The Auswine Forum

Wall Street Journal published a good analysis (25/7) of cheap Oz chardonnay in the US. Main point is that there are many old, stale wines on the shelves giving our whole export market a bad name.

Recent trip to US confirm this - I believe we have less than half the shelf space we had in wine retailers 2-3 years ago, and many wines are from imports during 2006/07 - at least they come with pre-supplied cellar dust!

See the article at 'tinyurl dot com/l262zk'

If the link don't work, go to the wsj site, look under 'Food & Drink', Tastings.

Tony

NZ has the same problem - not enough good distribution reps keeping tabs on what's on the shelves in New York. Last time I was there, a year ago, there were three, four and even five year old bottles of entry level sauvignon blanc in shops. Embarrassing.

The link is

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 85882.html

"just about every store had a jumble of wines from several vintages, in some cases going back to 2003. It seems clear that stores cannot move their Australian Chardonnay at any price and are keeping the crusty old bottles on shelves and not ordering new stuff."

Surely only a problem for white-drinkers? NY may hold a treasure trove of bottle-aged delights for red drinkers!