Penfolds red wines stand alone in the global landscape. They offer the world’s drinkers not just a dazzling vision of the wonderfully ripe, robust wine flavours our sunny continent produces, but carry, as well, a Penfolds thumbprint in the form of aromas, flavours, and a particular feel in the mouth, quite different from anything made by any other wine maker.

New vintages released last month and imminent releases of the company’s flagships, Grange 1990, Cabernet Sauvignon Bin 707 1992 and Coonawarra Cabernet-Kalimna Shiraz Bin 90A 1990, continue very much in the mould cast by Max Schubert back in 1951. But they also reveal a significant evolution guided by the present Penfolds team, headed by John Duval (wine making) and Andrew Pike (vineyard management).

In fact, there has been a remarkable continuity in red-wine-making practice since Schubert established the style over forty years ago. And the continuity seems all the more remarkable given the turmoil faced by Penfolds over the years.

Grange, and the unique red-making culture that grew with it, got off to a shaky start in the fifties then solidified in the sixties as Schubert’s reds took the wine-show circuit by storm. The culture endured when Penfolds passsed from family control to Tooth & Co in the seventies and prospered once again when, first, the Adsteam Group took control and, later, South Australian Brewing Holdings (now Southcorp) assumed command.

Through all the commercial turmoil and strong interraction with other wine-making cultures as Penfolds joined a corporate blend including Kaiser Stuhl, Tollana, Wynns, Tullochs, Seaview, Lindemans, Leo Buring, and Seppelt, the Penfold red culture endured.

Max Schubert retired from full time wine making around 1973, passing the mantle to Don Ditter. But Schubert stationed himself at Penfolds Magill Cellars, almost until his death in March last year, and remained a mentor both to Ditter, and to John Duval who succeeded to the position of Chief red-wine maker when Ditter retired in 1986 (a great vintage to take over the mantle says Duval).

Without access to confidential company material, it is not possible to pinpoint exactly how the making of Penfolds reds has evolved since the days of Schubert. And, in fact, the comparison of today’s young reds with those of yesterday is possible only in the minds of the now old men and women who were there.

But if details changed over the years, the overall principles established did not. The keynotes seem to be selection of perfectly ripened grapes appropriate to the style of wine being made; full extraction of colour and flavour from the grapes through fermentation techniques developed by Schubert; completion of fermentation in small oak barrels (over which painstaking selection control is exercised); and maturation in small barrels prior to bottling.

One of the keys to the Penfolds style within that list is fruit selection. That’s really at the heart of wine style and quality and an aspect of quality control now finely honed by Penfolds through its end-use-evaluation-scheme — a sophisticated, complex and interactive system that relates wine use back to vineyard source. It brings wine maker and vineyard manager together and appears to have been highly successful in a steady quality evolution.

As an outsider, my guess is that the biggest single change over the forty four years since the style’s birth has been sourcing of grapes.

In Schubert’s own words, sourcing the right grapes was the first step in making Grange and all the other wonderful reds that followed. Indeed, had sufficient cabernet been available in Australia in 1951 we would now be celebrating Grange Cabernet instead of Grange Hermitage.

Those early reds focused more on the Barossa, Morphett Vale (now an Adelaide suburb), Magill and McLaren Vale with some Coonawarra material. Now, Coonawarra and Padthaway have hit the scene in a big way and significant plantings have sprung up in the Clare and Eden Valleys and Langhorne Creek.

In the early days, the industry’s focus was on fortified wine production and Australians barely touched red wine. Growing demand, especially in the eighties and nineties has seen a massive explosion in planting and vineyard management techniques that mean more and better winemaking options for John Duval and his team.

Unlike some critics lamenting the loss of Penfolds reds of old, I firmly believe that the wines are, on average, steadily climbing new heights as all the little bits of quality control, and especially diversified vineyard sourcing, click into place.

To line up the current Penfolds reds and vacantly award them points out of twenty or stars out of five seems to me to miss the point completely. These are wines of immense character and individuality. More on the new releases next week.

May 14th, 1995

Those wonderful Penfolds reds introduced in last week’s column deserve special attention in today’s largely overpriced wine market. At a time when Australia is probably making its best reds ever, there are still a lot of ordinary wines out there bearing hefty price tags.

But the Penfolds range offers not only exciting quality, but a proven track record in cellaring as well as strong resale value through the auction system.

