Australian Wine Bureau, UK website

"IT'S ALL A LITTLE MATTER OF TASTE"

"..The company (Great Western Wines) co-hosted a tasting of wines last Wednesday with the Australian Wine Bureau at the Bath Spa Hotel, and invited sparky wine writer Matthew Jukes and top Oz wine maker Ben Glaetzer, this year's winner of the Qantas Young Wine Maker of the Year, to talk guests through some 40 Australian wines...Ben has been making wines ever since he left school, helping his father in the family firm of Glaetzer, as well as producing wines for other customers under the Heartland label. He emphasises the fact that Australian wines benefit from being as different as the regions in which they are made - the Barossa Valley known for stonking, big reds, while the Heartland label has a gorgeous white Viognier mixed with Pinot Gris from the Langhorne Creek.

"We can compete across the scale against other countries," says Ben. "Our wines are not just about barbecues. We're Australian, happy to challenge what's acceptable and we can do what we like."

With one of his wines, Glaetzer's Amon Ra 2002, being lauded in the United States by wine guru Robert Parker, and costing over £800 a bottle, it looks as though Ben's got it right.

He's backed by expert Matthew Jukes, who, having tasted over 25,000 wines, has written the fourth edition of The Wine List, a selection of his top 250 wines of the year. He describes the Heartland Shiraz 2002 as 'a benchmark wine', and the Glaetzer wine known as The Wallace 2002 as having a 'lithe languid aftertaste', one to buy 'when you are feeling mellow and need a wine to match your mood'.

The Jukes/Glaetzer combo are taking these Australian wines around Britain, marketing it as a roadshow.

"But," says Matthew, "it's not the Spinal Tap tour or a moral crusade. It's a celebration, democratising wine in which we believe passionately, and in the hope that it may change people's direction and encourage them to get away from Chardonnay."