A long winemaking history, varied landscapes, large area under vine and sheer numbers of winemakers underlie the Barossa Valley’s ability to make so many wine styles so well.

Riesling, semillon, chardonnay, viognier, shiraz, grenache, grenache-mourvedre-shiraz blends, cabernet sauvignon and a range of sublime fortifieds all earned gongs at last week’s Barossa Wine Show.

This tasty mix of the traditional and new reflects two decades of change caused by export driven vineyard expansion, producer rationalisation, an explosion in the numbers of small makers and constant reappraisal and fine tuning of wine styles.

While the Barossa remains the home of generally big, burly reds, a shift to greater emphasis on fruit and less on oak and tannin can be seen in wines from many makers around the Valley.

Increasingly, wine judges support this shift in style and at last week’s show, two of the most important trophies went to elegant but complex reds of great flavour concentration.

Penfolds RWT Barossa Shiraz 2004 towered above the younger shirazes in its class and won hands down in the trophy ballot against other gold-medal reds. First produced in 1997 by John Duval, RWT aims to capture the sweet perfume and supple depth of carefully selected Barossa shiraz matured in fine French oak.

It provides a remarkable contrast to the power of American-oak-matured Grange, even though much of the fruit for each is sourced from the Kalimna dunes sub-region in the northwestern Barossa.

Runner up to Penfolds RWT Shiraz for the red wine of the show title was Henschke Johann’s Garden 2004, a grenache-mourvedre blend.  This has the limpid colour and lifted perfume of grenache with mourvedre adding depth and backbone to an amazingly silky palate.

These are magnificent wines, beautifully expressing region and variety and inviting another sip. Though the release dates on these screw cap sealed reds is a few years off, they are must buys as they represent a significant lift in Barossa red wine quality as well as a change in style.

Another old Barossa wine restyled in recent years is semillon, the most prolific white in the region. The heavy, oaky, prematurely ageing versions have been replaced by vibrant, fresh, intensely flavoured with considerable cellaring potential – exemplified in the show by Peter Lehmann Reserve Semillon 2001 and 2002 and St Johns Road ‘First Eleven’ Semillon 2004.

Barossa makers nailed the riesling style decades ago and the best from the Eden Valley (the elevated Eastern edge of the Barossa) are truly great wines with long term cellaring potential. The highest scoring wines from this year’s show were Peter Lehmann Eden Valley 2005 and Yalumba Contours Eden Valley 2001. Many of the just-missed-outs, though, seem set to shine as they mature (see wines reviewed below).

While there’ll be more on the Barossa next week (an overview of the landscape from geologist-turned-wine-merchant, David Farmer) it’s fitting to close this week’s column with the great treasures from the fortified classes of the show.

Fortifieds may be in decline. But the ancient stocks held in the Barossa, especially the reserves stretching back for more than a century at Seppeltsfield, are unique in the world.

Yalumba Old Fino and Grant Burge 20 Year Old Tawny seemed good enough. But beside the profound Seppelt DP 90 Rare Tawny, all else is forgotten. This pale tawny, ancient –but-fresh masterpiece is the work of James Godfrey, using the amazing palette of flavours hidden in those venerable old barrels at Seppeltsfield.

WINE REVIEWS

Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier 2004 $19.95 to $22.95
Yalumba offers three viogniers, each outstanding at its price – and little wonder. Since establishing Australia’s first significant plantings in the Eden Valley in 1980, they’ve worked hard to tame and bottle what winemaker Louisa Rose calls an ‘incredibly challenging’ and ‘unpredictable’ variety. The amazingly plush, complex $60-a-bottle ‘The Virgilius’ comes from those original plantings; and at the other end the $10-$13 ‘Y’ is a tasty South Australia blend. In between, at $19.95 cellar door or $22.95 retail, comes this trophy winner from the recent Cowra and Barossa Shows. Partly barrel and partly tank fermented with indigenous yeast, it offers viognier’s unique and delicious apricot-like aroma and flavour and silky, slippery texture.

