Australia has proven over the past couple of decades that it’s a country that does food and drink very well indeed. Long gone are the old days, when Aussie gastronomy and viticulture was a bit of an embarrassment – things have never looked better, and 2016 was another record breaking year for this sector, with sales and exports higher than ever before. Bottled exports grew in 2016 by a massive 16% to £1.8 billion, and 2017 is tipped to be an even better year for many of Australia’s most respected vintners.

One of the key reasons for Australia’s recent successes has been down to the increase in sales of luxury wine, thanks to a fantastic series of vintages from the country’s leading wineries and historic vineyards. Indeed, over half of the total growth seen in 2016 was down to the luxury wine market. Companies such as Penfolds, who are regularly cited as producing the finest wines ever to come out of Australia, have managed to raise their profile significantly overseas, and now have a captivated audience in China, as well as some serious interest coming from the US, Canada and Northern Europe. This is significant for many reasons: it demonstrates that Australian wine has finally broken away from its former (and long outdated) reputation of being a country which only produces great value-for-money bottles, and it also suggests a remarkable change in the attitude of European fine wine drinkers towards Aussie produce.

As any serious Australian wine lover will tell you, when it comes to finesse, expression of terroir, and innovation in viticulture, the vintners down under really know what they’re doing. The luxury winery market in this country – mainly based around the Adelaide Hills, Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale – has recently seen interesting developments spurred on by the release of some reassuringly very expensive methode champenoise sparkling wines, and there have been plenty of releases which are challenging tradition in exciting ways. There has never been a better time to spend your money on high-end Australian wine, it seems, and it looks as though the rest of the world is beginning to agree.

Image:http://www.panoramio.com/photo/20942964