Ironically, while Penfolds probably pockets an historically high margin, prices continue to be restrained by a fiercely competitive retail market. Retailers may be on allocation, but despite the shortage, pricing on such well-known brands becomes a barometer by which wine drinkers judge the overall value offered by a trader.

So, shop around. Somewhere someone could be selling the range at or near cost price. Which means you can pick up Bin 128 and Bin 28 for $10.99, Bin 407 for $13.99 and Bin 389 for $14.99 on super special. The market tends to be more competitive in Sydney than in Canberra, so keep an eye on the Sydney papers and prepare to make a raid up there, if necessary, on you next trip. Or, use a Sydney retailer’s price to bargain with a local merchant.

Each of the new Penfolds reds offers a strongly individual style based on selective grape sourcing, while the range is linked by common wine-making techniques that produce a Penfold thumbprint by way of distinctive aromas, flavours and structure accompanying the primary wine flavour.

Penfold Coonawarra Bin 128 1992, for example, delivers the lush, supple, gracious berry flavours typical of good Coonawarra shiraz. But the fruit comes with an overlay of aromas, flavours and textures derived from fermentation and maturation in French oak barrels, and a fair bit of contact with air during its making. These form the Penfolds thumbprint.

It can be tasted and felt, too, in Kalimna Bin 28 1992, a wine that shows another face of shiraz and the quite powerful flavour of American rather than French oak. The ‘mother’ wine for Bin 28 comes from Penfolds Kalimna vineyard in the northern Barossa Valley, blended with compatible material from elsewhere in the Barossa, McLaren Vale and Padthaway.

Kalimna experiences warmer growing conditions than Coonawarra, producing markedly different grape and, hence, wine flavours than we see in Bin 128. Instead of delicacy, we taste in Bin 28 ripe, powerful fruit flavours matched by stronger oak. It is simply a satisfying-to-drink example of warm-climate Aussie shiraz and tastes even better with ten years’ bottle age.

Penfolds Cabernet Sauvignon Bin 407 1992, the third vintage in this line, offers pure, distinct cabernet flavour. Coming predominantly from two cooler growing areas — Padthaway and Coonawarra — and a cool vintage, that flavour spectrum embraces both a ripe, sweet “blackcurrant” component and a green astringent edge. Wrap these with the Penfold oak and wine-making extras, and you have an outstanding, elegant red that’s best cellared 5 to 10 years. More than anything else, it expresses the character of Padthaway and Coonawarra.

Penfolds Cabernet Shiraz Bin 389 1992 shows the evolution of this great red since Len Evans (I think it was Len) dubbed the 1959 vintage “poor man’s Grange”. The modern version bears little resemblance to Grange thanks, I believe, to the powerful but elegant cabernet flavours of the increased Coonawarra and Padthaway grape components in the blend.

The combination of outstanding grapes and fermentation and maturation in barrels handed down from Grange, gives a powerful red, distinctly Australian with its combination of elegant, strong cabernet and lush, ripe shiraz. I see Bin 389 of the last few vintages, the current 1992 included, as perhaps the best value-for-money red on the market today if you’re looking for richness of flavour and cellaring potential.

Penfolds this year unveiled the first vintage (1992) of a new, entirely Barossa-sourced red, Old Vine Mourvedre-Grenache-Shiraz. It sits firmly in the Penfold mould but offers a real flavour departure from the cabernets and shirazes thanks to the fragrance of grenache, and the firm, spicy character of the mouvedre (also known as mataro). This is a solid, chunky Barossa wine that needs another few years in the cellar. Very little was made, it is not as widely distributed as the others.

Penfolds St Henri stands out from the others because it’s the only Penfold red not fermented and matured in small oak barrels. The 1991, a spectacular example of ripe Australian shiraz, continues in the style established back in 1957 — the focus remains on pure, sweet, ripe shiraz mellowed in large old casks. This beauty needs 10-20 years’ cellaring.

Not since the early eighties when the Aussie dollar peaked at double its current worth against some European currencies have I seen so many imported wines coming into the country.

Every Friday for the last three months I’ve attended commercial tastings where brokers and agents trot out their latest discoveries, with imports now outnumbering local wines. On top of that there are several standing invitations to visit wineries as soon as their foreign samples arrive.

But there are fundamental differences between the growing flow of imports now and what we saw back in the early eighties.