Peter Lehmann Eden Valley Riesling 2005 $16 to $20
More often than not the very best rieslings reveal more as they age. This was reflected in last week’s Barossa wine show results. Amongst the 2005 vintage contenders, the flagship rieslings of Peter Lehmann, Yalumba and Leo Buring all rated behind cheaper commercial releases from the same companies. But, over time, we are sure to see those delicate, steely flagships surge ahead. Meanwhile, as these mature, there’s huge drinking pleasure in the more revealing, slightly cheaper rieslings like this trophy winner from Peter Lehmann. With lovely aromatics, delicious fruit and taut, ultra-fresh, dry finish, it’s a stunning summer drink. Watch for the specials when it’s released in the next month or two.

Yalumba Barossa Bush Vines Grenache 2004 about $18
This gold medal winner from last week’s Barossa show presents a fragrant, bright, fruity expression of grenache without the confection character sometimes found in the variety. Winemaker Kevin Glastonbury says it’s all sourced from 60-70 year old Barossa vines. The fruit is hand picked, crushed, partially de-stemmed then left in fermenters varying in capacity from 8 to 20 tonnes. After a couple of days soaking on skins a spontaneous ferment begins but this is augmented by the addition of cultured yeasts shortly thereafter. Part of the wine sits on skins for a few months after fermentation. The balance goes to 3, 4 and 5 year old barrels for maturation.  The result is a generous, soft, savoury red featuring slightly brighter fruit in the about-to-be-released 2004 than in the more savoury, currently available 2003.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

After a hot, flavour-sapping 2004 vintage, the milder 2005 season seems to have produced rieslings of subtle perfume, delicious flavour and, in the better examples, the classic intensity and acid structure for long-term cellaring.

As these flow into an increasingly competitive market over the next few months, it’ll pay to stock up – provided, of course, that you like riesling.

Not everyone does. But I suspect that riesling’s relegation to a niche, albeit highly publicised, role amongst Aussie whites owes less to its flavour than it does to the lingering, sweet aftertaste of generic ‘riesling’.

Though gone forever, generic riesling — often sweet, bland and made from anything but riesling grapes — left a cloying legacy for today’s riesling makers to overcome.

As riesling lovers know, the variety offers deliciously fresh, pure, delicate fruit flavour and, in the Australian context, it’s usually dry, although any level of sweetness can be found. That’s all determined by winemaking decisions.

This potentially winning theme of purity and delicacy lies in the grape itself and in the ability of winemakers to bring that delicacy and purity all the way from vineyard to bottle.

It’s a journey fraught with peril. The fruit has to be just right to begin with. But even then, every compromise along the way, no matter how small, reduces quality. The sum of the compromises can be devastating – as we saw judging riesling classes at the recent Canberra region show.

Two wines from the same vineyard scored 55.5/60 and 40/60 respectively: the first a superb gold medal winner; the second barely drinkable thanks, it seems, to inattentive winemaking.

Because of its delicacy, riesling leaves little room for error. Every flaw stands out. But with the level of understanding we now have and ready access to refrigeration, inert gas and protective winemaking in general, there is no reason for any riesling to be faulty.

Phil Laffer, winemaking head at Orlando-Wyndham, recently showed a line up of lovely Steingarten rieslings from vintages 2005 to 1990. To make top-quality riesling, he said, fruit flavour and delicacy need to be preserved at all stages. The Orlando regime includes harvesting at night and only with the temperature below 15 degrees; processing the fruit in the winery within 30 minutes of harvest and uncompromising, protective handling through juice extraction, fermentation, storage and bottling.

Even after production and bottling, cool storage is vital. And in recent years, the arrival of the screw cap has removed cork’s many threats to delicate riesling. Seven years after its widespread adoption, we’re now seeing beautiful rieslings that show wonderful aged flavours while retaining great freshness.

With all the work that’s been done in the vineyards and wineries of Australia’s leading riesling making regions, the arrival of a good vintage like 2005, then, is reason for excitement. We see sound wines every year from the best winemakers. But a good vintage adds extra flavour to the grapes for our enjoyment.

My early impression of 2005 is that the rieslings seem slightly less aromatic than the 2004s but that they offer far greater intensity and depth of flavour.

