Australia noses out foreign vintners - France is dethroned and Italy gets the boot as wines from Down Under are cheered

Bob Mangam, of Eastwick, browsing the wine aisles of the state liquor store at 12th and Chestnut Streets, likes to try an Australian Shiraz or an Italian Chianti.

"I started with Yellow Tail, and then I tried others," he said of his initiation into Australian wines, following a path taken by many American wine drinkers. "I like trying new ones."

Led by the upstarts from Down Under, foreign wines are enjoying unprecedented popularity in the United States, cashing in with clever marketing, attractive prices, and -- not incidentally -- tasty products.

Australia has passed Italy and France to become the top-selling foreign winemaker locally. And the Australians are threatening to take the top spot nationally, as well: In 2005, Australia sold 53 million gallons in the United States, just behind Italy's 58.5 million gallons, according to Eric Schmidt, research director of Adams Beverage Group, which tracks the industry. France, with sales lagging, was a distant third, at 25.5 million gallons.

Spain, Germany and New Zealand have also seen their wine sales increase dramatically in the last five years, as foreign wines have grown to be a fourth of all sales in the United States.

"People are experimenting with new tastes, new flavors, new regions," Schmidt said.

Part of the attraction of imported wines, Schmidt said, is the notion that "foreign" is synonymous with "sophisticated," that it is a premium buy. But for many buyers, foreign wines, especially Australian wines, are increasingly attractive for the opposite reason: They are unpretentious, with fun, easy-to-read labels, and they are as inexpensive as popular California wines. And they taste good.

"An awful lot of people are buying Yellow Tail, and I'll bet a majority don't even know it's from Australia," said Jim Short, director of marketing for the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. Buyers, he said, are attracted by its "fruitiness" and by its price, $6.99 a bottle.

Most wine drinkers, he said, are looking for value and are finding it in foreign bottles.

Sales of imported wine in Pennsylvania reached 4.3 million gallons last year, up 77 percent from 2001. Sales of domestic wine were up 14 percent over the same period.

The charge has been led by Australia, home of the hugely popular, inexpensive Yellow Tail with its kangaroo label, and the pricier Shirazes of Two Hands, attracting buyers with velvety taste and such offbeat names as Gnarly Dudes and Bad Impersonator. Pennsylvania saw a 403 percent jump in reds from Australia, and a 263 percent boost in whites, between 2001 and 2005.

The story is much the same in New Jersey.

At Canal's Bottle Stop in Marlton, wine buyer Charles Beatty said Australian wines made up about 20 percent of the store's sales.

"Australian wines are through the roof," he said. "Yellow Tail made the market, and it's doubling and doubling every year." Beatty said Spanish and Portuguese wine sales are also burgeoning as local drinkers venture into foreign vintages. Longtime favorite Italy continues to sell well, but France -- the world's top winemaker -- is slipping.

Nationwide, sales of French wine fell from 27 million gallons in 2001 to 25.5 million gallons in 2005. And in Pennsylvania, sales of French wines were down 21.6 percent in the same period.

Popular French brands such as Georges Duboeuf and B&G "have faded," Short said, because "people think they can get just as good quality from Australia or even California."

Schmidt said a lot of foreign wineries were trying to make themselves accessible to fickle American consumers with eye-catching labels and unlikely names.

"Music Room" and "Dark Horse" are two from South Africa's Flagstone winery. "Goats do Roam" rose is a South African label that spoofs the French region of Cotes du Rhone. Australia sends us "Screwed" wines, with screw-top closures, of course, and "Four Emus" and "Layer Cake."

"A lot of people try to find a gimmick, but there has to be something to it," Schmidt said. "It's what's inside that will sustain the brand."

At a recent wine tasting at the State Store at 12th and Chestnut, sippers were favorably comparing a Green Point chardonnay from the Yarra Valley in Australia to a Rutherford Hill chardonnay from California's Napa Valley. Sterling Roig, host of the event and the former wine director of the restaurant Marseille in New York City, extolled the acidity and fruitiness of the Aussie wine.

Standing nearby was Rod Thomas, part-owner of an Australian winery, Sobells Polkobin, in the Hunter Valley. The Australian had wandered into the store and took note of the prices he found.

"You can get it cheaper than we can," he said. He attributed the boom in Australian wines in the United States and in Britain to "a matter of quality and price."

"Especially in the U.K., they're buying a lot of it. The French are going nuts, because they can't get their wine across the English Channel," Thomas said with a smile. "That's OK. I like to see the French going nuts."