Then we had a more fragmented, production-driven industry. It was undercapitalised, largely unprofitable, driven by wine makers and riding on the back of rapidly expanding sales, especially of cask wine.

There was no shortage of wine. In fact, quite the reverse situation kept prices low and sales growing. But there was a shortage of premium grape varieties, especially of chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon.

In an article I wrote for the Australian Financial Review in about 1983, I estimated imports at around 3 per cent by volume of the total Australian market but 15 per cent by value.

Imports then were largely of reasonable quality bottled table wine. With our dollar buying between 6 and 8 French Francs, and the Americans yet to discover wine, French country wines like Muscadet, Pouilly Fume, Sancerre, Beaujolais, and Chablis were affordable and consumed by a comparatively high proportion of well informed Australian drinkers.

But times changed. The dollar collapsed in 1985. The Americans discovered wine. And the tremendously strong vineyard and winemaking infrustructure we had developed, fairly quickly turned to exports.

Rationalisation and more professional management saw the trend strengthen so that we now have a much stronger, more outward looking wine industry than ever before. It still needs the cask market. But that market is shrinking, and the strongest growth now comes from sales of bottled white and red wine, both here and in export markets.

Rapid growth, especially in demand for bottled reds, co-inciding with a run of small vintages, are the strongest forces behind the new flow of imports.

Pressure was on stocks of bulk red wine even before the 1995 vintage fell 250,000 tonnes short of expectations.

Wine makers had still not recovered from the disastrously small 1993 vintage. It had led to out-of-stocks for the first time in the history of the Australian wine cask. I saw wine drinkers stare in disbelief at bottle shop attendants when told their favourite tipple had run dry.

And I well remember big wine makers early last year wondering how on earth they could hold price parity of red and white wine casks when there was simply not enough red available. And what was available cost more than white of comparable quality.

Well, under the same pressures, people come up with similar solutions. For sectors of the wine industry, the solution is a perfectly sensible and welcome one: if we can’t make it here, let’s bring it in.

For Miranda Wines in Griffith, the shortage led to California. With a Golden Gate wine cask to fill, and a Californian wine maker with good contacts back home, one thing led to another. And by late 1994 Golden Gate red casks became a blend of Californian and Australian wine.

Miranda’s Bob Burton says it was a matter of importing or taking the brand off the market. He tells me Golden Gate Soft Red, Chianti, and Claret continue to sell well and appear to have been completely accepted by the consumer. Bob adds that when grape supplies meet demand, the winery hopes to return to full Australian production.

On a far bigger scale, Southcorp Wines, Australia’s largest wine maker, last week released a French-Australian blend in its big-selling Wynnvale cask and plans a similar blend for Kaiser Stuhl wine casks shortly.

I’ve tasted the Wynnvale red (51 per cent local— 49 per cent French) and vouch for the quality. Southcorp Chief Executive, Bruce Kemp, told me the move was a logical one to meet a demand that was far beyond Australian capabilities after the huge grape losses in the 1995 vintage.

It’s a sweet irony isn’t it that the French, still perceived as the makers of the world’s greatest wines, should now be providing vin ordinaire for the humble Aussie wine cask.

As wine drinkers, we should welcome these changes. A more open wine market, with perhaps twenty per cent imports instead of two per cent, not only opens our minds to the variety the world has to offer, but might finally provide the only foil to rising prices now that major production capacity is in so few hands.

A draft report on the Winegrape and Wine Industry released in March fills 365 pages. But the bottom line for most industry leaders, and even more so for consumers, are the tax recommendations on page 19.

The recommendations, if implemented by the Federal Government, will bring wine under a similarly destructive tax regime to that currently imposed on beer and spirits — alcoholic beverages whose production constraints and consumption patterns appear quite dissimilar to wine’s.

The inquiry that generated the draft report followed intense wine-industry lobbying after the August 1993 Federal Budget. Then, apparently bowing to beer and spirit industry pressure, the Government threw in a surprise 55 per cent wholesale tax increase on wine, lifting the rate from 20 per cent to 31 per cent.

For Canberra wine drinkers that meant a double whammy because the Territory’s licence fee is levied at 13 per cent of the cost of wine after the addition of sales tax. The effect was to raise the landed cost to a wine outlet of, say, a pre-tax $50 a dozen wine, from $67.80 to $74.02 — a nett increase of about 9 per cent.

