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JULIAN CASTAGNA’S LOVE MESSAGE IN AN AUSSIE BOTTLE
This is a LOVE MESSAGE from Julian Castagna, one of my favorite wine-personalities of the past decade. His wines are just fabulous. I completely agree with what he wrote and I hope that all of you will help to spread it all over the world!
“As I travel around the world attending various biodynamic conferences and tastings, I am constantly amazed by the reception our wines are accorded. Amazed, not because they like the wines, why wouldn’t they, but totally amazed and saddened by the perception held by many people who think Australia is incapable of making anything other than nongastronomic, sweet, high-alcohol wine. Amazed, also, because when I tell them of the very many other wonderful small producers making wine which is real – how it used to be – they are surprised; surprised at our industry’s lack of communication in that regard.
It is a story about the exaggerated influence of some powerful but myopic journalists in Australia’s main overseas markets; a wine industry dominated, controlled and shaped by the big companies; and an official wine body ruled by a South Australian-centric view of wine to the detriment of the rest of Australia. A mandatory, export approval system which can and does deny export approval to wine that is not what ‘they’ consider the ‘norm’ or is unfamiliar, by branding it faulty, which they sometimes do even when laboratory tests clearly show otherwise. Perhaps it might also be true to say that as much as the wine show system has helped deliver much improvement to the general quality of Australian wine, it has created a culture around a small group of the in-crowd who seek to control the direction of Australian wine, from style, to who gets to sit at the table when important decisions are made about our industry, or, who are given access to important wine press from overseas when they arrive in Australia. Has this self-appointed club put self-interest before what this country needs? – individual, high-quality, terroir-driven wines made by people who eat, breathe and live their land in pursuit of something special.
It is time Australia had a revolution from the ground up, one which shakes our industry’s mixture of self-satisfied smugness and corporate neglect. The fact is, there are very many small Australian producers making wine, at many price-points, that the world actually wants to drink. We simply are not communicating that fact. Our industry bodies are meant to represent all wineries in Australia but seem incapable or unwilling of supporting all sections of our industry equally. If ever there was a time for the small, serious producers to take matters into their own hands, it is now. If we leave it to those who seek to lead us, Australian wine will continue its slide into sameness and consistent mediocrity.
Many small independent producers are more committed than ever to the pursuit of the highest quality; individual wine of Terroir. It is time to expose the world to the wonderful wines made by small estates which have been till now forced, on a world stage, to take a back seat to the mediocrity which has been marketed and promoted as Australian wine in the last few years.”
Julian Castagna, Castagna Winery, Beechworth, Australia
Wonderful, warm words, dear Julian. But actually, this is something that makes my heart bleed since such a long time… What you wrote here in such a striking way, is true for many more wine countries than only Australia. You could replace the words Australia and Australian in your text, by South-Africa and South-African, Chile and Chilean, California and Californian, and even for example, France and French… This is really a huge problem of image. The economical, political and social impact of the big companies, worldwide, is tremendous. Quality, genuineness, sustainability… are not the magical words. That hurts, so much! But I feel happy and honored every time I meet people like you Julian, like Niels Verburg (RSA), Alvaro Espinoza (Chile) and so many more, who really do care about that and do make fabulous wines. This text of yours, dear Julian, is dedicated to all those ‘Luddites’ around the world…
With love from Europe!
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