Australia has but a handful of notable and consistently excellent wines and, as a wine-producing nation, pales in comparison to Europe or even California in terms of quality. The challenge is two-pronged in that to be distinctive, they must raise the overall quality of their offerings but economically, they will obviously experience a much lower output if they follow the footsteps of France by ripping thousands of acres of low-end vines out of the ground. From a reputation standpoint, France has much more to lose by not keeping its low-end wines from growing.

I understand from an emotional view why Mr. Blass would bemoan the current wine mindset in Australia and I applaud his remarks. But honestly, when it comes to higher priced wines in which the volume of buyers is presumably shrinking, for quality, I’ll nearly always put my dollars into France, Italy and Spain.

David Boyer