The Federal Government’s take on that case of wine leapt from $10 to $15.50 and the Territory’s from $7.80 to $8.52.

But an angry voice of protest from hundreds of wine makers and thousands of grape growers across Australia saw a compromise reached between the Government and Industry. A committee of inquiry was established to ‘examine the development potential of the wine grape and wine industry with particular regard to exports and the impact of taxation and cash grants on the industry.’

While the committee held its hearings and deliberated, wine sales tax was dropped back to 22 per cent, rising to 24 per cent in July 1994, and 26 per cent in July 1995, with the ultimate tax regime to be determined after the final report.

The draft report, then, is not a blue print for Government action but the end of stage one. Public hearings on the draft are to be held during April and May, followed by a final report by the end of June, a Government decision (not just on taxation issues but on many other issues canvassed in the inquiry) and, finally, implementation of the decision.

A committee of three came up with two proposed wine-tax regimes. Brian Croser and Professor Fairbairn put forward a view that would see the retail price of fortified wine and cheap bottled and cask table wine increase, while better quality wine from about $5 a bottle and above would actually come down in price.

What they propose (phased in between 1996 and 1998) is a reduction of the sales tax rate to 10 per cent and addition of a volumetric tax of $4 per litre of alcohol.

Their colleague, Mr Scales adopts a more ‘take no prisoners, show no mercy’ approach, along the lines of what the brewers and distillers might take in the same position.

He proposes a jump to a 32 per cent sales tax from July 1996, plus a volumetric tax rising from $1 per litre of alcohol in July 1997 to $4 in July 2000. His proposal would deliver financial pain to all wine drinkers, unlike the Croser-Fairbairn one, which strikes those who can least afford it.

The very large numbers of wine drinkers enjoying $5 and above bottled wine might see the Croser-Fairbairn tax as attractive. And so it is on day one. But we would be foolish to believe that a special sales tax category of 10 per cent could endure long or that future Governments will resist the temptation to notch up the excise rate above the proposed $4 a litre of alcohol.

In principal, the two proposals are the same. Both split wine tax into two components, similar to the way in which Federal taxes on beer and spirits are currently levied. And the double tax, in lumping wine with beer and spirits, almost certainly spells an ever-growing Government tax grab over time.

The wine industry is sure to be at the public hearings fighting for its interests. And for once the industry’s interests coincide with those of the wine drinker. Australian wine is already very heavily taxed in comparison with the rates in other winemaking countries. Why should we be forced to pay even more tax on a simple, healthy, civilising pleasure?

“It was a Clayton’s vintage”, one wine industry Chief Executive told me. “The wine makers and cellar hands worked white-collar hours. In at 8, out at 5. No frantic, round the clock rush to cope with all the fruit.”

No one had ever seen such a short, small vintage. The casual labour is all being paid up and sent home a month earlier than usual.

But the calm in the wineries is not matched in the boardroom. For the desperate shortfall of grapes around Australia will have the most profound impact on the bottom line of an industry already noted for financial underperformance.

And in this instance, unease in the boardroom will translate directly into significantly higher wine prices. Prices simply have to go up to retard consumption and to claw back higher production costs attributable to the grape shortfall.

The same Chief Executive lamenting his Clayton’s vintage showed me the sums. Last November the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) published the projected 1995 grape crush, based on a survey of wine-maker expectations.

At the time, the industry looked forward to an 851,000 tonne crush — a figure some thought not adequate to meet demand.

Immediately prior to vintage, the figure was revised down to 700,000 tonnes. But with grapes from the warmer, earlier ripening areas already in and crushed, my anonymous Chief Executive estimates the final figure will be between 550,000 and 600,000 tonnes.

It seems the warmer areas were particularly hard hit because of drought and savage winds that late last yearhit vines during flowering time, stripping them of the embryonic 1995 crop.

The Hunter Valley, Mudgee, and the Riverland suffered severely, with crop losses of up to fifty per cent.

And while it’s not possible to pick the exact shortfalls yet, we can probably say that cask wines will be hard hit, given the disaster in the Riverland. As well, a spot price of $1200 for irrigated chardonnay, suggests big brands like Lindemans Bin 65 Chardonnay may face severe volume restrictions.

