The first we tried was the Yarra Yering 1997 Chardonnay – well past its peak. Gold hues, appley, slightly oxidised nose. Soft on the palate, faint fino flavours along with dried pear. Lacked acid balance.

Next was the Yarra Yering 1998 Dry White No. 1. – a semillon and sauvignon blanc blend. Almost water pale in colour. Lifted nose of dried grasses, with a hint of lemon zest. Light, elegant, steely dry palate. Beautifully structured, fruit starting to develop secondary vinous characters. Lip-smacking finish of almost perfect acid balance. If I had tasted it blind my first guess would have been “Fine French dry style.” Curious to drink one of the best whites I’ve had in a year with such a simple meal.

Nothing wrong with the stuff, occasionally – but every day? Like watching endless re-runs of Frasier – monotonous.

The river of NZSB flowing into Australia has turned into a torrent. And especially at the cheap end there tends to be a certain sameness of style: underdone, lightweight, green grassy, acidic and thin.

At least Australian SBs exhibit a wide range of styles – from tropical to cool climate, but to this palate NZSB has become a cold-climate, one–dimensional trip. I mean, how many hits of hyper-methoxypyrazine can a wine drinker handle in a year? It’s almost enough to drive one back to Australian over-oaked chardonnay.

 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.