I WAS standing in a Post Office queue, when somone said to me: "What's wrong with Aussie wines?"

The words came from Bruce, a huge guy standing behind me.

He explained that he was originally from Adelaide, that he read my column in the Worcester News and couldn't help noticing how little I wrote about Australian wines.

I like the good ones very much, I told him, and went on to explain that only the other day at a prestigious black tie dinner I had put on two quite splendid Aussie wines.

A sumptuous Cabernet Sauvignon, Vasse Felix 2002, from the Margaret River and an outstanding dessert wine, Elderton Botrytis Semillon 2002, that came from Griffith, in New South Wales.

Both these wines had been carefully selected to accompany tender fillets of Welsh Black beef and a lemon tart with a blackcurrant coulis.

The Vasse Felix was £9.98 a bottle and the Elderton £9.60 a half-bottle, so sadly, neither are likely to be thought of as budget priced.

But they married magnificently with the dishes they accompanied so that the effect of the whole was greater than that of the parts.

I explained that I am not a fan of over-hyped wood-chipped perfumed Chardonnays and jammy, in-you-face Cabernets and Shiraz that fill supermarket shelves.

They may have fruit, I told him. But far too often they lack any elegance or finesse, I said.

However, you have to admire the wonderful marketing job done by the Australians over the past 12 to 15 years.

They have developed and promoted big brands like Jacob's Creek - which oddly enough is actually owned by Pernod-Ricard of France - Barramundi, Hardys and Nottage Hill.

The pity is that it is these brands that grab too many headlines and give the impression that they are typical of the island continent's produce when, if you pay just a little extra, you will get so much more quality.

If you really want to experience good value - and by that I mean a fair balance between quality and price - then look for names like Brown Brothers or Grant Burge.

Or better still, drop into an independent wine merchant and talk to them about Australian wines in the £6.50 to £7.50 price bracket.

You could end up enjoying the wines from Down Under just as much as I do, even though Bruce doesn't seem to think that I write about them often enough.