In 1975, a Neilsen poll, or even a straw poll, would’ve found few, if any, Australian takers for a $50-equivalent pinot noir. Then, as now, wine pioneers, like Main Ridge Estate’s Nat and Rosalie White, seem to be driven by a vision – and a faith that there’ll be buyers if they can make the wines of their dreams.

These are not the broadacre grape growers, not the empire builders, not the finger-to-the-wind makers – but the small-scale, visionary, artisans seeking the best from a small patch of earth.

There’re hundreds of them in Australia contributing a few drops each year to our ocean of wine. Many struggle, or survive on off-vineyard income. But a few, like the Whites, draw closer to their dream wines through tiny, incremental improvements made over decades.

And some time into the journey, probably not less than ten years, quality arrives and with it the followers prepared to follow the dream and pay the artisan’s price – a trusting relationship that builds with high, sustained performance.

Main Ridge is tiny by any measure with just three hectares of vines. On a mild summer’s day, after good rainfall, it’s a little arcadia – emerald green, flowers blooming and with Rosalie and snowy-haired grandson, Angus, in the vineyard.

But imagine it back in 1975 – probably scrubland and pretty remote at that, high up on the ridge and with walk-in access only in the early days. It would’ve been hard yakka and a major gamble.

Nat says that not knowing with certainty what might work they planted cabernet sauvignon, merlot, pinot noir, pinot meunier and chardonnay – a pretty good guestimate, as only the cabernet failed.

‘We just couldn’t get the green character out if it’, said Nat, so cabernet’s gone. He rates the merlot as ‘ok’ (an understatement), making about a barrel of it every year, as he does of pinot meunier, the cuttings for which came from the Thomson family’s nineteenth century vines at Best’s, Great Western.

Merlot and meunier add colour to the offering. But Main Ridge’s reputation rests on world-class chardonnay and pinot noir. These command around $50 a bottle – difficult to achieve, but necessary for survival on a meagre three-hectare wine estate.

The 2006 chardonnay ($52 a bottle; $48 by the dozen) is full but delicate showing the wonderful patina of subtle flavour and texture derived from barrel fermentation and maturation. Nat’s aim, he says, is ‘to produces a seamless wine with fruit flavours and unctuous texture in perfect balance’. And he does.

But we passed all too quickly through the chardonnays on our recent visit to linger over the pinots. We’ve had a taste for these since the 1997 vintage and probably arrived at just the right moment to see the 2005s, 2006s and 2007s – wines that could be described as good, better and best.

What we saw in these was a vintage-related flavour increase, culminating in the small but very concentrated 2007. These are still in barrel but struck me as sublime.

How did Nat and Rosalie get to this level? Bit by bit. And some of the important changes have come in the last decade and the last five years. ‘You’d think we’d know it all after thirty years, wouldn’t you?’ Nat jests.

An important change was a shift to wild-yeast ferments about a decade ago. Ultimately it produced better wine. But the first attempt in 1997 looked scary at the time. The wild yeast component (only about one third of the total) developed off characters (aldehydes and volatile acidity). But after barrel maturation for seventeen months and blending, delivered the lovely drop that hooked me onto Main Ridge.

It’s now standard practice at Main Ridge. Nat adds that in the tag-team of wild yeasts generations thrive, die and are replaced by others. Those in the dying phase lose the plot and produce glycerol instead of alcohol – adding to the wine’s rich, silky texture, a key component of great pinot.

Another important change, of the road-to-Damascus variety, came on a visit to Burgundy in 2003. Walking through one of the famed Domaine de la Romanee Conti (DRC) vineyards, he noticed discarded bunches on the ground and that they contained both black and green berries.

He queried the French and received what he calls an obscure response. Trade secrets, I suppose. But it turned out to be the key to not having to egg-white fine his pinots before bottling.

For over ten years he’d been able to bottle bright, clear pinot without filtering it. But to remove the slightly hard tannins prior to this required fining with egg whites – a simple process, like clarifying a stock, where protein the egg white bonds with tannin.

Why bother? Well, every fining and filtering takes away desirable aroma and flavour as well as whatever it is your trying to get rid off.

By deduction, I suppose, Nat applied what he’d seen at DRC. He found that by snipping off bunches that contained both black and green berries at veraison (when the berries soften and darken) he ‘narrowed the band of ripening at vintage’.

In turn this produced wines without the hard tannins and these required no egg fining. He’s bottled without fining or filtering ever since. This is, literally, making wine in the vineyard.

Thirty-three years after Nat and Rosalie founded Main Ridge, they’ve got in the cellar just fourteen 228-litre barrels of 2007 pinot noir – about half the usual production. But the standard wine’s limpid, beautifully perfumed, and silky fine, even with a few months’ maturation to go. And the ‘Half Acre’ component, from a small plot within the pinot vineyard and to be bottled separately, is stamped with class – a sublime drop that’ll give Grand Cru Burgundy a run.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2008

In a sense, the Australian pinot noir story is a small one. The variety represents only about four per cent of our annual red grape crush – and much of that goes to sparkling wine production. But, in another sense, it’s a big story because it’s one of the great varieties and provides succulent drinking when it’s done well.

