Anthony Allport Wine

Redefining Down Under Wines

In the bustling world of wine imports, Anthony Allport Wine is bringing a breath of fresh air to the scene with a dynamic portfolio that goes beyond the ordinary. Anthony Allport, the face behind the burgeoning wine importing venture, has carved out a niche for himself in the competitive landscape, focusing on the unique terroirs of Australia and New Zealand.

Anthony’s roots in the wine industry began in Canberra, Australia, where he immersed himself in every part of the business – from wholesale and retail to import and export. His extensive experience even led him to curate wine lists for some of the most discerning palettes, such as the Prime Minister of Australia.

After a successful stint in New York, where he set up a wine import and distribution business for a Fortune 500 company, Anthony embarked on his entrepreneurial journey in wine importation. Initially, his focus was a global portfolio that spanned major wine-producing regions; however, realizing the misconceptions surrounding Australian and New Zealand wines, Anthony pivoted to focus solely on importing and showcasing the wines of these regions.

Often lumped together due to their geographic proximity, Australian and New Zealand wines have recently seen a shift in style, moving away from the big, heavy wines of the late 90s and early 2000s, to a more nuanced and diverse selection, leaving the region facing an uphill battle to change those perceptions. Knowing firsthand the rich diversity that these regions have to offer, Anthony recognized the need for an ambassador to champion this shift and challenge the stereotypes associated with Down Under wines.

“The perception of Australian and New Zealand wines are either Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc for New Zealand and a lot of sameness in that style or big, high octane red wines and Yellowtail from Australia.” In fact, New Zealand is one of the fastest growing wine regions in the world, which is because of the aforementioned region and varietal. “It has commercialized quickly and most of the production is owned by a handful of companies. There’s no conversation about provenance or winemaking, it’s very much a bulk proposition focused on price per liter. To combat this specifically, Anthony’s mission is to elevate the category by providing retailers with better margins and offering restaurants and wine bars a selection of food-friendly wines. He believes that a modest amount of education can demonstrate that, for the same price, you can support small, family-owned, organic, and bio-dynamic farming.

This ethos is one of the unique qualities that make wines from Australia and New Zealand stand out. The commitment to quality at the vineyard level sets these wines apart from commercial brands that often rely on bulk wine markets. “One of the driving forces behind my portfolio is mainstreaming natural wine and we believe that we’re the next era of natural wine. A lot of people in the natural wine movement are so focused on the rules of natural wine, but we’re in what I call the post-natural wine era,” Anthony shared. “In Australia and New Zealand, natural wine really goes without saying. It’s such a natural place to make wine and it’s so honest. We may or may not have a certification, but we would never destroy our land by using herbicides or pesticides, so producers have really been doing this for some time now and not just jumping on a movement. It’s part of the culture.”

Moreover, the freedom from AOC or DOC laws, which restrict winemaking in regions like France and Italy, allows Australian and New Zealand winemakers to innovate and produce wines that reflect the distinct characteristics of their regions. Anthony sees this as a significant advantage, enabling the industry to be more adaptable and responsive to changes in climate and technology.

Another differentiator for Australian and New Zealand wines is they offer great value. Anthony attributes this to several factors, including the favorable exchange rate (mentioning the drop in the Australian dollar), the mainstreaming of natural wine, and the disparity in pricing with regions like Napa Valley. “If we look at Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, I think you can get the same quality from Australia at a third of the cost,” he explains. Within Anthony Allport's portfolio, several standout brands showcase the diversity and quality of wines from Down Under. One of those brands is New Zealand’s Clouston & Co., whose Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is treated very differently than the commercial style. It’s aged on its lees in a concrete egg and finished in an old French oak barrel. “It’s where people graduate to from the commercial stuff,” describes Anthony. Another brand is a certified organic producer in Marlborough called Tapi, which he describes as a bit of a homage to what the region’s Sauvignon Blanc used to be. It’s also what the locals drink or, more sophistically stated by Anthony, “what gets consumed domestically in New Zealand.” For restaurants or wine bars that see Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc as too commercial for their lists, Decibel’s Sauvignon Blanc is a great option. Hailing from Hawke’s Bay New Zealand, the winemaker produces more of a French style Sauvignon Blanc, with a soft, complex, more tropical style.

As Anthony looks to import new brands, he’s always focused on the same things – the product, the vineyard, the value and the people. In the wild, wonderful world of wine, Anthony Allport Wine isn’t bringing run-of-the-mill wines to the scene, he’s curating a backstage pass to the cool kids of the Southern Hemisphere. As myths about Aussie and Kiwi wines shatter and they continue to grow in popularity, there’s one thing that’s certain – Anthony will continue to serve up brands that we can feel good about supporting and sipping.

The unprecedented growth was primarily driven by the open borders, which helped ease labor shortages that producers struggled with during the pandemic. Additionally, the increase in tourism brought more attention to the country’s wine industry and provided a boost to small wineries. The U.S.’s insatiable thirst for New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc also pushed the country’s sales to record breaking heights, jumping 25 percent in value to $870 million. New Zealand expects further growth in the U.S. in the year ahead, suggesting that it could become a billion dollar export market for the country.

