Word: australian
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...laying down and leaving there." No longer. The wines from Down Under are moving steadily up in quality, and they are enjoying a new popularity in the U.S. Riding a trend for Aussie chic that has made household names of Qantas, Pat Cash and "Crocodile" Dundee, U.S. sales of Australian wines topped 1 million gallons last year, more than triple the volume of 1986. "People who have experimented with Australian wines have been very happy," says Jon Fredrikson, a San Francisco wine consultant. "They're the new kids on the block being watched very closely. Word gets around...
...promising future. For one thing, the declining value of the U.S. dollar has pushed the prices of quality French wines -- most red Burgundies, for example, and the top-rated crus of Bordeaux -- beyond the reach of all but the wealthy. Meanwhile, thanks to the relative weakness of the Australian dollar (worth 77 cents in U.S. currency), virtually all Down Under wines available in the U.S. are in the moderate-price range (between $4 and $15 per 750-ml bottle...
...Australia for nearly 200 years. Until the 1950s, most vintners concentrated on either cheap, fortified sherries and ports for export to Britain, or rough-edged red and white table wines, distinctly second in quality to the country's brawny beers. It is no coincidence that the improvement in Australian style and sophistication in the past ten years matches the progress of California wines: many Aussie winemakers have studied their craft at the University of California at Davis, America's ranking school of oenology. In fact Michael Mullins, the chairman of the viticulture department at Davis, is Australian. Says...
...real test, of course, is in the tasting, and here the Aussies are doing just fine. Anthony Dias Blue, a San Francisco-based wine-and-food writer who was a judge at last year's Qantas Wine Cup, an annual taste-off of U.S. and Australian varietals, says, "I expected to lose in the Rieslings, Sauvignon Blancs and sparkling wines, but I never in a million years thought we would lose in Chardonnays and Cabernets." Down Under wines, Blue concludes, "are going to be accepted on a par with California. They've gotten their foothold...
...revolution!" about 2,000 marchers, some armed with iron bars and clubs, clashed with 140 police and soldiers. One man was killed and nine were injured. Looters then turned the city into a shambles of debris and shattered glass. A beleaguered Prime Minister Walter Lini requested help from the Australian government, which quickly airlifted in riot-control gear...