Sales lost because of the disaster present only part of the problem. According to my Chief Executive, his winery lost forty per cent of its crush. But his fixed costs remained largely unaltered, and savings in labour because of the reduced vintage were small in relation to total costs. He puts the increased production cost per case in his own winery at $11-$12 and suggests that the industry overall needs a 10-12 per cent price hike to recoup its losses.

With demand, especially in the all-important $5-$10 a bottle market, so sensitive to price movements the industry faces a severe dilemma as to how much it can move prices without killing demand completely. However, prices simply have to go up or there just won’t be any wine left to sell.

While the position for the industry is very tough, it’s not all bad news for consumers. With the dollar strong against the currencies of several wine-making countries, part of the shortfall is sure to be made up by imports.

I know of at least six wineries looking to import bulk wine for bottling here (and there are bound to be more) and as well there are the established wholesalers and retailers now looking to plug the gap.

This may present a culture shock to Australian wine drinkers, currently amongst the most parochial in the world. But if we expect to drink good wine under $10 a bottle then, like wine drinkers elsewhere, we will now be forced to look beyond our shores for an increased proportion of our wine for the next few years at least.

Of course, agricultural shortfalls and cornucopias are never universal. As our large wine areas face a cruel fate, Canberra’s wine makers have commenced harvesting what looks to be the biggest crop in the district’s twenty-four year history.

Ken Helm reports that last year‘s record harvest of 300 tonnes looks like being eclipsed by a 1995 crush of 500 tonnes — pushing district production to around 35,000 cases.

1995 has seen the first use of mechanical harvesting taking place in the district, too. Andrew Garrett Wines sent in the machine to take 20 tonnes of chardonnay and pinot noir from the Park Lane Vineyard at Hall.

Local grape prices, Ken tells me, have remained stable, largely because the various parcels are just too small to attract bids from the larger wine makers.

While it’s good to see stable pricing and continuity from the local makers, the future of mainstream suppliers seems less certain with shortages and higher prices in sight.

Friday of last week saw what seemed like most of Australia’s wine industry lunching at Sydney Opera House, celebrating another Royal Sydney Wine Show, savouring trophy-winning wines, and hoping for a few insights from Chairman of Judges Len Evans and perhaps a glimpse of visiting judge, Hugh Johnson, the world’s most widely read wine writer.

Johnson spoke first. In his own gentle way, quelling the chatter of a few hundred voices, he delivered an outsider’s view on wine judging and of Australian wine. A refreshing view it was, too, from a man happy to deliver personal judgement on wine quality but scathingly critical of those giving so called ‘objective’ scores:

“I judge wines by loving it or hating it … and there’s not much in between. I love vitality in a wine, the sort of wine where one bottle is not enough… giving wines points creates a spurious sense of accuracy and if you can believe it means something when someone gives a wine 87 points out of 100 then you would believe anything.”

Nevertheless, Johnson saw some validity in the Australian Show circuit’s Gold, Silver, and Bronze medal award system as it “gives a good broad guide of performance on the day.”

Johnson sees “variety as the essence of wine” and believes that what the French call “terroir” (the combination of soil, climate, aspect and location of vineyards) is at the heart of wine variety.

He said he once viewed us as the France (”How did that bunch of ruffians come to make the best wines in the world?”) of the Southern hemisphere , but now broadens that view, “Australia is the France of the New World.”

But he cautioned us about the tough competition we face in world markets “You are in a boom time, but the waves are short and choppy. The concept of a great tidal wave taking Australian wine around the world and crushing everyone else is desirable but unlikely. Other countries around the world are learning to make wine — France for example.”

Johnson loves our red wines in particular and sees them as our great strength, calling them “… wonderful, mind-bending, gripping blends.” (He added that he’ll be buying his whites in New Zealand.)

Having patted us on the back and cautioned us about being too cocky during the current boom, he noted one feature that separated us from other winemaking countries, “You have incredible team work here, unlike any other country in the world”. He noted that our competitors tended to be secretive with a go-it-alone mentality. And though it went unsaid, I suppose our wine show system with its constant and fearless public scrutiny, provides a meeting point as well as a sparring venue for our producers.

Len Evans followed Hugh Johnson, echoing his preference for our reds over our whites. “The reds emerging are far better than the whites”, observed Evans. Then slipped into a joke, “A fellow said to his mate, ‘I bought a new kind of hearing aid.’ ‘What type is it?’ his mate asked. ‘5.30 he answered’”.