Throughout the report, much of the growth is attributed to New Zealand’s darling wine, Sauvignon Blanc. This signature style is key to the country’s export success, so much so that Clive Jones, chairman of New Zealand Winegrowers admits. “Performance of other styles struggle to match this pace, but in export markets and at home, our range of highly distinctive wine styles is a critical contributor to our reputation as a producer of the first rank.”

Export sales are particularly important to New Zealand’s wine industry: almost 90 percent of all its sales occur outside of its home market. So even though the country only produces less than two percent of global wine supply, New Zealand is the sixth-largest exporter of wine by value.

And although this report brings hope and excitement to the New Zealand wine industry, the country is currently facing a different set of challenges from the impact of Cyclone Gabrielle, which hit the country’s North Island in February. The country’s overall harvest volume is down six percent this year due to this devastating storm, so even though demand is on the rise, the production might not be able to keep up. The small, coastal region of Gisborne was hit particularly hard, with production down 43 percent. The renowned Hawke’s Bay region was also affected, but to a lesser extent. Overall, an estimated 800 hectares of vineyards lost some level of their fruit production and an additional 300 hectares of vineyards experienced significant infrastructure damage.

New Zealand Winegrowers says in the report that combating climate change through promoting sustainable practices and responding to extreme weather events like Cycline Gabrielle will continue to be a major focus.

“As with other primary industries, climate change is one of the key major challenges facing our sector; it is now a reality that producers are facing on a daily basis and is impacting day-to-day decisions,” Jones says.

Australian wine needed a wake-up call.

As if on cue, four passionate and quirky outliers exploded onto the scene. They brought wild, cloudy and ultradrinkable wines the likes of which most Aussie consumers hadn’t seen. Natural Wine had arrived like a jolt of lightning, sending shockwaves throughout the wine world, disrupting the status quo and ruffling feathers in its wake. The motley crew, which became known as much for its theatrics as for its wines, was called Natural Selection Theory and comprised Adelaide Hills-based James Erskine of Juma Wine, Anton van Klopper of Lucy Margaux Wines, Barossa Winegrower Tom Shobbrook and Sydney artist Sam Hughes.

Members hid amphorae behind velvet drapes and played music to them; leapt onto tables during trade tastings; performed interpretive dance and launched a “hot pants tour” conducting events wearing only, you guessed it, hot pants. Thanks to the foundation laid in large part by the Natural Selection Theory, few corners of the wine world have been more profoundly affected by the natural wine movement than Australia.

In the Beginning

Today, natural wine, the “nothing added, nothing taken away” approach, is an integral part of the wine landscape that questions the use of chemicals in winemaking and has attracted a new generation. Ten years ago, vin naturel was on the rise in places like Beaujolais and the Loire Valley, both spiritual homes of the movement. Yet, it was little more than a whisper in the New World. Australia already had a number of small-scale producers that practiced their own versions of traditional, low-tech winemaking. But they weren’t as disruptive or ideological as the Natural Selection Theory. “We’d travel the country in Anton’s Land Rover, shooting and fishing our way between capital cities so we could cook these foods for our events,” says Erskine. “We sold hundreds of 23-liter demijohns topped with grapeseed oil [called the] ‘Voice of the People,’ with a stainless-steel siphon and cherrywood tap. These were refillable at ‘terroir cell’ stations in Sydney and Melbourne, where we’d drop off 500-liter barrels of wine for that purpose.” The purpose was to energize the public and offer an alternative to what the group deemed overindustrialized wines. “We were just bored by and uninterested in homogenous, manufactured wines,” Erskine says. By contrast, the wines that they made were singular. The grapes were farmed organically and biodynamically, and the wines were made without manipulations or additives; often, the widely used preservative sulfur dioxide was omitted. These stripped-back methods gained adoration from some and criticism by others. The latter group took issue both with the term “natural” and with the wines themselves, which could be extreme to the point of faulty. Nevertheless, the Natural Selection Theory, with its wild wines and even wilder behavior, had made its mark. And it wasn’t alone. There were others working in this vein, albeit more quietly, many of whom launched labels around the same time.

“The emergence of natty wine in Oz in the late 2000s, early 2010s pretty much coincides with the country’s wine community as a whole being on the bones of its arse,” says Max Allen, an Australian wine writer. “The energy and disruption of natural wine was a huge breath of fresh, reviving air.”

