Monthly Archives: August 2010

Wine review — Draytons, Tar & Roses, Winbirra, Stanton & Killeen, Mount Beautiful and Crittenden Estate

11 August 2010Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Draytons Vineyard Reserve Shiraz 2009 $30
Pokolbin, Hunter Valley, New South Wales
John Drayton and winemaker William Rikard-Bell say they made this from the Drayton family’s unirrigated Bull Paddock Block, planted in 1965. At a refreshingly modest 13 per cent alcohol, it’s medium bodied and spicy with a substantial grip of savoury, youthful tannins. It’s a world removed from the plump, juicy styles of other warm areas. While it’s enjoyable now with high protein food, it’ll settle into the unique and beguiling “Hunter Burgundy” style with a few years’ bottle age.

Tar and Roses Pinot Grigio 2009 $18
Strathbogie Ranges and Nagambie, Central Victoria
Call it “grigio” or “gris”, it still means grey – although the skins of this pinot noir mutant can be pink, too. Hence, the pale grey/pink rinse in Tar and Roses, attributable, write winemakers Narelle King and Don Lewis to, “the exposed fruit being affected by the extreme conditions of 2009”. Behind the colour rinse, though, is a thoroughly enjoyable, bone-dry white, with the backbone and grip of pinot, a pleasing pear-like varietal flavour and a textural richness derived from partial barrel fermentation and maturation.

Winbirra Le Marechal Viognier 2008 $25
Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
In Canberra we’re more likely to see the white viognier as a minor component with shiraz. On its own it tends to make fat, slightly oily-textured whites, dripping with apricot-like varietal flavour. But there’s a finer version, too, exemplified by the barrel-fermented wines of Condrieu, in France’s Northern Rhone Valley. Winbirra approximates this style. It’s fine boned but silk smooth with crystal-clear, delicate apricot-and-ginger varietal flavour – backed by subtle barrel-derived aromas, flavours and texture.

Stanton and Killeen Fortified Vintage 2005 $45
Rutherglen, Victoria
Inspired by Portugal’s elegant, ethereal, long-lived vintage ports, the late Chris Killeen, led the way in their Australian equivalents. He adopted classic Portuguese varieties and moved decisively away from our traditional heavier, jammy styles. The 2005 is simply beautiful – magnificently luscious, with complex, subtle spirit notes, silky, ethereal texture and, though sweet, finishing dry, thanks to the spirits. It’s destined to age beautifully, becoming more ethereal and elegant as the decades roll by. It’s made from shiraz (32 per cent), durif and the Portuguese varieties tinto cao, tinta roriz and touriga nacional.

Mount Beautiful Pinot Noir $34.95
Cheviot Hills, North Canterbury, New Zealand
This is an exciting start for a new producer. David and Leigh Teece planted vines at Cheviot Hills (about 100km north of Canterbury on the South Island) in 2004 and mad their first pinot in 2007. Their second vintage sits at the pale, delicate end of the pinot spectrum – quite a contrast to the burlier styles from Central Otago, to the south. It’s highly perfumed and purely varietal with an attractive earthy undertone. The palate’s fine-boned with a sweet core of fruit and assertive but soft tannins providing a proper red-wine backbone.

Crittenden Estate Los Hermanos Homenaje e Cataluna 2009 $30
King Valley and Patterson Lakes, Victoria
Garry Crittenden and his son Rollo have been great pioneers of alternate varieties in Australia. In this blend, a tribute to the reds of Spain’s Catalonia region, Rollo combines the Spanish variety tempranillo with mataro (monastrell) and grenache (garnacha). The aroma’s vibrant – built on ripe berries and spice with a touch of pepper. The lively, medium bodied palate reflects the aroma. And firm, savoury tannins check the lovely, plush berry flavours. It’s a wine that slips down easily and you wonder where the bottle went.

Orange — three-dimensional wine region

11 August 2010WineChris Shanahan

Close your eyes and think of Orange wine region. Does chardonnay come to mind? It’s certainly been the region’s attention getter – think, for example, of Canobolas Smith, Rosemount Estate, Bloodwood, Printhie, Philip Shaw. These have all, at times, delivered high-calibre, intensely flavoured expressions of the variety.

But ABARE grape-production figures paint a richer palate of flavours. And surprisingly, chardonnay’s not at the top of the list.

ABARE puts total production in Orange in 2010 at 8,557 tonnes (around 640 thousand dozen bottles). Shiraz tops the volume at 2,259 tonnes (169 thousand dozen), followed by chardonnay on 1,897 tonnes (142 thousand dozen), merlot 993 tonnes (74 thousand dozen) and sauvignon blanc 541 tonnes (40 thousand dozen) before falling away sharply to 257 tonnes of riesling, 228 of pinot gris and 121 of pinot noir – plus a smattering of niche varieties, including grenache, mourvedre, cabernet franc, verdelho, traminer, malbec, semillon, viognier, barbera, zinfandel, and marsanne.

That the red total of 4,878 tonnes outweighs white at 3,081 tonnes can be attributed in part to the export boom of the late nineties. Demand for red grapes prompted broad-acre planting along the Great Divide in New South Wales.

Included among these was Peter Poolman’s massive Little Boomey vineyard, located just north of Molong. Little Boomey, planted 80 per cent to red varieties, was underpinned initially by grape-purchase contracts with Southcorp Wines and funded by hundreds of small investors.

