The price of gold in the wine world

Whitey considers the current tendency among wine critics and publishers to award more wines higher scores. “If you’re not a good farmer in this country, you just don’t survive,” the respected ABC Landline reporter, Pip Courtney, recently told us. After the release of James Halliday’s latest guide to the wines and wineries of Australia came the annual frisson of excitement about the large number of wineries awarded five stars. It would seem James and his team believe that most wineries that survive are pretty good, too.