Even if we accept that New Zealand, overall, does it better than we do (it’s their leading red variety), that’s largely a consequence of our latitude. In other words, as pinot’s a cold-climate variety, Australia’s best pinot vineyards cling to our cooler, southern fringes.

These have been probed for over thirty years now by vignerons seeking cool, humid climates comparable to those found in France’s Burgundy region, home of pinot noir.

And at Chateau Shanahan we’ve been sniffing our way through some of the cool-grown pinots in the last few months, recommending the ones we like. Then in January we drove south to visit a couple of pinot pioneers and a few comparative newcomers, too.

For first port of call we’d pencilled in South Gippsland’s Bass Phillip Wines – home to Australia’s most expensive pinot. But we stopped en route at Nicholson River Winery, some 160 kilometres to the northeast, in East Gippsland.

And what a contrast between the two: Nicholson River with a substantial passing trade, making idiosyncratic wines – a little bit of something for everyone – and delighting in making affordable pinot; Bass Phillip, off the beaten path, and focusing squarely on the top of the market.

Ken Eckersley founded Nicholson River Winery, just a few minutes drive off the Princes Highway east of Bairnsdale, in 1978. He says ‘it began as a hobby based on enthusiasm for wine. But we had to learn to farm, grow grapes, make wine and sell it’.

He planted sixteen varieties and ‘had to learn how to make each of them’. But they didn’t all work and even now, at age 65, he and wife Juliet are substantially restructuring the vineyard. ‘It’s the last throw’, Ken said.

Chardonnay was the first winner and remains Nicholson River’s flagship – the rich and delicious 2005 currently selling at $35. But Ken’s pinots are good, too, although he reckons ‘the snobs have captured pinot. I like to make a nice pinot noir and sell it at $15’.

And he does – the 2004 walked out the door during our visit. This is big-value, estate-made wine, as good as pinot gets for that price. Ken’s Nicholson River Pinot Noir 2005 ($35) delivers, too. If not as polished as some at the price, it has real depth of pinot flavour that goes on pleasing – the bottles we later drank in Melbourne seemed never big enough. See www.nicholsonriverwinery.com.au

A day later and a degree further south on a remote dirt road in Leongatha South we pull up outside Bass Phillip. Is this really the home of revered pinot? Ramshackle cottage, overgrown grounds, piles of timber – deliverance country, it seems, without the banjo player.

Instead, proprietor Phillip Jones steps forward and we’re talking Burgundy, pinot noir, yields per vine, wine quality, humidity and the fertility of Gippsland soil – ‘grass grows in the hinges of my ute’, says Phillip.

The cool maritime climate here suits pinot and the constant humidity is a blessing and curse at the same time. Jones says that as grape skins are porous, humidity limits the loss of volatiles and, ultimately, means better aroma and flavour in the wine. Conversely, in dry climates, he believes, pinot loses flavour through transpiration.

He argues that all of the world’s great vineyards, bar Champagne and Burgundy, are near water – but that those two exceptions nevertheless enjoy humid vineyard environments because of their water retaining and expiring soils.

Here in Leongatha the constant humidity, says Phillip, makes mildew a perennial problem. It’s there on the neat vines and tiny, green/grey berries, resisting sprays and capable of desiccating the crop if not controlled.

Exposure to sunlight is one method of control, so throughout the vineyard the team’s plucking leaves to open the leaf canopies and expose the fruit. A biodynamic regime limits what spraying can be done – and Jones laments that its most ardent believers live in dry climates.

In five hours of talking and tasting, we barely touch on winemaking. For Phillip Jones, wine quality comes from the vines, vineyard locations and grapes. That’s where good pinot flavour comes from.

His vineyards are densely planted, in the Burgundian style – typically at nine thousand vines to the hectare although in one they’re packed in at seventeen thousand. The Aussie norm is about two thousand.

To maximise flavour, Jones targets a grape yield of about one third of a kilogram per vine – equivalent to around three tonnes per hectare. He bases this on the long-term Burgundian experience where the maximum permissible yields, defined as hectolitres per hectare, range from the equivalent of just under half a kilogram per vine for grand cru wines to a little over one kilogram for basic Burgundy.

And all this focus on grapes pays off in wines that can be strikingly Burgundian in style – intensely perfumed and flavoured and a joy to savour. Despite a tiny output, Bass Phillip produces an at times confusing number of pinots, including Issan, Village (now Crown Prince), Premium, Estate and Reserve – based on individual vineyards or plots within vineyards.

The best cellar beautifully as we saw during our visit in a 1997 Jacques Raymond Selection and 1991 Bass Phillip Premium, one of the best Aussie reds I’ve ever tasted. The market likes Bass Phillip wines, too – the 2005 Reserve recently fetched $288 a bottle at Langton’s auctions.

These are cult wines now, and deservedly. But there’s terrific value in the lovely, about-to-be-released Crown Prince 2007 ($49). The wines are difficult to find, so it’s best to call the winery on 03 5664 3341.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2008