Outstanding 2005 vintage rieslings tasted to date (apart from those in ‘top drops’), include Neagles Rock Clare Valley, Penfolds Reserve Eden Valley, Helm Premium Canberra District, Chatto Wines Canberra District and Ravensworth Wines Canberra District.

There are bound to be many more as the new releases roll in the coming months, so watch this space for outstanding summer drinking.

A FEW GOOD 2005 RIESLINGS

Grosset Watervale Riesling 2005 $33 & Polish Hill Riesling 2005 $39
Jeffrey Grosset’s Clare rieslings, from the subregions of Watervale and Polish Hill, rank consistently amongst the best of the style in Australia. The Watervale (for the first time in 2005 entirely from Grosset’s own vineyard) is almost unbelievably pure and delicate with a racy, lingering lime-like flavour and acidity. It’ll age forever. But even now one bottle’s not enough. Polish Hill starts subtly with a delicate, minerally aroma. Then on the palate there’s great weight and richness behind a steely acid backbone. From experience – refreshed by the recent Langton’s classification tasting – these are wine to enjoy for many, many years.

Mount Majura Canberra District Riesling 2005 $16
I’ve seen this at a couple of tastings now and at the Canberra Regional Show where it won a silver medal. Even against the benchmark Grosset wine it made a strong showing, suggesting the variety works well in Canberra but it takes the sort of attention to detail that Frank Van Der Loo gives to deliver the goods. The wine shows attractive floral and citrus aromas and a very delicate, fine palate built on lemony citrus flavours with hints of mineral and musk. It’s very fresh and delicious now but should mature and change in pleasing ways for many years if properly cellared.

Leo Buring Eden Valley Riesling 2005 $17.95, Clare Riesling 2005 $17.95 and Leonay DW 117 Eden Valley Riesling 2005 $32.95
In 1945 Leo Buring purchased Chateau Leonay at Tanunda, in the Barossa, and hired John Vickery as winemaker. From this winery, at first under Buring and later under Lindemans, Vickery polished the craft of riesling making and played a seminal role in establishing the dry, pure, long-lived styles we know today. Vickery now consults to Orlando and Chateau Leonay has become Richmond Grove. But the Buring and Leonay names live on as part of the Fosters group the rieslings show great quality under winemaker Matthew Pick. The Eden and Clare wines show steely intensity and citrusy zip, respectively, while the flagship Leonay is simply exceptional, especially for those prepared to wait 5-10 years.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Results of last week’s Canberra Regional Wine Show confirm shiraz as the district’s outright star. Various delicious examples won four gold medals and, for the sixth consecutive year, the variety earned the ‘champion wine of the show’ trophy.

But for the first time since I’ve been judging at the event, shiraz met a serious challenger for that top award. In a two to one vote, Kamberra Shiraz 2004 narrowly pipped Helm Premium Riesling 2005 for number one spot. In truth, however, it was an apples and oranges comparison. Each wine is top-notch example of its style.

Shiraz, overall, delivered more highlights than riesling. The 2004s in particular look good and offer a diversity of styles from the intense, silky and elegant Kamberra 2004 to the bigger, more robust traditional Grove Estate Hilltops 2004 (Young, NSW) to the savoury, refined Wallaroo 2004 (Hall, NSW) – the other two gold medallists.

The 2004 shiraz class also produced two silver medallists, Ravensworth (Murrumbateman) and Chalkers Crossing (Young); and three bronze medallists, Meeting Place (Canberra), Wimbaliri (Murrumbateman) and First Creek (unknown fruit origin).

While the 2003 and older shirazes provided fewer highlights, Long Rail Gully Granite Stone 2003 really shone, winning another gold for Murrumbateman while Gallagher Wines 2003 (Murrumbateman) and McWilliams Barwang 2002 (Young) won silver medals.

As judge Tim Kirk commented during the show the best of the shirazes from the Canberra region show a fruit flavour not dissimilar to that of wines from Great Western, Victoria. In general local shiraz is well removed from the big and burly styles of warmer areas and, at its best, shows a great intensity of supple, soft fruit without excessive oak.