When the laughing stopped Len suggested perhaps Australian wine makers had bought the wrong kind of hearing aid because they were not hearing the message that our whites were not as good as our reds.

“We’ve got the vineyards. We’ve got the wine makers. But will the consumer support better whites. Are they being encouraged to do so?”

Len’s been pushing this theme for a few years now because he sees it as most important for the wine industry, especially in export markets. Visiting Len at Rothbury Estate, on another occasion, he observed that our best reds were raved about in export markets, with a notable trickle down effect on the image of our mass-produced commercial reds.

But the same is not true of our whites. Our cheaper whites sell well but they are “just in the quaffing category” says Len.

Len knows that finally our export dollars are earned from these quaffing wines. But he sees vital long-term significance in having flagship whites as well as flagship reds to maintain the image of Australia as a premium wine producer.

Unless we succeed in conveying that image to overseas consumers then we end up selling a commodity with limited export value and, of course, risk losing markets to any country that can undercut our costs.

As usual, Len’s talk was short, good-humoured and to the point. I hope our white-wine makers were listening.

Remember Eric Brand’s Laira Vineyard Coonawarra wines — amongst the best reds to emerge from Coonawarra from the late sixties to mid seventies? Their elegant but strong flavours enjoyed a moment of glory before technical problems struck.

In the short time it took to re-establish quality, Brand’s had been upstaged by dozens of top Coonawarra reds and so, in the 80s and 90s, Brand’s was pushed well and truly to the background as Bowen Estate, Leconfield, Lindemans, Rouge Homme, Wynns, John Riddoch, Jamieson’s Run, Zema Estate, Katnook and others grabbed the limelight.

But being out of the limelight in no way diminishes the enduring quality of Brand’s wines. The very special quality of grapes from the Laira Vineyard, based on the unique location, ensures that over time Brand’s will be at the heart of Coonawarra as long as red wine is in demand.

In every high-quality wine-growing area in the world, classification of wine quality over time finally gets back to vineyard location — the most highly refined example being that of Burgundy, France where the official naming rights for wine start at Bourgogne (covering the whole region) and go down to quite tiny vineyards (eg: Le Montrachet and Le Chambertin) covering only a hectare or two. The point being that over centuries, despite the strengths and weaknesses of individual owners, specific sites have been observed to hold the key to high quality.

It will be no different in Australia. And in Coonawarra, whose wines have already made it one of the world’s very special vineyard sites, we are just beginning to glimpse site-related variations in quality: there is a distinctive Coonawarra style for both shiraz and cabernet-based red wines, and now we can see that northern Coonawarra reds differ from southern Coonawarra reds. Inevitably, the intensive cultivation of vines in Coonawarra will hasten the definition of which sites make the best wines.

If we look at a map of Coonawarra, we see Brand’s Laira Vineyard sitting in the middle of a particularly distinguished sector: adjacent and to the north its neighbours are Redmans and Lindemans St George Vineyards; to the west is a Southcorp vineyard, source of material for the sublime Wynns John Riddoch Cabernet; and to south the Rouge Homme and Lindemans Limestone Ridge Vineyards.

These are some of the earliest-planted sites in Coonawarra, Brand’s oldest vines, for example, were planted in 1896. As Lindeman wine maker, Greg Clayfield (from an old landed Coonawarra family) quipped, “they didn’t plant the worst land first.”

Finally, good vineyard sites define themselves by the quality of wine produced. And if we look at the Brand wines over the years we discern a distinctive style: the reds deliver rich but elegant Coonawarra berry flavours with a special sweet lift in the aroma and an exquisite delicacy on the palate.

The latter characteristic seems particularly true of a shiraz produced solely from the 1896 vineyard and released in recent years under Brands Original Vines Shiraz label. To me this is one of Coonawarra’s great and largely undiscovered reds, expressing as it does flavours unique to one small vineyard.

Since McWilliams bought a half share in Brand’s in 1990, I think I’ve detected a slight and welcome lift in the ripeness and fullness of the reds. On a visit to the winery a little over a year ago, Jim and Bill Brand (sons of the now retired Eric) took me through a range of vintages, including the 1993s, then maturing in casks.

I tasted an impeccable and exciting range of reds all showing the Coonawarra and Laira Vineyard thumbprints. (Try Laira Cabernet, Shiraz, or Cabernet Malbec from any recent vintage and see what I mean.). One of the reds tasted from barrel that day, a 1993 Cabernet, for instance, has just been released and delivers all its early promise.

