¡Noise!

Iberian wine in Australia, Two years on.

Is it just me or is Spanish wine starting to take off all over again? Or perhaps its a second wind. Whatever it is, there are plenty of new wines in the market this year from both Spain and Portugal. The good thing for buyers of Spanish wine is the broad range of wines that are now available and there is some competition at the lower end of the market.

When I first started Tinto y Blanco almost 2 years ago (more about that later), I could find about 200 Spanish wines and about 20 Ports from the big houses in Portugal. There were a couple of Spanish bars around town, but hardly anyone sold Spanish wine by the glass. These days, there are over 600 wines from Spain and Portugal available in Australia, covering just about every style and region of Spain. Portuguese wines have taken a bit longer to get moving and the main coverage is table wines and ports from the Douro Valley at the moment, with a few other regions showing up here and there.

There are two things that really shows me that Spanish wine has made it into the minds and down the necks of Australian wine drinkers. The first is the number of Spanish bars in Australia now and the number of bar/pubs/bottle shops selling Spanish wine. Its almost mandatory these days to have something on your list that’s Spanish. Just have a look at the photo above, thats a Tuesday night at Bar Lourinha in Melbourne. Not bad eh. The second is that Vintage Cellars now have a range of Spanish wines that they are directly importing and heavily promoting. Regardless of what anyone may think of the big end of the wine retail game, VC do put wine in the hands of many Australians due to their buying power and low cost prices. For example where else can you buy a perfectly good bottle of verdejo or albariño for under $20 (well under).

The established players are branching out too. Over the past couple of months many of the established importers have released a raft of new wines on to the Australian market as well. For example, Negotiants have recently released wines from cult producers such as Mauro as well as a bunch of new stuff from Priorat/Monsant. The Spanish Acquisition has a range of new stuff at all levels, including Artadi at the very top end. IFW have also branched out to the table wines of Quinta do Noval. On top of all that, there are new importers popping up all over the place, with a number of independent wine stores branching out and importing their own stuff.

The questions I have to ask are: is the market getting too big? How many brands and importers will the market bear? Now that Spanish wine is more mainstream will sales drop off if it’s no longer the ‘cool new thing’? Or is it still the cool new thing, with its buddy Portugal. Given the buzz on Spanish food and wine, I think Spanish wine has a long term future in Australia. In terms of cost Spanish and Portuguese wine is still a winner as far as imports go too, but I think we are now seeing importers looking at cost more than quality at the low end of the market. Portuguese wines are generating a lot of interest, and are starting to look like a new force on the import shelves.

So after two years of running the site it feels like there has never been a better time to be drinking Spanish and Portuguese wine in Australia. In order to celebrate the 2 year milestone, I’ll be running a very lame competition to give away some seriously good wine from next Wednesday. Stay tuned.