International distributors of Australian wine

I have unfortunately discovered that my conundrum of how to find a good distributor Australian wine in Italy, with a respectable range is an ongoing one.

To give you an example, I’ll refer to some brief research I did yesterday on prices of Penfolds Bin 707, from the 90’s vintages. An email came through from British wine merchant Seckfords with some lots of 1993, 1994 and 1997 (I believe I recall) Penfolds Bin 707.

The lots, of six bottles, were available at a price of 50 pounds a bottle which isn’t a bad price. When buying from UK wine merchants most wines are offered duty paid meaning EU taxes are already included in the price, you don’t require any import numbers, no customs is to be paid on EU delivery and your only extra costs are delivery.

The 50 pounds turns out to be quite a reasonable price, but to come to this conclusion some investigation needed to occur. First of all I hopped onto the Robert Parker website to look at some vintage notes.

I’m not so interested in the points system, but I often find that Australian vintage notes are scarce and sometimes the site can be helpful on this front. It turns out that according to the site, the 1994 is the best bet for quality at this stage.

I then figured that there wouldn’t be much point in buying in the UK, if Italy had better availability, at comparable prices without the worry of organising a shipment.

I cannot, in all honesty, seriously comment on Austrade’s work in representing the interests of the Australian wine industry in Italy, so suffice to say they have a vino australiano website that lists the distributors of Australian wine in Italy.

Penfolds has an exclusive distributor in Italy, called Meregalli, who is conveniently holding a wine tasting day in Monza on Monday September 29. Despite the fact I’m supposed to be working that afternoon, I will endeavour to go.

But now price of a Bin 707 through Meregalli is listed, and there's no way of knowing whether they're a wholesaler or whether they also sell to the public.

So I also had a look at Peck, who sells at a whopping 143 euros for the 1998 vintage, and Enoteca Ronchi, who was reasonable enough at 126 euros for the 1993 vintage (over the hill?) and the 1997. The hunt continues...

Australian Wine in Italy: buying wine in Milan

Well, I’ve updated my profile to get to where my life’s at and I hope this will become a more regular, disciplined thing on my part. Anyway, Italy has gotten less beautiful and more of a struggle, the honeymoon is definitely over.

Anyway, I’ve found myself in Milan for work and while the trip is a bit of a pain in the arse (what with suicides, strikes, break downs and just generally late trains, the track record could do with some improving), I suppose I am enjoying the minimal time I get out on the streets, indulging in some city scape.

On the topic of missing Aussie wine, I finally got myself organised to go and buy some. Not far from where I work, but far enough that I nearly took a couple of wrong turns – thank God for Google maps really – I found an Enoteca that had a modest but selective offering.

For Aussies in Italy, finding Australian wine around these parts is not easy. People either know nothing about it, or totally scoff at it, and apart from that, demand is hardly worth it. So it’s a tough gig when, at the end of a hard day at work, you can’t put your feet up to a nice glass of shiraz.

Anyway, I got myself a bottle of Penfolds Koonunga Hill shiraz: a quaffer I presume, and one which I’ll test out on my boyfriend tomorrow when we try our new grill plate. He knows bugger all about wine so even if it’s crap, I’ll still look exotic.

And the other bottle I got, which is high in the intriguing stakes for me, is Charles Melton’s Nine Popes. I recently read about the GSM blend in Gourmet Wine Traveller (courtesy of Mum’s recent trip to Italy) and am keen to try it out.

From Enoteca Ronchi in Milan, the Koonunga Hill was particularly overpriced at 16 euros I thought, but the Nine Popes was 41 euros which works out around 65 AUD – not too bad considering the trip it’s taken to get here. Other Australian wines that Enoteca Ronchi has on offer include Moss Wood, Grosset (but not the riesling), Rosemount and Domaine A among others. My only doubts: the wines originate from a French importer...