Last year McWilliams moved to full ownership of Brands at the same time acquiring a further 200 hectares of Coonawarra land. I’ve not visited this new vineyard site, but I have seen a new 100-hectare vineyard McWilliams was developing jointly with the Brand family in 1993. It was to the west of the railway line, well removed from the original Laira Vineyard.

On behalf of red wine drinkers I ask McWilliams chief, Kevin McKlintock to keep wines from the new vineyards separate from those made off the original 27 hectare Laira Vineyard. These wines are too good to dilute, and with time you’ll get good money for them as the world realises how special they are.

Padthaway is a dear friend of Australian wine drinkers. Yet its contribution to the quality of our everyday drinking has often been anonymous or, before Lindeman’s success with chardonnay from the district, served up under the name Keppoch. As a viticultural area it barely existed until broad acre plantings began in the late 1960s.

For reasons best known to itself, the ABS lumps statistics on Coonawarra and Padthaway together, making it hard to trace separately the growth of what are probably the two most important modern wine-growing areas in Australia.

But to give some indication of the phenomenal growth of the region, the combined Coonawarra-Padthaway grape tonnage for wine making in 1968 was about 1000 tonnes. By 1973 that had grown to almost 5,000 tonnes, leaping to 18,000 tonnes in 1978; 22,000 tonnes in 1983, 42,000 tonnes in 1992 and by locals’ estimates, 55,000 tonnes in 1994.

By parting with a modest $400 I prised split figures from the ABS for the decade to 1992, revealing Padthaway’s wine-grape production at around 20,000 tonnes a year for the late eighties and early nineties but now moving closer to 30,000 tonnes. That’s more than twice the output of Western Australia, and the equivalent of about 2.1 million dozen 750 mL bottles.

According to James Halliday, Seppelts were the first in the area, planting small trial plots in 1963, followed by 25 hectare vineyards in 1964 and 1965. Hardys and Lindemans arrived in 1968 and were followed by Wynns, a private grower, Don Brown, Orlando, Tolleys, and Padthaway Estate.

Broad-acre plantings were the order of the day. And although Seppelts original plantings focused on red wines, Padthaway was soon feeding the white wine boom of the seventies and eighties. Today, grape production is 60 per cent white, 40 per cent red. But that may well be swinging the other way as exports gather pace and the area’s reds reveal their full potential.

Despite such phenomenal grape output, Padthaway did not have a winery until Padthaway Estate commenced operations in 1989. It remains the district’s sole winery.

The large operators simply truck grapes or juice to wineries elsewhere. Southcorp, for instance, sends most output from its 1100 hectares in Padthaway to the Rouge Homme and Wynns wineries in Coonawarra, 80 kilometres to the south; BRL Hardy sends juice northwards to Reynella and McLaren Vale.

Seppelt, Lindemans, and Hardys all originally saw the area as a source of large-quantity, reasonable quality grapes for commercial table-wine production. Despite high grape yields in those early days, quality was generally far better than the wine makers had expected. Even so, most output disappeared anonymously into big commercial blends.

Where the area was acknowledged on the label, both Seppelt and Hardy used the name Keppoch or Keppoch Valley. But Lindemans phenomenal commercial and show success with its Padthaway Chardonnay and Fume Blanc soon saw that name adopted by all parties. By a quirk of marketing, Keppoch remains an obscure place name on a map, while Padthaway slowly but surely strides onto the world stage as a unique wine-making region.

Padthaway may ever remain source of commercial wines with no acknowledged district of origin. Hardys Sir James is a good example of that (around 120,000 cases a year, the local rep tells me). But, equally, we are increasingly seeing the cream of the crop acknowledged on labels or in press releases.

Lindemans Padthaway Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Verdelho have a place in most liquor stores and remain the region’s best-known ambassadors. But there is another level of quality above these now emerging.

Orlando’s Lawsons Padthaway Shiraz consistently demonstrates the area’s ability to produce exceptionally-high quality long-lived reds. And in recent years, I notice Penfolds impeccable Bin Number reds acknowledging Padthaway on their labels. I understand fruit quality was good enough for Bin 707 in 1993.

Wine lovers visiting Coonawarra might slip up the road 80 kilometres to see Padthaway’s great sea of vines. A gentle slope flattening out to the west contrasts with Coonawarra’s unbroken flatness. But 700,000 years back they were part of the same coastal formation.

