to blend wines from different varieties “affords us a unique opportunity to continue to grow in this space”.
The Chinese perspective
Wine education in China is expanding rapidly with demand reportedly outstripping supply. The London-based Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET), the largest provider of wine and spirit qualifications in the world, reports that most of its 2017-18 global growth can be traced to China. More than 20,000 Chinese are enrolled in WSET courses and educators have a big role to play in a nation thirsty for information. Chinese wine educators frequently use Shiraz Cabernet blends as an example of a quintessentially Australian wine, allowing a clear point of differentiation for Australian wines compared to those from other countries. It’s also proving to be an appealing wine for the Chinese palate.
“There are lots of dark fruit aromas, some minty, eucalyptus notes from Cab and a bit of floral and pepper notes from Shiraz,” says Shanghai-based WSET wine educator Dr Yudan Fang. “Chinese consumers generally do not like the highly astringent wines like many single varietal Cabernet Sauvignons, but the Cab Shiraz blends are softer than Cabernet alone and have more structure than single varietal Shiraz, which gives the wine much flexibility in pairing with Chinese food.”
Dr Fang often uses Cabernet Shiraz blends from the Brown Family Wine Group and Yalumba when teaching students about Australian wines and winemakers who, she says, are “always willing to try new things”. “I expect to see the increasing consumption of this wine blend in China in the next five years,” she adds.
And what of Penfolds, the company behind the Bin 389 phenomenon?
Penfolds’ chief winemaker, Peter Gago, is honest that he can’t meet China’s hunger for Bin 389. The Cabernet component in Bin 389 is A3 Grade Cabernet, which is expensive and not easy to source, despite Penfolds’ resources. “We just can’t make enough,” says Gago. “It’s a lovely problem to have, but in business if you remain as you are, you go backwards.”
Hence the interest in California. Since 2017, Gago has been involved in Californian trials for a Cab Shiraz using Cabernet sourced from the Napa Valley and Shiraz predominantly from Treasury Wine Estates’ Camatta Hills vineyard outside Paso Robles, which was planted in the 1990s with Shiraz cuttings from Penfolds’ famous Kalimna and Magill vineyards. The original idea was to produce a premium, $100-plus Californian Cabernet, but the more he thought about it the more Gago says he was inspired to think about making something more “quintessentially Australian”.
“Why don’t we do a Cabernet Shiraz blend?” he remembers asking his boss, TWE chief executive Michael Clarke. “And that’s what got the whole thing sort of happening.” Two vintages into the project, and trials continue. But Gago notes: “Whatever comes out the other end has to be definitively and recognisably tasting like a Penfolds red wine. It will have to have that house style, that Penfolds stamp.”
Which may be what the Chinese are specifically looking for. Or it may be that Penfolds has opened a door for other Australian winemakers.