In the very hot 2004 vintage even the most attentive riesling makers struggled. The cleanest, freshest wines simply lacked fruit flavour. But in 2005, we saw two beautiful and different gold medallists in Helm Premium, from Al Lustenberger’s Murrumbateman vineyard and Gallagher, from Graeme Shaw’s Murrumbateman vineyard.

Silver medallists Ravensworth, Mount Majura and Chatto Wines, too, displayed flawless winemaking but not quite the fruit intensity for gold.

The two gold and three silver medal wines show that after decades of glimpsing greatness in Canberra riesling, we have, as a district, finally arrived. The best is as good as anything in the country. But the challenge is to eliminate the serious winemaking faults in those that failed to make the honours list.

The tasting supported, too, the belief that cabernet sauvignon just doesn’t work in our district, nor in the greater area within the wine show’s catchment. The contrast between the bright, generous fruit flavours in shiraz and the mean, fruitless cabernets couldn’t have been greater.

The pinot noir classes, too, yielded little joy. And chardonnay proved surprisingly weak, although I was impressed by Kamberra Tumbarumba 2004, a bronze medallist. I think we’ll see stronger product from this cool area in future years.

Tumbarumba argued its case well, though, with the gold medal winning Kamberra Pinot Noir Chardonnay 2000. It’s a ripper – and available at Kamberra cellar door for $30.

Of the emerging varieties, the bright, fresh Mount Majura Pinot Gris 2004 earned silver. Given these are from very young vines, we can expect to see greater flavour concentration in the years ahead. And Kamberra Viognier 2004 from Holt delivered sufficient plush, juicy ‘apricot’ flavours to earn a silver medal. This looks to be another natural from the district.

A FEW GOOD CANBERRA DISTRICT WINES

Helm Canberra District Premium Riesling $ $33
Ken Helm’s been talking the riesling talk for decades. Now, deservedly, he’s walking the walk with this stunningly good wine. It’s the product of years of incremental adjustments to a winemaking regime applied to the very best grapes from Al Lustenberger’s fastidiously managed Murrumbateman vineyard. All it took was thirty years’ hard work, fuelled by vision, and a benign 2005 growing season that seems to have brought out the best in the variety. This is a wine with a seriously long future: it has the classic citrus and mineral aromatics and taut, intense, steely-yet-delicate palate of classic riesling. This is a great achievement for Ken and a very significant wine for the Canberra district, too. Cellar door phone number is 6227 5953.

Gallagher Canberra District Riesling 2005 $17
Greg Gallagher’s riesling, sourced from Graeme Shaw’s Murrumbateman vineyard, earned the second gold medal (half a point behind Helms) amongst sixteen 2005 vintage rieslings at the regional show. It’s a delicious drop and quite different in style from Ken’s, with a greater volume of floral aromatics and a rounder, more overtly fruity palate. It also has vibrant, fresh acidity and the delicacy essential in riesling. Canberra benefits greatly from the presence of an experienced, accomplished winemaker like Greg. He not only recognises good fruit but also has the skills and attentiveness necessary to take it all the way to the bottle we drink. The Murrumbateman cellar door is open weekends and public holidays, phone 6227 0555.

Kamberra Canberra District Shiraz 2004 $30
Put this one in your diary and be sure to buy a bottle or two when it’s released. A gold medal and three trophies won at this week’s district show confirm how good it is. But what the gongs don’t convey is what style of wine it is. It’s not one of those inky, oaky Aussie monsters. That’s not what Canberra does. It’s a limpid, seductively fragrant red with a juicy, succulent, silky palate. It’s soft and lovely to drink now. But there’s a layered depth to it that almost certainly ensures good medium to long term cellaring. It’s sourced principally from Andrew McEwin’s vineyard at Murrumbateman (with a few other components including a splash of viognier) and sensitively made by Alex McKay at Kamberra.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Jacob’s Creek is a wine brand in transition. As the team behind growing, making and marketing it looks ten, twenty and thirty years into the future, they see – and have laid the foundations for –- a brand with a sense of place and history. And it’ll be led, in future, by benchmark regional varietals and special high quality blends rather than the under-$10 perennial favourites that have defined the brand until now.