The Middle Phase

In the far western corner of Australia, Ben Gould and his wife, Naomi, purchased a small plot of vineyards at the edge of Margaret River’s main highway. He couldn’t bear to spray chemicals on the same land where his young family were being raised, so he began to convert the farm to organics and biodynamics. Fresh from travels in Europe, where he was introduced to natural wine, he released Blind Corner’s first minimal intervention wines in 2010. “In the winery, it was all experimentation, calculated risk and blind faith,” says Gould of his early natural winemaking attempts. “There was not a lot, if any, knowledge on this style of winemaking in the region at the time. I made a lot of mistakes, made a lot of shit wine trying to make clean, expressive wines with no packet fixes.” Gould was joined by a like-minded couple, Sarah Morris and Iwo Jakimowicz, who launched their Si Vintners label in 2011. The wines were made from vineyards in the southern part of Margaret River that they’d converted to biodynamics.

Clutching bottles of their flor-covered Semillon, Chincheclé, Morris and Jakimowicz flew with Gould across the country and introduced their wines to the world at Australia’s inaugural natural wine fair, Rootstock Sydney, in 2013. Throngs packed the event’s small venue, jockeying for face time with Aussie natural winemakers, plus some star international producers. The following four Rootstock events, housed in a significantly bigger venue than the first, overflowed with both natural wine fans and a growing cohort of producers. Each year’s success helped cement the movement’s influence Down Under.

As their colorful labels popped up all around the country, so did bars, shops and restaurants that specialized in natural wines. The Basket Range, a tiny sub region of the Adelaide Hills, became the hotbed of the movement. “We went through the phase of experimentation, implementing the bedrocks of natural wine in Australia, and it was very theatrical and colorful,” says journalist and presenter Mike Bennie, who cofounded and codirected Rootstock. “Then what happened was the next stage: People were excited by [natural wine] and wanted to be part of it all. “It drew people like Gareth Belton [of Gentle Folk Wines], a botanist by training, into James Erskine’s winery. It drew in the very important young Broderick brothers [of Basket Range Wine], whose father planted the first vineyards in the Basket Range, down to Anton van Klopper’s house, which was next door,” says Bennie.

“We went through the phase of experimentation, implementing the bedrocks of natural wine in Australia, and it was very theatrical and colorful… People were excited by [natural wine] and wanted to be part of it all.” –Mike Bennie, cofounder, Rootstock

He refers to this period as the “middle phase” of natural wine, which attracted intellectuals and second-generation winemakers. Belton and the Brodericks both fit firmly within the confines of natural wine. They farmed their vineyards without chemicals and made wines with minimal intervention. But the criteria for who was in the fold varied. It was often determined as much by those who sold the wine as those that made it. Social media fanned the flames.

“So you had this genesis from the Natural Selection Theory into this very broad interpretation of ‘natural,’ [with fruit] frequently not sourced from organic/biodynamic grapes, which is the foundation stone of what natural wine is,” says Bennie. “But what I think has happened now—and this is sort of the third phase—is that a lot of people who have been drawn into the middle phase have been found out for what they are. [Their wines] can be still celebrated and enjoyed, but what it’s also done is focused people back to [the] vineyard.”

Natural Wine Today

True to the name of the original gang, Australia’s natural wine movement is performing its own kind of natural selection. And the wines are better because of it. “Australia often moves quite quickly on these things,” says Bennie. “The 10- to 15-year period this has all occurred in is quite remarkable to see. There is now very high-quality wine coming out of this idiom.” Gould’s Blind Corner label has enjoyed exponential growth. In 2014, he purchased a nearly 50-acre property, five times the size of his original one, and converted it to biodynamics. His wines are the expressive beauties he dreamt of a decade ago. Morris and Jakimowicz have also been learning. Today, Si Vintners focuses on pristine, ageworthy Chardonnays reflective of their unique site.

“The number of producers who today identify as natural or are a bit natural-ish or tick a lot of the natural boxes is uncountable.” –Max Allen, wine writer

Margaret River has come a long way, too.

“Now you have fresh energy coming in from new producers, and established wineries and vineyards moving this direction as well,” says Gould. “Our oldest winery and vineyard, Vasse Felix, recently started converting their entire [800 acres or so] across to certified organic. That is a huge message to the rest of the industry. More wineries are not acidifying and using wild yeast in the winery, skin ferments, concrete tanks, qvevri, etc. Some older established places are even making pét-nat. It is a very exciting time to be in Margaret River.”

It’s a very exciting time to be in Australia, period. Natural wine may still occupy just a small slice of the wine market, but its influence is widespread. There are few producers in Oz today who don’t question the use of chemicals like herbicides in the vineyards or don’t experiment with wild ferments and other “natural” techniques. “The number of producers who today identify as natural or are a bit natural-ish or tick a lot of the natural boxes is uncountable,” says Allen.

As for the Natural Selection Theory, it more or less disbanded at the end of 2012, when Sam Hughes tragically took his own life. While Erskine, van Klopper and Shobbrook continue to craft some of the country’s most boundary-pushing wines, the Natural Selection Theory accomplished what it set out to do. The groundwork has been laid for a more open-minded, creative, environmentally conscious and irreverent Australian wine culture. Perhaps this reflective, so-called third phase of natural wine, as more producers focus their gaze back onto the vineyards, will more clearly define the boundaries of what it means to be “natural.”