With the risk of going back OT (well, with the certainty of doing so . . .)
First of all . . . why does everyone have to say 'The Old World' when referring to Europe? I really hate that label. It makes you sound so American.
I think there's truth on both sides of the wine front here. Yes, there is a part of the French wine making industry that is superior to practically anywhere else in the world. If you have a good vintage Pomerole or some such you are really getting a treat out of the ordinary with some taste complexities that are just mind-boggling. However, for one of the good bottles you'll be lucky to find it at anything less than 40/$90. The only reason I've had it is because my dad tends to get good wines as presents from business partners. He'd never dream of paying that sort of money for a bottle of wine himself.
Personally I have bought a fair bit of Australian wine over the years and have found most of them very good indeed. Sure, it may not live up to the aforementioned Pomerole, but even a really good Australian bottle can be had for something like 60-70 kroner/$13-15 and is easily a pleasure to drink.
As I see it, we're not just talking about a question of 'It's the cheapest so that's what I'll have' but much more a question of going for price value. If you buy a French wine at the price you can get an Australian wine for, I would say you are very likely to get the better wine by buying the Australian one.
The high prices of French wines are not really down to the axiom 'Old world = inefficient practices & overpriced wines' A hell of a lot of the French wineries are as modernised by now as any you will see anywhere in the world. It is just that in order to cater to some of the wine snobs it makes better sense for them to keep an outward appearance of their production process being the same as it was 200 years ago. Fact is, this is very, very rarely true.
A large part of what creates higher prices for French wines has to do with supply and demand. There is a large demand for French wines practically everywhere in the world, and this does mean that there is money to be made on the labelling of a wine as being 'French.' Sure, quality plays into it, but no matter how good a wine gets I will never, ever pay 150 for a bottle of the stuff. If we were only talking quality/price, then the natural assumption would have to be that the wine at 150 would have to be around 4 times better than the one at 40 (that is if we could actually quantify quality numerically, which I do appreciate is impossible) or that we would derive 4 times as much pleasure from the more expensive bottle. Would we? Hell no. A large part of it has to do with snobbery. There's prestige in ordering an expensive bottle (for some at least, personally I couldn't give a ****) and often that is why they do it. The price of some of these very expensive wines is further upped by a low supply, meaning that it is actually as much the low supply as it is the quality that determines its high price. In essence, you could say that if you buy a bottle of expensive wine, you will often be paying a relatively high percentage of the price because it is in short stock, rather than paying for the quality of the drink.
Personally I think Australia is doing damned well with its wines. I've had some great drinks that I would say easily live up to and surpass comparable European wines.
Back on topic now: Damn it, I hate Bud!
Cheers,
Jens-Kristian
