He suggests we have to get over our cultural cringe and instead support the local industry by drinking more Australian wine.

I don’t see any evidence to support the alleged cultural cringe effect and I can’t see that in the short to medium term a few weeks boycott of imports will have any significant impact on Australian made wine sales.

There are other more obvious reasons for the popularity of imports. For example, I used to believe that Australian wine was better value for money than imported wine at any price point. That is, you could buy a locally made wine for say, $20 and be fairly confident that any imported wine bought for $20 at the same shop would not offer the same quality.

Not any more. And in a strange way it’s partly the fault of the Australian wine industry.

In recent decades, supported by soaring overseas sales, winemakers have been happy to profit from the resultant increase in price of their wine on the local market. Now, with the boost in the value of the Australian dollar, and with increased competition from new world wine makers, Australian exports have become dearer for overseas buyers and that market has begun to dry up.

As Australian wine exports have become less competitive overseas, imported wines have become cheaper. And, using modern technology (provided by Australia in many cases), imported wines have improved significantly in quality.

It is not surprising then that Australian consumers have turned to imports in their quest for affordable variety and diversity. This is not a cultural cringe. It is a free market based on supply and demand.

I always thought that the strength and success of the Australian wine market was based on offering punters quality product at a competitive price, not on appeals to provincialism. Just shows how much I know about marketing.

See also Aussie petition accused of protectionism and Kiwi wine stays popular with Aussies.

 You can more or less judge the state of the Australian wine industry by the quality of wine available in casks. When cask wine is generally crap, it’s bad for consumers and means the industry is making a packet, selling all it produces across the price spectrum.

 When cask wine is good, like now, it indicates that wine makers and exporters are taking a beating and selling at bargain prices. Consumers love it.

 By way of illustration, recently I bought two flavoursome cask wines, the two litre Yalumba 2008 riesling for $12, and from New Zealand, the Dimension two litre Marlborough sauvignon blanc for under $15. I suggest that in times of wine shortage, both these wines would have entered the market in bottles, at a significantly higher price.

 Why the cheap wine? Currently, due to over-planting and bountiful harvests, there’s too much wine of all sorts available in Australia. Similarly, in New Zealand, they’re swimming in sauvignon blanc.

 And, if a wine glut is not enough, now we read that the Australian dollar is worth 50 per cent more than it was a year ago. In simple terms, this means that Australian wines cost a lot more overseas. See for example, Soaring dollar knocks the froth off Foster’s: Exports and Wine exports increase but values decline.

 The trickledown effect from a poor wine export market, combined with the wine glut, means that in the short term at least, drinkers of cask wine (not to mention cleanskins) are in for a treat.

 But that’s not all. As the Oz dollar climbs, imports gradually become cheaper. Last week I bought a bottle of Piper Heidsieck NV for the bargain price of $33.