We are very fortunate as wine consumers here in North Idaho as we continue to taste and have access to wines from new and different appellations, or growing areas. In the last 5 plus years since we have opened our shop we have seen wines from Portugal, Lebanon and Greece become available. It is only a matter of time before the wines of Slovenia and other former "East Block" countries enter the market. At the same time the entries from New Zealand and South America have dramatically increased and while we have tasted some from all of these areas that are great and others that have disappointed they have lent depth and richness to our overall market to go along with our own local wine producing regions and the more traditional old world countries.

We have seen the opposite though too, when an appellation falls out of favor. At times this decline in the availability of wine from a particular area is a simple function of the macro-economic forces that drive the overall wine industry, what we call the "wineconomy." But in other cases it is caused by decisions made within the specific wine growing area, that are driven by the largest producers and the marketing choices of the industry as a whole. The most striking example of this is Australia.

Recently we were approached by a customer to find a very high end bottling from Australia, one that he had always had access to, one that commanded prices over $100/bottle, and unfortunately one he could no longer find anywhere in the market. As we do for many of our customers we seek out wines on a special order basis all of the time, there are no minimums for this service and it is in fact just part of what we do. Most times we can find the product. We eventually located the wine from Kaesler Vineyards for the customer, but in the quest that took us from our local distributors to some as far east as Montana, to where we eventually located the wine at a small distributor in Hailey Idaho we learned much about what has beset the Australian wine industry.

We learned along the way that the "Aussies" have focused much of their industry efforts and marketing dollars on a simple equation of getting all in the bottle for $15 and under, and to market these lower priced wines to the masses here in the states with branding focused on our perception of this far away land. Part of the decision was to eliminate focus on wineries, vineyards and winemakers all for increased focus just on brand. For mass produced wines that are the center of this program, they are eminently drinkable, while at the same time being unremarkable and they are sold through grocery outlets and big box stores by the millions of bottles.

The unintended consequences though have been the elimination of the truly good wines still made "down under" no longer being available as savvy wine consumers at all price levels have lost interest and painted all the wines from Australia with the same brush. As you ask individual consumers about their perception of Australian wine the comments are all similar, "they are fine but they all taste the same." As consumers lose interest in an appellation demand dries up, retailers pull back, distributors drop the more interesting brands and soon all that is left are wines named after "tails and eyes."

As distributors drop these brands importers pull back from a market overall leaving all of the really good wine back in its country of origin. The consumers whose favorites come from these areas like our customer seeking out Kaesler are left with few choices to find their most sought after wines. The road back for Australia appears to be a long one, and lengthens all the time as the industry there still shows no interest in changing its strategy.

As wine professionals we continue to taste and explore all that is shown to us from Australia, and remain hopeful that we will see an uptick in the choices we have from this wine area that can and does produce some truly great wines. Whether it be the super high end "juice" like Kaesler or the more affordable but still very good brands like Peter Lehman which is now owned by the Hess Winery out of Napa we will seek them out and make them available whenever possible, however we anticipate those choices may likely continue to dwindle.

If there is a topic you would like to read about or questions on wine you can email George@thedinnerpartyshop.com or make suggestions by contacting the Healthy Community section at the Coeur d'Alene Press.

George Balling is co-owner with his wife Mary Lancaster of the dinner party - a wine and table top decor shop in Coeur d'Alene by Costco. George is also the managing judge of The North Idaho Wine Rodeo and is the wine editor for Coeur d'Alene Magazine (www.cdamagazine.com). You can learn more about the dinner party at www.thedinnerpartyshop.com. You can get all of these articles as well as other great wine tips by friending us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/dinnerpartyshop.