Why it’s time to give Aussie sparkling a go
Aussies love their French champagne, but there are compelling reasons why local sparkling wine is worth a glass. SEE THE LIST
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Lovers of the bubbly stuff have another excellent reason to choose an Australian sparkling wine over champagne this festive season: besides spending less, they’ll be doing the planet a solid.
Aussie winemakers face a tough task in getting locals to choose their sparklings over imports, with trade statistics showing our increasing fervour for French fizz.
Australians are now the largest consumers of champagne per head of population outside Europe, and the seventh biggest market overall. In 2020 we spent more than $419 million buying alcohol from France, more than double what we spent in 2010, with champagne at the top of the shopping list.
Wine critic Tony Love said vineyards in Tasmania, the Adelaide Hills, the Yarra Valley and the Macedon Ranges were all producing exceptional sparkling wines.
“Now that the best Australian producers have got sometimes decades of back vintage wine to blend, we are starting to see a lot of Australian sparklings with great complexity and depth of flavour, and still amazing freshness. This is why Australian sparklings are becoming more and more respected,” Mr Love said.
But in addition to quality and affordability, the Australian labels have an added boost to their bouquet: they tend to have smaller carbon footprints than their overseas counterparts.
About 2kg of CO2 is produced for every bottle of wine made around the world, whereas the Australian Wine Research Institute estimates it’s about 1.16kg per domestic bottle.
Champagne and sparkling is more carbon-intensive to transport than other types of wine, because of the heavier glass required to contain the pressurised liquid – a factor that becomes more pronounced when you consider France is 16,000 kilometres from Australia.
Local winemakers believe this could be a breakthrough season for their product, with shortfalls in supplies of champagne pushing up prices and prompting sales limits.
Others say the supply constraints have been overstated, with the exception of magnums, but local producers of sparkling believe the reports of shortages could provide an opportunity for devotees of French bubbles to try the local stuff instead.
Executive sommelier at Sydney’s Shangri-La Hotel Matt Herod said selecting wine often came down to the “recognisability of labels”, but when offered a top Australian drop such as Andrew Pirie’s sublime Apogee, diners were often stunned by the quality.
“Consistently cool climates are the best for making sparkling wines,” Mr Herod said. He listed Clover Hill from northeast Tasmania, Pizzini Wines from Victoria’s King Valley and Dominique Portet from the Yarra Valley as “the three names that developed sparkling wine in Australia”.
Dan Murphy’s Champagne Category Manager Mat Young advised buyers wanting an
Australian sparkling that was “as close as it gets to champagne” to look for the words ‘Méthode traditionelle’ on the label.
“It’s not a compromise to choose Aussie premium bubbles over champagne anymore; it’s a great and affordable alternative,” Mr Young said.
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