It’s not that these bread and butter wines will become less important. With sales this year expected to exceed one million dozen bottles domestically and seven million globally – and growing — they’ll form the base of the Jacob’s Creek brand pyramid for the foreseeable future.

What the future holds, though, is an increasing role for the upmarket Jacob’s Creek wines introduced in recent times — some created especially for the brand, others having recently migrated from the Orlando portfolio.

The first ‘Reserve’ Jacob’s Creek wines arrived in 2000 as exciting, big-value varietals selling at a modest premium to the standard range (about $15 versus $10). These are now an established part of Australian retail offerings and enjoy moderate success. However, the Reserves constitute about 15 per cent of volume in the USA – an indicator of where markets might be headed.

In 1997, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the planting of Johann Gramp’s first vines at Jacob’s Creek in 1847, Orlando showed its first two Jacob’s Creek ‘Limited Release’ wines: a 1994 Barossa Shiraz/Coonawarra Cabernet blend and a Padthaway Chardonnay 1996.

While these and subsequent vintages appear to have made little impact on consumers to date, the reds – especially the sensational 1996 — easily rate amongst Australia’s very best and the rapidly-improving chardonnay is a great show performer.

As the Jacob’s Creek ‘Reserves’ and ‘Limited Release’ wines emerged, Orlando’s French owners, Pernod Ricard, lent full support to the building of the Jacob’s Creek Visitor Centre, a magnificent cellar door, restaurant, conference facility on the banks of Jacob’s Creek.

As the vision for Jacob’s fruit crystallised, the French also supported a ‘buy back the farm’ project, often paying a premium to re-acquire vineyards and land in the vicinity of Jacob’s Creek sold off by the Gramp family or subsequent owners, Reckitt and Coleman.

Then followed an ambitious heritage project aimed at drawing together various strands of the Jacob’s Creek and Gramp family history. During 2004 and 2005 a wild life enclosure was completed along with native plant regeneration on the Jacob’s Creek Visitors centre site on the eastern side of the Lyndoch-Tanunda Road.

And on the western side, Johann Gramp’s original cellars were restored and the family house renovated to include a boardroom, kitchen and VIP dining room. At the same time exotic garden remnants were cleared and native plants established.

Coinciding with this, the well-established Steingarten Riesling, sourced from vineyards in hills on the Jacob’s Creek catchment, subtly changed from ‘Orlando’ to ‘Jacob’s Creek’ branding, as did Centenary Hill Shiraz – a robust red made from vineyards along Jacob’s Creek.

All the pieces finally fell into place recently with a clear four tier structure to the Jacob’s Creek brand: at the top at $100 a bottle is ‘Johann’, the red formerly labelled as ‘Limited Release’; then come four ‘heritage’ wines, the reds at $40 and the whites at $30: Steingarten Barossa Riesling, Centenary Hill Barossa Shiraz, St Hugo Coonawarra Cabernet (another migrant from the Orlando brand) and Reeve’s Point Padthaway Chardonnay (formerly ‘Limited Release); then the $15 ‘Reserve varietals and, finally, the big, volume ‘core’ range at $8-$10 a bottle.

Most importantly for consumers, the upmarket additions to Jacob’s Creek are not just names. These are all outstanding wines of some pedigree.

Jacob’s Creek Johann 1999 $100, St Hugo Coonawarra Cabernet 2002 $40, Centenary Hill Barossa Shiraz 1997 $40, Steingarten Barossa Ranges Riesling 2002 $30, Reeve’s Point Padthaway Chardonnay 2002 $30
Meet the posh members of the Jacob’s Creek family: Johann, an extraordinarily rich, elegant Barossa Shiraz, Coonawarra Cabernet blend for long cellaring; Centenary Hill, a powerful, savoury southern Barossa Shiraz based on the 1920s Willandra Vineyard at Jacob’s Creek; St Hugo Cabernet Sauvignon, a Coonawarra classic; Steingarten Riesling, an intense, very fine, bone dry and minerally riesling from the Steingarten and St Helga vineyards in the Barossa ranges immediately to the east of Jacob’s Creek; and Reeve’s Point, a concentrated, barrel fermented, melon-and-peach chardonnay from a very special vineyard at the foot of the Padthaway sand hills.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007