【英语生活】澳大利亚葡萄酒能吸引中国人吗？

James Halliday has never been busier, though he admits his commitments have made him a bit grumpy.

Every year, the former lawyer and winemaker churns out 'Australian Wine Companion,' his ever-expanding guide to wines in the region. The 2012 edition is his biggest yet: At 776 pages, it contains tasting notes for more than 6,000 wines and profiles of more than 1,000 wineries. A favorite among oenophiles, the book is the best-selling wine guide in Australia.

This year, in what he calls 'a moment of madness,' he agreed to write a second guide called '1001 Wines Under $20.' The book is slated to come out in November.

'I thought, 'Well, it's only 1,000 wines, I'll do that very quickly,' he says. 'It turns out it was murder.'

Mr. Halliday spoke with the Journal's Jason Chow about his new 2012 guide, the state of the Australian wine market, and how Australia can capitalize on the growing Chinese audience. The following interview has been edited.

The Wall Street Journal: What's your process for updating the guide?

James Halliday: I start my tastings in early June, but my peak tasting period is in early September. For 12 to 14 days, I'll be tasting every day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., two breaks during the day, for an annual Top 100 wines that I write for the Weekend Australian newspaper. I'll have tasted 1,200 to 1,400 wines for that. I taste 120 wines a day for 14 days. All wineries in Australia are invited to submit. The bulk of the wine notes comes from this.

My other source of tasting notes is from wine judging, mostly at regional wine shows. I deliberately judge smaller regional shows, because I pick up on small wineries that won't surface at capital-city wine shows.

The real ugly time for us is from January to late March, where we send emails to every winery in Australia to update their information. Winemakers come and go, and we have to update our database.

WSJ: What has changed the most about Australia's wine scene over the years?

Mr. Halliday: Back in our 2000 guide, there were only 1,000 wineries. Today, there's 2,400 active wineries. The industry has grown almost 1.5 times in the past 11 years. Even in this edition, we've added 105 new wineries.

WSJ: In Australia, there's still a massive wine glut and yet more wineries are still popping up. Tell us your take on the local industry today.

Mr. Halliday: It's paradoxical, isn't it? But the wine lake [the excess wine produced] is a byproduct of the dramatic increase of the wine industry, due to exporters, not those who were producing for domestic consumption.

Back in 1995, I was on a thinktank panel that did a 30-year vision for the wine industry, and we predicted that in 2025, we'd see the industry become a 4.5 billion Australian dollar (US$4.5 billion) industry with A$2.5 billion in exports and A$2 billion in domestic sales. But in fact, we hit those numbers in 2002. What we projected to happen in 30 years actually occurred in seven years.

Then in 2004, 2005 and 2006, we had three vintages that were all very good vintages ─ very good weather conditions ─ and three very huge vintages. They created this excess of wine. And the industry since then hasn't taken enough steps to remove vines and rationalize itself since.

The contrary argument is this: If we held market share of the world as we had in 2002, we wouldn't have a wine lake. It's not simple matter of overproduction, but it's also falling export demand. The reason for the falling demand is a number of things. The strong Australian dollar plays a big factor.

And the competition is harder too. There was a diaspora [of Australian winemakers] that went across Europe, mainly Southern France. Australian winemakers went there and started making better-quality wine, and showed them how. In the 1980s and 1990s, we were producing wine in Australia that was clearly better that any comparable wine out of Europe in terms of price. We were killing France. France was the top exporter to the U.K., and we pushed them down the list. But now, the Europeans have come up in quality.

WSJ: How does Australia break into the Chinese market?

Mr. Halliday: By persistence. It will require us taking a Chinese view of things and plan for the long-term.

Australia already has 20% market share of the Chinese imported wine market, only trailing France at 40%. And China is Australia's largest market for wines that are sold at more than US$10. And by volume, China is the fourth-largest market, after the U.K., U.S. and Canada.

History tells you that whenever you have a strong trading relationship between two countries ─ and here it's about coal and iron ore ─ other things will get sucked into the proposition. Australia could do nothing and sit on its hands, and wine exports would still increase. But of course, we're not just going to sit on our hands.

