Regional wine shows, says leading Australian wine man Brian Croser, can be marketing springboards. With the international fine wine market so focused on what grows best where, he argues, regional shows can highlight what varieties best suit a region and the results used to take that message to the world.

Croser was in Canberra last week to chair the Canberra Regional Wine Show, an event open to producers from Canberra, Hilltops (Young), Tumbarumba, Southern Highlands, Gundagai and the south coast.

It’s an extraordinarily varied catchment for grape growing – and hence wine flavours – with vineyards spread over a significant range of latitudes (Mittagong in the north to Gundagai in the south) and, perhaps more importantly, from altitudes of near sea level at Nowra, to around 900 metres at Tumbarumba.

That spread means, as well, a wide range of soils, aspects and, of course, the all import diurnal temperature ranges and low humidity of inland sites, versus the more humid, lower temperature range of coastal sites.

That ensures considerable diversity of wine styles in our local show. Interestingly, our judging scores correlated closely with the theory of what varieties ought to work in the various locations.

At the trophy presentation and exhibitors’ tasting, Croser urged local makers and growers to maximise the four benefits that he sees flowing to them from the show.

First, look at the results, he said, and they’d find a fine-tuned benchmarking exercise, especially in classes like shiraz. In Canberra, he said, the judging was harder than in a big-city show because our styles were in a more limited range – and not shaded by blockbusters from the Barossa or McLaren Vale as they might be in an open show.

This made the task harder for judges. But it allowed a regional style to be judged in all its subtlety and, hopefully, for a range of styles within that comparatively narrow spectrum to be awarded.

Second, regional shows highlight, as well, the bigger picture of what suits various parts of the region. He said that in the Perth Sheraton show for Western Australian wines last week, for example, regional specialties dominated the awards list: chardonnay and cabernet merlot from Margaret River and shiraz from Frankland River.

Similarly, the Canberra show illustrated the strength of high-altitude Tumbarumba’s chardonnay and pinot noir chardonnay sparkling wine; Nowra’s suitability for semillon; and Canberra’s suitability for shiraz, riesling and viognier.

Third, Croser argued, the ratings, in conjunction with judges comments in the catalogue of results, provide clues for improving technical aspects of viticulture and winemaking – and, hence, wine quality.

The fourth and final virtue, Croser believes, is the ability of shows to ‘inform and inspire the way a region manifests itself – to identify its strengths and how to tell the world’.

As to Canberra itself, as opposed to the outlying areas included in the judging, Croser sees a natural matrix of soils, geology and climate that make shiraz, riesling and viognier naturals, and as good as it comes anywhere. ‘These three belong hand in hand’, he commented.

A great highlight of the show for Croser was ‘consistency of style through the shiraz and shiraz viognier classes’. He sees in them similarities to the wines of Hermitage, France, Australia’s two Mount Barkers (Western Australia and Adelaide Hills) and Great Western, Victoria.

He described our shiraz as bright and spicy of medium intensity, fine grained and having finesse – not blockbusters in the traditional Aussie mould.

And what do we have to do as a region to improve? Sadly, as Ian McKenzie had found as chair of judges from 2004 to 2006, winemaking faults remain far too common.

Croser found fewer faults than when he last judged in 2002 but more than he’d expect to find in other regional shows. He lamented that good, expensive-to-grow fruit should be compromised by basic winemaking faults – principally relating to smelly yeast bi-products and largely seen in white wine classes.

He emphasised that the judging of the show was to international standards and that the bronze, silver, gold and trophy award-winning wines would scrub up in any company. Our district has phenomenal strengths but room to improve, too.

The trophy winners from this year’s show were: Lerida Estate Canberra District Shiraz Viognier 2006, Bidgeebong Wines Icon Series Tumbarumba Chardonnay 2006, Wallaroo Wines Canberra District Riesling 2007, Coolangatta Estate Nowra Semillon 2001, Kosciusko Wines Tumbarumba Pinot Noir Chardonnay 2005.

That’s only the top of the honours list. For the full results go to www.rncas.org.au

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2007

To wine boffins the names Chambertin, Corton-Charlemagne, and Montrachet conjure images of wonderful, though breathtakingly expensive, wines. Stripped of mystique, they are simply names of time-proven vineyards now firmly protected by French law and embedded in wine lore.

