Ep 550: South Australia - An Overview of Australia’s “Wine State"

Wine for Normal People

Alcohol, Lifestyle, Arts, Education, Food, Wine, Dining, Grapes

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This show features an overview of an essential place in the wine world: South Australia. There is much to learn here but I try to break it down into what is important to know. The show is somewhat heavy on history, since that is an essential part of why South Australia is important today.

South Australia is an Australian state located in the central south of the continent that refers to itself as Australia’s “Wine State”, and rightfully so: it produces 50% of all bottled wine and about 80% of the country’s premium wine. Most large wine companies (8 of the 13 continuously operating wine companies in Australia are here), many small wineries and almost all the official wine trade organizations, including Wine Australia, the government body responsible for regulating and promoting Australian wine, and the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI), which plays a crucial role in wine research, are based in South Australia.

South Australia consists of 18 regions, and although I address most of them, I also point out that there are a handful that are essential to truly knowing about South Australia: Barossa, Eden Valley, Clare Valley, Adelaide Hills, Coonawarra, and McLaren Vale.

Map: Wine Australia

This is a bit of a whirlwind show, but hopefully it gives you a flavor for this famed, and essential corner of the wine world. My hope is that heard one or two things I said that you may not have known and that you seek out those wines. Australia is under appreciated in the US, especially, and when you get a good one, it is usually unbelievably good!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Wine for Normal People, the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it.
0:15.7	I'm your host Elizabeth Schneider, author of the Wine for Normal People book and certified wine dork.
0:21.7	This show is sponsored by Wine Access, the official partner and wine provider for the
0:27.0	Michelin Guide and the best place to shop for limited production wines from around the world.
0:32.3	Some of those limited production wines are featured in the Wine for Normal People
0:36.0	Wine Access Wine Club. Sign up now,
0:38.2	get six bottles four times a year for just $150 and that include shipping. The Wine Access
0:43.9	team and I pick all the wines out. Check it out today. The next shipment is Wines of Spain,
0:49.4	wineaccess.com slash normal. Now let's get to the show. So this is going to be kind of a big show because
0:58.3	South Australia is a giant and important region. There's 18 subregions. Only a handful of them
1:07.1	are important. Part of the inspiration for doing this is that as I am working on the new book,
1:13.8	one of the greats is the barossa, and that's something that I'm working on right now. So I felt
1:18.3	kind of inspired to take a more holistic look at the state, the wine state. They call
1:24.6	themselves Australia's wine state. They make 50% of all bottled wines at about
1:29.3	80% of Australia's premium wine. So this is extremely significant. And what I'd like to say is
1:37.0	if you have been off of Australia for a while, understand that there's been a shift in Australian wines.
1:44.7	And the idea that they are homogenous or all fruit bombs or all oak bombs is just no longer the case.
1:53.5	And as you listen to some of the sub regions, again, I can only go into so much detail in an overview show like this.
1:59.5	I do want you to think about the nuance
2:01.4	that I'm presenting here and think maybe it might be time to revisit some of the wines in South
2:08.3	Australia. Now, I love that many of you, after we had Langmail on, we're very excited to try
2:14.8	some of these wines. But the story of South Australia is an important bit of
	...

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