詹姆斯•哈利迪（James Halliday）从来没有这么忙过，他承认工作压力让自己有点脾气暴躁。

每年，这位曾经的律师和酿酒师都会推出《澳大利亚葡萄酒手册》（Australian Wine Companion），这是一本内容不断扩充的澳大利亚葡萄酒指南。2012年版是最厚的一本：有776页，包括6,000多种葡萄酒的品酒记录和1,000多家葡萄酒厂的介绍资料。这本书在葡萄酒爱好者中很受欢迎，是澳大利亚最畅销的葡萄酒指南。

Maxxium Hong Kong詹姆斯•哈利迪今年──他称之为“疯狂之年”──他同意写第二本葡萄酒指南，名为《20美元以下的1001种葡萄酒》（1001 Wines Under $20）。这本书计划于11月出版。

“我想，‘只有1,000种葡萄酒而已，我很快就能写完。’”他说，“结果发现写起来难得要命。”

哈利迪与《华尔街日报》的记者Jason Chow谈到了他新出的2012年葡萄酒指南、澳大利亚葡萄酒市场的现状、以及澳大利亚如何开拓不断增长的中国葡萄酒市场。以下为经过编辑的访谈内容。

《华尔街日报》（WSJ）：您更新葡萄酒指南要经历什么过程？

詹姆斯•哈利迪：我在6月初开始品酒，但我的高峰品酒期是在9月初。在12至14天中，我每天从早7点品到晚7点，中间休息两次，为的是给《澳大利亚人报周末版》（Weekend Australian）撰写年度葡萄酒100强的专栏。我会为此品尝1,200至1,400种葡萄酒。在14天中，我每天品尝120种葡萄酒。所有澳大利亚的葡萄酒厂都会接到提交酒样的邀请。葡萄酒指南里的大多数品酒记录就这样产生了。

我的其他品酒记录来自评酒会，主要是在地区酒展上的评酒会。我在小型地区酒展上仔细评酒，因为我很注意那些没有出现在大都市酒展上的小酒商。

我们真正焦头烂额的时候是从1月到3月底，那时我们会给澳大利亚的每个葡萄酒厂发电子邮件，请他们提供最新信息。葡萄酒厂生生灭灭，因此我们必须更新我们的数据库。

WSJ：在这些年中，澳大利亚葡萄酒业变化最大的是什么？

哈利迪：在我们2000年的指南中，只有1,000家酒厂。现在，指南中有2,400家活跃的酒厂。这个行业在过去11年中几乎增长了1.5倍。即使在这版指南中，我们也已增加了105家新酒厂。

WSJ：在澳大利亚，仍存在葡萄酒严重供过于求的情况，然而还是有更多酒厂出现。请告诉我们您对澳大利亚葡萄酒业现状的看法。

哈利迪：这很矛盾，不是吗？但葡萄酒湖（生产出的过量葡萄酒）是葡萄酒业急剧增长的副产品，究其原因在于出口商，而不是为国内消费而生产的酒商。

1995年时，我在一个智库小组，为葡萄酒行业做30年预测，当时我们预测到2025年时，澳大利亚葡萄酒业的产值将达45亿澳元（45亿美元），其中出口为25亿澳元，国内销售额为20亿澳元。但实际上，我们在2002年就达到了这些数字。我们预计发生在30年后的情况实际上在7年后就发生了。

此后，在2004年、2005年和2006年，我们连续迎来三个非常好的年景──天气条件很棒──而且三年的葡萄收获量都很多。这使得葡萄酒产量过多。自从那时起，葡萄酒行业削减葡萄种植量、合理调节葡萄酒产量的步子迈得一直不够大。

有一种观点认为：如果我们在世界葡萄酒市场的占有率保持在2002年时的水平，就不会出现葡萄酒湖了。这不是一个简单的生产过剩问题，它也是出口需求下降的问题。需求下降的原因有很多。澳元走强是一个重要因素。

而且世界葡萄酒市场的竞争也更激烈了。（一些澳大利亚酒商）迁往欧洲各国，主要是法国南部。澳大利亚酿酒师到了那里，开始酿造更高质量的葡萄酒，并向他们显示如何酿造葡萄酒。20世纪80年代和90年代，我们在澳大利亚生产的葡萄酒明显优于欧洲生产的同等价位葡萄酒。我们挤垮了法国。法国当时是向英国出口葡萄酒最多的国家，而我们把它的排名挤了下去。但现在，欧洲人的葡萄酒质量赶上来了。

WSJ：澳大利亚是如何打入中国市场的？

哈利迪：靠坚持不懈。这要求我们用中国的角度看问题，并作出长期计划。

澳大利亚已经拥有中国进口葡萄酒市场20%的份额，紧随占40%中国市场份额的法国之后。中国是澳大利亚售价超过10美元的葡萄酒的最大市场。从销量上看，中国是继英国、美国和加拿大之后，澳大利亚葡萄酒出口的第四大市场。

历史经验告诉我们，无论何时，当两个国家拥有紧密的贸易关系时──煤炭和铁矿石目前是澳中贸易关系的纽带──其他好事自然而然就来了。澳大利亚即使什么都不做，我们的葡萄酒对华出口也依然可以继续增长。当然，我们不会什么都不做。