But image-wise, internationally, the Murray, and its estuary, is quickly becoming our equivalent of the Amazon Basin. A posh pleasure industry based on the totally unnecessary luxury commodity, wine, doesn’t want to be associated with destroying the Amazon Basin. But that’s what it’s done.

In the same news bulletins that reported the Constellation retreat, Dean Brown was on, spraying big time about how us citizens don’t appreciate the hard work Mike Rann and Karlene Maywald are putting into the river. The Brown Man can flush red and lecture, believe me. But suddenly he was doing it for Robin and Catwoman.

Not long ago it was Premier Brown arranging some water rights for his mates in the wine biz who saw Langhorne Creek as a little Coonawarra conveniently close to Adelaide. The vineyards increased from 471 hectares to 4700 within a few years, and now there’s no water and many tears. This sudden lapse coincides with Mr. Brown becoming Mike Rann’s Droughtmeister, not to mention chairman of Hillgrove, the miner who’s about to dig the biggest pit this side of Roxby at Kanmantoo.

But open pits are thirsty. No worries. Fill the sails of Mount Barker Council and The Courier with bumptious self-congratulatory bullshit about the mining boom being good for the Hills, thus justifying the construction of another one or two thousand villas to house all the lucky employees.

This presents a crisis: what are we gonna do with all this grey water this new Tupperware Tuscany has produced? Easy. Put in a nice little wetland to keep the kiddies and the greens happy with a few shags, coots and ducklings, and flog the overflow to the mine. An environmental triumph matched only by Banrock! But this is where Dino becomes the Joker: riparian rights. Any effluent from Mount Barker should flow straight to Langhorne Creek, which has no water in the Brown pipes.

This may help replace the water they took out of the river a little upstream to supply Mount Barker’s Villa Rash/Greywater Factory so they can fill the kiddies’ wetlands and keep the miners happy. Whew!

The hubris of prospective winegrape investors is similarly malignant: they’re doing soil tests at Langhorne Creek for new big plantings. Now. These, no doubt, intend to take water from one of the private pipes being run past the forthcoming Wellington Weir to catch the last drops of fresh water that managed to get past the Mount Barker pipe. Just think. A few years back it would have run down there to Langhorne Creek, through the Lake, all by itself.

I know many of you think this column should be about wine. But Thirst is thirst, and water is an important gastronomic item. Constellation knows Adelaide is approaching the point where it must choose whether it wants water or wine. The whole world is watching.

PHILIP WHITE'S WINE PICKS OF THE WEEK

Paracombe Adelaide Hills Sauvignon Blanc 2008
$21; 13.5% alcohol; screw cap; 93++ points

Paracombe’s savvyB is always among Australia’s best: usually distinguished by its supreme lightness of being and gentle, fragrant florals. Rose and freesia petals in the rain barrel, like Issy Miyake. Cucumber. This one is fuller, bigger and more assertive, like a good Margaret River savvy-sem. It’s more viscous than usual, too, almost as buttery as semillon. But it still has that sassy savvy edge on nose and palate, so it’ll help ease your salt’n’pepper squid through into gastronomic eternity without a squeak. Or whatever noise squids make when they go up to be with Jesus. It’ll cellar brilliantly, too. Too big to be cute. www.paracombewines.com

Tallarook Marsanne 2006
$27.50: 13% alcohol; screw cap; 93+++ points

St Luis Riebl is the patron of Australian marsanne. He consistently conjures our best models in the Central Victorian Highlands near Seymour; often I suspect they’re better than nearly all the marsanne in France. Wild yeast, barrel ferment, 16 munce on lees: it’s all arrogant Rhonish magnificent disdain in the manufactory. Once it’s in the glass it sells itself. If you’re really smart, you’ll leave it in the bottle for five years or so. It’s like cherimoya, the Peruvian custard apple: kinda fleshy in a cheeky sweet-and-sour way. So it has plenty of fat, and plenty of skinny in that long acid finish. www.tallarook.com