Like Canberra, Victoria’s Macedon region sits high on the Great Dividing Range. It stretches roughly from Gisborne in the south to Baynton in the north; and from Kyneton in the west to Kilmore in the east – very roughly 40 kilometres by 40 kilometres, about half way between Melbourne and Bendigo.

Macedon’s vineyards sit mainly at around 600 metres above sea level, dropping down by a few hundred metres to the north and therefore providing a range of climates – from the icy, southern slopes of Hanging Rock Winery’s Jim Jim vineyard, at just under 700 metres, to the lower, warmer Granite Hills Winery site near Baynton.

The cooler sites, like Jim Jim, produce intense, complex sparkling wines made from pinot noir and chardonnay; while Granite Hills, on the warmer northern fringe of the region makes peppery, fine-boned shiraz.

But shiraz is an outrider now in a region whose sweet spot has shifted decisively to pinot noir and chardonnay – expressed as sparkling wines from the cooler sites and table wine from the warmer sites.
These styles dominated the recent Macedon Ranges Wine Exhibition – the bubblies and pinots in particular putting on a dazzling display.

We judged 18 sparkling wines and awarded 14 medals (three gold, five silver, six bronze) – an extraordinary strike rate of 78 per cent. These were delicious wines showing the full spectrum of bubbly styles.

The most delicate were a pair of sparkling chardonnays from Mount William – a beautifully fresh, fine version from the 2001 vintage and the more complex and mature 1998. These are hard to find but worth trying. See www.mtwilliamwinery.com.au

The more traditional sparkling pinot noir chardonnay blends varied in style from the intense and taut Macedon Ridge Chardonnay Pinot Noir 2004 to the idiosyncratic, deep, rich, mature Hanging Rock Macedon Cuvée VIII LD.

And our top sparkler was the brilliant Hanging Rock Brut Rosé NV – made from estate-grown pinot noir. It’s as good as this style gets in Australia and offers great value at $27 cellar door – see www.hangingrock.com.au

The chardonnay class produced a lower medal strike rate (52 per cent) but included some appealing, complex, barrel-fermented styles, including gold medallists Cobaw Ridge 2007 (www.cobawridge.com.au) and Lanes End 2005 (phone 03 5429 1760). My personal favourite was the silver-medal winning Williams Crossing 2006, followed closely by its cellar mate, Curly Flat 2006 (www.curlyflat.com) and Midhill Romsey 2005 (phone 03 5429 5565).

And if you like good pinot noir, Macedon is now unquestionably one of our leading regions for the variety. Even with the conspicuous absence from the show of two outstanding producers, Bindi and Rochford, the medal strike rate was 71 per cent, with 20 of 28 wines winning awards.

While we awarded only one gold medal in the class – to the beautiful Curly Flat 2005 – I rated two other wines, Curly Flat 2006 and Williams Crossing 2006, at the same level. Given the price difference between Curly Flat ($46) and Williams Crossing ($22), it’d be hard not to rate the latter as the best value pinot noir in the country.

I’ve tasted and enjoyed it on several occasions now. It’s a blend of barrels that didn’t make the cut for the Curly Flat label – and the margin of difference is not all that wide.

My other highly rated pinots, all worth trying, were Lanes End 2006, Big Shed 2005 (www.bigshedwines.com.au), Portree 2005 (www.portreevineyard.com.au) and Chanters Ridge Back Paddock 2005 (www.chantersridge.com.au).

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2008

Ken Helm and his supporters launched Canberra’s riesling challenge in 2000, opened it to New Zealand wines in 2002 and then to the world, as the Canberra International Riesling Challenge, in 2005. The number of entries grew from 137 in 2000 to 512 from six countries this year, a record.

The results, announced on Friday 17 October and available at www.rieslingchallenge.com, contain few surprises and reflect the considerable diversity of wine styles made from this great variety – from luscious and sweet, to steely and austere, to dust-dry and delicate.

Its ability to age, too, is shown in two of the award winners – a sweet 1991 Rauenthaler Baiken Riesling Eiswein from Germany’s state-owned Kloster Eberbach and Peter Lehmann’s dry Eden Valley ‘Wigan’ Riesling 2003.

Kloster Eberbach’s wine topped the honours list, leading an impressive charge from Germany’s delicate semi-sweet to sweet styles. And Lehmann’s showed yet again Australia’s dominance in the dry styles.

For the first time this year the judges assessed the wines in regional groupings – making it easy to compare medal strike rates. Impressively, in the classes for 2008 vintage dry rieslings, Canberra’s strike rate of 60 per cent compared favourably with the established champs Eden Valley (62 per cent) and Clare Valley (60 per cent) and Western Australia’s Great Southern region (60 per cent).

Nothing, however, beats Clare’s 93 per cent strike rate (although Eden Valley looks respectable on 80 per cent) for the combined 2007 and 2006 vintage dry rieslings.

With five positions, these two regions dominate the Challenge’s list of Australia’s top ten ranked rieslings. But these two neighbouring regions now face serious competition.

Canberra’s Brindabella Hills 2008 (from Roger and Faye Harris’s vineyard at Hall) and Graeme Shaw’s Shaw Vineyard Estate Semi Sweet Riesling 2008 (Murrumbateman) pushed their way into this elite group – the first time Canberra rieslings have been in the front running at the event.

The list also includes one wine each from Tasmania, Mudgee, New South Wales, Great Southern, Western Australia, and one that’s probably a multi-regional blend.

And if you’ve counted eleven wines in the ‘top ten’, you’re correct. How can this be? I don’t know, but the full list is: Peter Lehmann Eden Valley ‘Wigan’ 2008, Roche Eden Valley 2008, Pipers Brook Tasmania 2007, Brindabella Hills Canberra District 2008, Neagles Rock Clare Valley 2008, McWilliams Hanwood 2007, Peter Lehmann Reserve Eden Valley 2002, Robert Stein Mudgee 2008, Shaw Vineyard Estate Canberra District Semi Sweet 2008, Tim Adams Clare Valley 2008 and Trevelen Farm Great Southern 2008.

The dark horse in that race is McWilliams Hanwood Riesling 2007, a wine that sells for less then $10 a bottle. It was judged in the ‘various’ category alongside wines like Jacob’s Creek and other mainly multi-regional blends that don’t qualify for a particular region. They’re generally very good because even though blended to meet a price, they contain high proportion of fruit from leading areas like Clare and Eden.

These wines often drink beautifully when they’re young and regularly outscore prestigious names in wine shows, a fact previously commented on in this column. There are several examples in the Challenge, for example, Jacob’s Creek 2008 and Jacob’s Creek Reserve 2008 earned bronzed medals with scores of 49 and 50 respectively, the latter just one point under a silver. But Leo Burings two fabulous 2008 ‘Leonay’ flagships, on the other hand, failed to rate. I’ll back them for gold a few years down the track.

All that says is that we should take the results of the Challenge with a grain of salt – as we should with any wine show. No show on its own is definitive. But the high scoring wines are very, very good, so a close look at the results, especially of current vintages, makes a useful shopping guide.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2008