Spirit of Australia
Expat vintner Chris Williams’ answer to the grape glut is Boomerang vodka.
Chris Williams is talking the winemaker’s language of love. He’s speaking of fruit and texture. Of mouth-feel and finish. One could easily imagine the Melbourne-born, Sonoma County-based vintner swirling and tasting his 2001 Wattle Creek Winery cabernet sauvignon, the vintage chosen by Decanter magazine in 2005 as the best of its class in California. Or his Alexander Valley shiraz, grown in Sonoma soil from Barossa Valley root stock and made by winemaker and fellow expatriate Australian Michael Scholz.
But one would be wrong.
What Williams is describing is his latest foray into the beverage market. It’s vodka. Grape-based vodka. Five-times distilled from a melange of Barossa Valley white grapes, bottled in Australia and then shipped for sale in the US, Williams’ adopted home for the past 25 years.
It’s an Australian first and an exciting addition to what Williams believes will be the next boom drink on the international market. “As a sector I think it’s an area that has a huge potential,” he says. “There are (grape) surpluses, depending on the varietals, in various parts of the world. So it wouldn’t surprise me to see a grape-based vodka out of Chile, Argentina (or) South Africa.
“I also think the quality is better (than grain-based vodkas) and, to be very honest, not every country producing grapes is putting every grape into a bottle of wine.”
Williams’ latter comment is clearly no secret. So well documented is the Australian wine industry’s current oversupply that there is little reason to expand here. Suffice to say, bottom-dollar grape prices combined with knowledge of the 2004 sale of Grey Goose vodka for $US2 billion ($A2.6 billion) to get the entrepreneurial winemaker thinking. And what he thought was Boomerang - a vodka spirit made in the Barossa Valley and now rolling out in stores and restaurants across the US.
It’s a clever undertaking, combining the premium appeal of vodka with the elegance of wine. The taste differs (grape-based vodkas generally have a cleaner, milder palate than some of the harsher, throat-burning grain- or potato-based spirits on the market), but make no mistake: this is an 80 proof (40 per cent), no-doubt-about-it vodka.
Which brings us to a technical footnote. High-quality Russian vodkas are traditionally made from rye, but the word has grown to encompass vodkas made from the distillation of oats, barley, potatoes and even syrups such as treacle and molasses. A grape-based version goes through the same four-step process of fermentation, distillation, filtration and dilution, taking about a tonne of grapes to produce 25 cases of 750 ml bottles of vodka. This heavy distillation process means either red or white grapes can be used, but the necessity of producing a clear spirit makes the latter a more desirable option.
Of course, Boomerang is not the first grape vodka to hit the market, but it’s Williams’ belief that Australia’s hard-earned reputation as a great New World winemaking nation will add to its appeal; the vodka’s Barossa Valley origins lending it instant cache with spirit-loving wine aficionados. Not to mention grain-intolerant drinkers.
Boomerang’s price is also a big draw. Courtesy of the aforementioned dive in Australian grape prices, Williams has been able to secure reasonably high-quality white grapes at low prices, resulting in a good grape-based vodka retailing at about $US20 for a 750 ml bottle, about $US15 less than its direct French and American competitors, Ciroc and Roth.
It’s a quality-to-price point ratio the vintner refers to as the Yellow Tail formula. “Australia - certainly in the States and probably in Britain also - has a great reputation of very good quality to value,” he says. “So what our friends at Yellow Tail have with wine, I’m hoping I can deliver along those same lines in the vodka market.”
But ultimately it is the taste that Williams believes will attract drinkers looking for a spirit with a difference: the vodka has a velvety character, a hint of sweetness to begin with, and no medicinal aftertaste. Williams believes it is more subtle than Ciroc (sweeter in comparison), with a smoother finish than what he calls the “somewhat flabby” Roth.
Be it the taste or the price, by all accounts Williams is already on his way to snatching a big segment of his desired market.
America’s popular pseudo-Australian restaurant chain, Outback Steakhouse, has picked up the label to sell in its 300 locations America-wide. Williams has also secured distribution through Southern Wines and Spirits - the largest alcohol distributor in the US, with accounts in 21 states. The result is a clear sell-through on Boomerang’s first-run batch of 6500 cases. In two years, should Williams’ predictions prove accurate, the figure will jump to about 100,000 cases a year.
All this success brings the question of future Australian sales to the forefront, one that Williams is still considering. He’s hesitant, he admits - though it’s the market, not the product, giving him cause for concern.
“As a general comment, Australians aren’t very pro Aussie-sounding things,” Williams says, again citing Yellow Tail as an example of a home-grown company shipping millions of cases overseas against much lower local sales. “I met with an ex-Foster’s guy and he said, ‘Chris, you know, our experiences trying to do an Aussie thing in Australia? Well, for your vodka, you’re going to need to put a Russian name on it or something.”
Boomeranski, anyone?