By Renee Wood
With an untimely French champagne shortage for the festive season, Yarra Ranges residents can take it as an opportunity to look closer to home and get behind local producers.
Growth in global demand, supply chain issues and a lower champagne harvest have been raised as reasons why bottle shops could be starting to look bare however, local wineries say they have plenty of stock to fill your bubbly needs.
Coombe Cellar Door Wine Club Manager Min Gallagher said the Yarra Valley has some of the best method champagne noir and sparkling wines in Australia which can stand their own against international bottles.
“We’ve got a unique soil composition here in the Yarra Valley so it’s really old, rich volcanic soil, which means that we get a level of depth and flavour in our bubbles that’s not necessarily achieved overseas,” Ms Gallagher said.
Ms Gallagher said although locally produced wines won’t be called champagne, they are created in the same methods.
“If you look at a sparkling wine bottle that says method traditional or bottle fermented or méthode champenoise… those are wines that are fermented in the bottle and made in the same way as the champagne,” she said.
Méthode champenoise is a sparkling wine production method where wine undergoes a second fermentation process in the bottle to produce carbon dioxide.
Supporting Australian producers these holidays will also help to boost the sector after several setbacks over the last couple of years, with bushfires rolling into Covid rolling into storms and floods.
“The Australian market needs locals to shop local this year… particularly this year is maybe going to be on track again for another challenging vintage because of all the rain.
“Fingers crossed we’re going to get a bit of sunshine and that might actually push the fruit along but most producers in the Yarra Valley lost 50 per cent of their yield last year.”
But the drop in yield didn’t affect the bubbles, with Ms Gallagher saying there is an abundance of stock across all wineries.
“People need to look local this year and shop for Australian sparkling wine because it’s an incredible quality and standard and we’ve got an abundance of it so there’s no need to be without this Christmas and New Years.”
Proseccos, sparkling wine with chardonnay and pinot noir, Blanc de Blanc are just some of the varieties that will give you that glorious pop to start the festive celebrations.
Online wine clubs, cellar doors and bottle shops will have local wine selections you can choose from.
Paying a visit to cellar doors will also allow for tastings to make sure taste buds enjoy the sparkle.
“I really encourage people to come and visit over the summer months with international tourism and in a sense domestic tourism down somewhat… We need all the visitation that we can get.”
