It's no secret the Australian wine industry is presently experiencing something of a crisis. The boom era of a few years ago - when producers could afford to be picky about whether or not they even made an effort over the UK market - seems distant history. Now those who have fruit are trying to earn a break-even price for it. Those who sell wine are hoping to keep away from BOGOFs (buy one, get one free) and those who produce truly site-specific treasures are hoping to avoid being tarred with the national brush.

The turnaround has been almost biblical in its relentlessness. First came the drought, driving down yields and sending prices upwards. Then the market rebelled, tiring of the simplicity of the big-volume brands. Multinationals - which dominate the industry - reacted by discounting to clear the pipeline.

A pall of failure hung over the Antipodes. Consumers had never seen Australian wine so cheap. They assumed something was wrong and moved on to more exotic offerings. Then came the global financial crisis. The punters sought out the best of what was available from currency zones more closely allied to the plummeting pound (enter SA RIGHT, singing and dancing).

Of course, this is still simplistic. In the midst of the drought some of the cooler regions yielded huge crops. This made for ample volumes, but not of the kind of juice ("sunshine in a bottle") on which the industry's sales had been created. The bushfires earlier this year also didn't help.

There continue to be success stories. Yellowtail - a label which grew out of the fallout of the biggest industry merger - continues on its inexorable growth curve. Invented less than a decade ago, it is now one of the largest brands in the world, selling roughly the same as SA's total wine exports. There are people who argue that Australia's problems are inextricably linked to the success of Yellowtail. The brand, they maintain, has contributed significantly to the downward average price plunge. In the UK Australian wine is averaging A2,36/l compared with A4,36 in 1999. In the US the volume decline this year has been a mere 4%, but the loss of value a staggering 25%.

SA - which for years looked on enviously as Australia's seemingly inexorable march highlighted the lack of industry unity in this country - has been the surprising beneficiary of the Australian implosion. It has been something of an accidental triumph since nothing of what has happened was really in the national gameplan (such as it was).

For years SA's export organisations hosted think-tanks aimed at developing a strategy modelled on what were perceived to be the elements of the Australian success. Two of the items of the South African wish list were an icon wine as a national flagship - the local equivalent of Penfolds Grange - and an export-oriented corporate behind which the rest of the industry could slipstream.

In the manner of Samuel Beckett's play, Godot never arrives but the show goes on. SA is no closer to its icon wine, but the need - if it exists at all - is less urgent. We've had a run of aspirants and pretenders, several really quite good and almost all "fair" value in international terms. Vergelegen's V, Waterford's The Jem, Ernie Els, Rustenberg Peter Barlow, Vilafonte Series C and Rust en Vrede's 1694 Classification share in common "aspirational" pricing, adequate rarity, splendid packaging and a reasonable chance of surviving the meltdown.

We're a long way away from the corporate champion - though judging from what Australia's big players and the multinationals have single-handedly done to Brand Australia no one is going to lament that.

Instead we have a substantially upgraded gallery of major local wineries, none anywhere near the clout of a Rosemount or Hardy's, but a few big enough to live outside the umbrella of Wines of South Africa, the generic marketing organisation.

Distell , with its Nederburg and Fleur du Cap brands, has dramatically upgraded the quality of what goes into its bottles. Douglas Green Bellingham is a treasure trove of quality wine at often embarrassingly low prices. Spier is over-delivering on quality while the KWV's wine division has lifted its game. Mid-size players like Charles Back and Kleine Zalze enjoy a disproportionately high profile in their key markets.

From The Weekender, 10 October 2009