Wine innovation

The link provided is to an article on The Australian online ("Hail, the clever country") about how Australian society is content to rest on it's previous inventions (or it's illusions of grandeur in this regard), and how the author deems this unhealthy for the country. I think it's a rather frank evaluation and discussion that more countries need to have with themselves.

I especially think the wine industry should be taking a good long hard look at itself in just this manner. That would be (and is) easier to do in countries which don't have as much "tradition" to wade through to get to the heart of the matter, but even so, one can't discount the fact that innovation in the wine industry comes from all corners - new and old.

Autralians with the bag-in-a-box ("wine cask" in Oz lingo), micro-ox from France, etc.
Everyone's contributing from time to time, but how many stop to look at how it happens or what the chain of events leading to them are...? And if we stop & think we've done enough, doesn't that then stymie the process?

Better yet, can you see this article ever being written by a Bordeaux vigneron? I can't...at least not without envisioning the resulting tar & feathering they would receive (and I'm not speaking figuratively here)....
Yet sadly, it's the "old world" which needs this introspective the most - not because their wines are inferior (that's not what I'm trying to imply) - but rather because once you gain the position of "King of the Hill" you'd best take a moment to look around and see what you need to do to keep that lofty spot.

When you relax, sit down and stop observing what everyone else is doing, you're just allowing everyone else to sneak up and topple you.