Not just the names, but the prices paid by generation after generation of wine drinker, show that once we move beyond beverage-standard, the enduring factor in wine quality and character is vineyard site. Hence, the emphasis in French, Italian, and now Australian consumer-protection laws on defining wine-growing regions.

This concept of region and vineyard of origin is, as Brian Croser puts it, the international language of fine wine.

In France, recognition and protection of regional and vineyard names came after the emergence of specialties – a process that took centuries of trial and error.

The French experience suggests that we can benefit as we narrow our focus from zones, to regions, to sub-regions, and finally to individual vineyard sites.  Hopefully, we can learn, too, from French mistakes.

While their very top wines remain models of their styles to winemakers around the world, they appear to have suffered commercially from abuse of great regional names (Burgundy is the classic example). And rigidity of regulation tends to stifle innovation.

Only over the last decade has Australia formally defined its broad wine-growing zones, and made solid progress on defining regions and sub-regions within those zones. But the hearts and minds of domestic wine drinkers are well ahead of the law.

If our drinking has moved just one step above Jacobs Creek or Lindemans Bin 65 we know that district of origin defines the character of the wine we drink. We know that Margaret River Cabernet, in general, tastes unlike wine made from the same variety in Coonawarra; or that Barossa Valley and Hunter Valley shiraz are generally two different beasts.

But what the French have shown, and Australian wine makers and consumers are now discovering, is that infinite sub-division of the best regions yields not just variety of flavour but bigger dollars for the producer. One chases the other provided outstanding quality is there in the first place.

Look, for example, at Henschke’s ‘Hill of Grace’. The late Cyril Henschke developed a following for the wine from the 1960s. Son Stephen took over in the late 1970s gradually polishing winemaking techniques while his wife Prue nursed the best grapes possible out of the impossible looking ‘Hill of Grace’ vineyard.

Century-old shiraz vines struggle each year to ripen a small crop of berries that make a most distinctive full but elegant red that ages beautifully and now captures the noses and palates of astute wine drinkers around the world. If you want ‘Hill of Grace’ now, best queue up or be prepared to pay Grange-like prices at auction — perhaps an indicator that ‘Hill of Grace’ may the ‘Chambertin’ of tomorrow, albeit with an Australian accent. But note the long-term consumer rating preceded any official one.

Many of Australia’s significant wines are multi-regional or multi-vineyard blends. But as wine makers — supported by growing numbers of avid drinkers — increasingly seek to isolate and bottle distinctive parcels from particular vineyards or even particular sections of a vineyard, the individual vineyard label is destined to grow in appeal and value.

There are plenty of examples of single vineyard wines. For example, the Rosehill and Lovedale Vineyards – established by legendary Hunter winemaker Maurice O’Shea in 1945 – excel at producing shiraz and semillon respectively. Now in the hands of McWilliams with the wines made by long-term Hunter winemaker, Phil Ryan, the vineyards produce highly distinctive, world-class wines.

Or, in southern Coonawarra on the Parker Estate, there’s a patch of vines that makes the best Australian merlots I’ve tasted (Parker Estate 2000 and Peppertree Reserve 1996). When winemaker Peter Bissell was making the Parker wines, he told me that the merlot on Parker’s vineyard was established from cuttings off Balnave’s vineyard. But the Parker block produces merlot ‘three times as good as the Balnaves stuff’.

Now this is on flat land that all looks the same to the casual observer. Peter says that the Parker vines lie not on the traditionally superior free-draining terra soils of Coonawarra but on a little clay pan. The vines struggle. They’re small, they bud early, they set a small crop naturally – and produce remarkable wines.

What all of these single plots have in common is the ability to make superior and distinctive wine. In the case of the Coonawarra vineyards, the remarkable thing is that individual plots may be apparently contiguous with other vines that don’t perform as well.

All of which suggests that as wine drinkers we ought now be identifying the great vineyard sites before the prices do a ‘Grange’ or a ‘Hill of Grace’ on us. It’s a rewarding journey, not just financially, but in the enjoyment of different flavours based essentially on vine behaviour in different sites.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2007