US v Oz – the white wine challenge

Two recent tastings of superior white wines for British Airways First Class passengers could not have been more different.

The first was all Australian, the second all American wines, each lot of about 70 sent in in response to very similar tenders, specifying the same sort of price and quantity.

After tasting the Australian range – blind as always for BA – I had to take my hat off to the adaptability of Australian winemakers. There were virtually no wines that conformed to the now-outdated stereotype of Australian whites as being over-oaked, over-alcoholic, over-blown monsters. The standard of...