Aussie "critter wines"

[spa...@gmail.com]

Sorry if this has become something of an obsession. I just found the
following information, again in Wine Spectator:

"The biggest selling Australian label in the United States ...[is]
Yellow Tail, a brand that didn't exist until 2001... The brand, which
exported an astounding 6.5 million cases to the United States in 2004,
is a marketing phenomenon and is already the subject of a book, _Blue
Ocean Strategy_ (Harvard Business Press), that is required reading at
Harvard Business School....

In 1993, the Australian wine industry agreed on a plan to boost wine
production and worldwide sales 128 percent by the year 2010. They met
that goal before 2000. There was so much grape planting that it created
a grape surplus, much of which found its way into the current flood of
'critter' wines..."

The article, overall, doesn't denigrate Australian wines in general
although it does warn that there are many mediocre ones now being
released. I've found myself that Paringa, D'Arenberg, Buckley and
others make nice stuff at a low price point and some day I'd like to
try the higher-end wines (purely for research purposes, of course).

I find it interesting, though, that Yellow Tail's success, as well as
the volume of stuff that followed it, was the result of a national plan
aided by a relatively weak Australian dollar.