Call it “Tall poppy syndrome,” call it “Robert Parker backlash,” call it what you like, but it seems that in every wine region in Australia and New Zealand there are plenty of winemakers eager to tell you “We don’t grow Barossa Shiraz here!” Read between the lines and they are on about elegance, finesse, low alcohol and controlled oak.

It’s a simplification, certainly, and whether it’s fair or not, it’s a sign of the times. The Parker wave has hit and now it’s retreating back into the ocean of the wine world. And the Barossa knows it.

“We are in diabolical trouble. Global warming will bring about higher baumes in our grapes and higher alcohols in our wines.”

The voice was that of Wolf Blass at a gathering of winemakers in the Barossa late last year.

“As far as I am concerned, Robert Parker has to be blamed for this,” he went on. “And, unfortunately, we followed by making our wines in this style. But we will not succeed in the long-term if we do not stop – we are going to get attacked by world health authorities. I am warning you winemakers, we are going to get hit commercially if we maintain this style. Those wines which are over fifteen percent should not get awarded at any wine show anywhere.”

And with a thump of his fist on the table he sat down.

A strong warning, certainly, but hard to take seriously when, not six months later, Blass took to the road as ambassador for the launch of Wolf Blass Platinum (15% alcohol), Black Label (15%), Grey Label Cabernet (15%), and Grey Label Shiraz (15.5%).

Is the Barossa serious about pulling back on alcohol and oak or is it simply spouting the rhetoric that it thinks we want to hear?

Penfolds Chief Winemaker Peter Gago speaks of wealthy Americans pulling Australian wines out of their cellars in recent years. “They bought high alcohol, 99 and 100 point wines five or eight years ago, and now they’re finding that they’ve fallen over,” he said. “High alcohols just have to come down.”

And Gago is working proactively to achieve this, although three drought seasons and two record heatwaves in a row haven’t helped. “In 2007 we picked Magill Estate Shiraz on February 8, the earliest in 160 years,” he said. And then he picked it earlier again in 2008 and earlier still in 2009, and was criticised for picking so early. “I don’t care what your textbooks say,” Gago responded. “We make table wine here, not vintage port!”

When Andrew Wigan started making Stonewell Shiraz with Peter Lehmann in the late 1980s, alcohols were around 13.5%. “We have since increased alcohol to between 14% and 14.5%, but I don’t want to go the way of some of the makers in the hills behind us who are letting alcohol levels get too high,” he said. Over the period of this evolution, the wine has progressed from 100% American oak to 90% French oak. “We’ve never gone out of our way to make a blockbuster,” Wigan explained. “We’ve always looked for a sense of balance.”

He is pleased to receive reports from Europe that his wines are “not an Australian style but have more finesse and are more European.” At the same time, though, he is quick to point out that the Barossa can’t make delicate, elegant wines. “We make big wines and we need to go with our strengths.”

For Robert O’Callaghan’s Rockford, the philosophy has always been one of consistency. “In a world where marketing is driven by a new product every year, my model is based on keeping the wine style rock solid from the day we started,” he explained. “I don’t know how I ever got put into the big red wine category because I’ve never tried to do that. I’ve always tried to make the wines finer. The easiest thing in the world to do in the Barossa is to get the grapes ripe and make big wines. What’s hard to do is to tune that down so you’ve got the power without it being too obvious.” For O’Callaghan, the best compliment is to be told by a European that his wines look more Old World than New World.

Just across the road from Rockford, the last thing that Charles Melton wants is for his Nine Popes Grenache blend to be referred to as a ‘Rhone blend’. For him, Australian blends have their own identity and should not be constantly linked back to France. And he sees this as the right time for that identity to be furthered. “The last twenty years have just been exploratory,” he suggested. “Now that we have some real knowledge and some experienced practitioners we can take it further.”

Melton has just purchased a large property at the highest point in High Eden. It will raise some eyebrows later this year when he plants bush vine Grenache in an area renowned for cool climate Chardonnay and Riesling. “I want to see some really cool climate, dry grown, low-yielding Grenache,” he said. He suspects the perfumes produced on such a site will provide an ideal blending partner for his Barossa floor fruit. He also has plans to put in a field block of all thirteen of the southern Rhone varieties.

Despite the criticisms levelled at it, there is a string of producers in the Barossa who have, for some time, maintained balance and control across most of their portfolio. Lehmann, Penfolds and Yalumba are the most prominent. Meanwhile, smaller producers like Fox Gordon, Teusner and Dutschke lead a band of new(ish)comers.

Their wines are setting a benchmark for the region and they can be proud to say, “We grow Barossa Shiraz here.” With wines like this to carry the flag, perhaps other regions will one day be proud to say the same.