The terra rossa soils of both areas are weathered from the same limestone bed deposited all those years ago. Padthaway, with its shorter wine-making history has a less clear-cut identity than Coonawarra with its world-class, unique reds.

My bet is that Padthaway’s highest achievement are yet to come and they will be reds not whites.

Canberra’s wine buyers are in for big changes this year following the collapse of the Capital’s largest wine merchants, Farmer Bros. Many of the changes were underway before the collapse, but the vacuum left by Farmer Bros’ demise will quickly be filled by players old and new.

Farmer Bros stores are about to be taken over by Liquorland, a division of Coles Myer, Australia’s largest liquor retailers. They moved quickly after a meeting of creditors recommended the Liquorland offer over one from Cellarmaster wines on Friday, December 16.

On Saturday morning, Shane Sinclair, a shareholder and former operations and purchasing boss for Farmer Bros, received a phone call from his new master, Craig Watkins, head of Liquorland. “I’ve bought back the farm for you, Shane. Pick up the accountants at Canberra airport Monday morning and take them to the office will you.” That’s the call as reported to me by Shane.

So, on Monday morning, Shane found himself walking in the same door he’d walked out of just a few weeks earlier.

That may appear to be the end of Farmer Bros after nineteen and a half years, but we may yet see David Farmer’s smiling face here again. In Sydney a few days before acceptance of the Liquorland offer, Terry Davis, head of Cellarmaster Wines, told me that if he lost the bid for Farmer Bros, he may still set up shop in Canberra trading under a David Farmer banner.

Whether or not David Farmer will play a role in such a venture, I don’t know. Regardless, Cellarmaster has a walk-up start here in Canberra having use of Farmer Bros mailing list, including around 4,000 Canberra wine buyers, recipients of Farmer Bros Wine Newsletter (first published in October 1978 but managed for the last few months by Cellarmaster).

And just to complicate things, Liquorland’s Craig Watkins tells me he has the right to use the Farmer Bros name. It may well become Liquorland’s third store brand following the successful launch of Vintage Cellars in more posh locations over the last twelve months.

Liquorland rides into town on a wave of change that has been transforming liquor (especially wine) retailing Australia wide. Canberra was unique. For historical reasons, Liquorland had been virtually excluded from the town with independent supermarkets picking up the market share in Canberra that in other cities was shifting to Coles (Liquorland) and Woolworths (Macs).

See how richly merchandised are the wine sections of some of our better-located independent supermarkets — Supa Barn in the Canberra Centre for example. Finally, when everyone is selling the same brands at the same price, convenience becomes a determining factor in where people shop. We’ve reached that stage now and the wine sales pendulum has swung towards well-located-and-stocked supermarkets.

If Liquorland initially missed out on the new spoils it now appears set to catch up on Macs, the liquor stores belonging to arch-rival Woolworths. In the last year, extended trading hours and top locations, by my guess, have pushed liquor sales away from independents into Macs. Sit outside the Macs attached to Woolworths Dickson and be amazed at the steady flow of traffic, twelve hours a day, seven days a week. And the Manuka location may not be far behind.

And then, of course, you have the surviving long-time independents, notably Jim Murphy’s Market Cellars and Cand Amber, and relative newcomer Georgas Liquor Stable. Not to mention a hundred licenced supermarkets across the A.C.T. and all the clubs and restaurants as well.

Just how all those independents weather the winds of change remains to be seen. Especially as it seems the Liquorland attack on Canberra may be countered by Cellarmaster and, a little bird tells me, The Wine Society.

Then there are the local wineries, plus the big mail order houses, Cellarmaster

Wines (operating several wine clubs) and the Wine Society all pumping quite big volumes of wine into Canberra homes from warehouses in the Barossa and Sydney respectively. These are topped up with dribs and drabs going direct to the consumer from hundreds of small wineries, and substantial volumes coming either by mail order, or returning in boots of cars, from aggressive Sydney retailers like Kemenys of Bondi and Kellys of Kogarah.

It all adds up to variety and competition for bargain-conscious wine drinkers. But the strength seems to have moved decisively away from independent operators into the hands of the big, well-capitalised, increasingly professional retail chains.

There will always be a role for the spontaneity and expertise of independents, but the operators will have to be good to move with the rapid changes now underway.