The venture came to grief. But the remaining 508 hectares of vines and a ten thousand tonne capacity winery now trade as Cumulus Estate Wines – jointly owned by Assetinsure, a Sydney based insurance group, and the Berardo family of Portugal. Cumulus exports forty per cent of its production.

Cumulus serves as a useful introduction to Orange as the regional boundary dissects the vineyard – part of it’s in Orange, the rest in Central Ranges. So fruit from the Central Ranges part goes to the company’s Rolling brand; and fruit from Orange to the Climbing and Cumulus labels.

The vineyard’s not on the boundary in the traditional sense, as it lies entirely within the shires of Cabonne, Blayney and Orange City. Rather, the vines literally roll in and out of Orange because of the boundary definition’s third dimension – “contiguous land above 600 metres”.

So, if Cumulus vineyards sit on the lower part of the boundary (the vineyard’s lowest point is 557 metres), the only way from there is up. And even if that’s not all the way to Mount Canobolas’s 1395-metre summit, the spread in altitude of Orange’s vineyards ensure a great diversity of wine styles.

According to local promoter David Cumming, the upper limits are at Ross Hill at 1,100 metres and Brangayne and the David Bartrell vineyard at 1,050 metres – all substantially higher than Lark Hill, Canberra’s highest vineyard at 860 metres.

In Orange, the mean January temperature falls by about two degrees between 600 and 1,000 metres. This variation, multiplied across the growing season, significantly affects total solar heat collected by vines and, hence, the flavours of grapes and wine.

Mount Canobolas also acts as a rain trap – the regional averages rising to around 900mm annually on the higher slopes and falling off to 700mm lower down. But because the ripening period tends to be dry, irrigation is still necessary “on lower warmer vineyards”.

While Orange has several large vineyards (by my estimate five of them account for about 1,000 of the area’s 1,500 hectares), the area’s pioneers were mainly small operators.
Sons and Brothers arrived in 1978. They were followed in the eighties by Bloodwood, Cargo Road, Canobolas Smith, Habitat, Highland Heritage, Philip Shaw, Rosemount Estate, Ibis and Somervaille Estate. More arrived in the nineties and new century, bringing the total to around 30. Some, like Brangayne, were already on the land and added grapes as another crop.

One arrived by air! Philip Shaw, then chief winemaker for Rosemount Estate, recalls an emergency landing in 1987 at Orange in the company’s private aircraft. Cruising in for landing, Shaw found welcome distraction searching for a vineyard site – and found one.
Rosemount and Shaw both established vines the following year. Shaw now presides over his 47-hectare vineyard, making wine for his Philip Shaw label. The vineyard sits at around the 900-metre mark.

In contrast to the well capitalised, larger Shaw and Rosemount ventures, other growers established much smaller vineyards by sheer sweat – driven by their own visions.

Bloodwood is a great example. Visit their terrific website (www.bloodwood.biz) to see how Rhonda and Stephen Doyle struggled but laughed their way through the eighties, hand building their eight-hectare vineyard with its 21,274 vines. For years the Doyles have made some of the best wines in Orange from this precious, hard-won plot.

We’ll be venturing up to lovely Orange in early September to report on the latest wines.

Beer for the cellar — Crown Ambassador and Coopers Vintage

11 August 2010BeerChris Shanahan

Beer for the cellar? You bet. On 30 June Coopers released its 2010 Extra Strong Vintage Ale – the tenth in the series following 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008 and 2009 – and on 2 August Foster’s released its third Crown Ambassador Reserve Lager 2010.

It’s a choice between the bling and dazzle of Crown’s gold-embossed 750m bottle at $90 (with a pair of purpose-built Riedel glasses for $129) or the no-frills 375ml Coopers 6-pack at $20.

They’re clearly pitched at different markets. Crown pushes into luxury goods territory alongside, perfume and Champagne. It’ll even be served in Australia’s poshest restaurants – Quay, Catalina, Aria Sydney and Brisbane, Circa, The Prince and Grossi Florentino.

Coopers, on the other hand, comes in plain vanilla packaging saluting the company’s long, independent brewing heritage. There are no flashing lights here, just a straightforward appeal to beer lovers, particularly the Coopers faithful, of which there are many.

Without having sampled the 2010s, though, we can be sure they’ll both be top-notch, although very different brews – Crown, a high-alcohol lager, brewed in Melbourne under John Cozens; and Coopers, a strong, dark ale brewed in Adelaide under Dr Tim Cooper.
Bottles are on the way now, so we’ll report on the comparative tasting next week.

Beer review — Mountain Goat and Innis & Gunn

11 August 2010Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Mountain Goat Hightail Ale 330ml $3.70
Mount Goat, from Richmond, Victoria, shows an extra freshness and liveliness often seen in bottle-conditioned beers. It’s a dark-amber ale, nicely combining in its aroma resiny hops with fruit and malt. The palate’s medium bodied and smooth, its maltiness cut but well-judged hops flavour and bitterness.

Innis and Gunn Rum Cask Oak Aged Beer 330ml $7.90
Innis and Gunn’s high-alcohol (7.4 per cent) dark ale – matured in American oak barrels and old rum barrels – leads with a deep, sweet molasses-like, malty aroma. The molasses carries through on a well-balanced, opulent, silky palate – an idiosyncratic warmer on a cold Edinburgh (or Canberra) night.

Wine review — Moppity Vineyards, Bowen Estate and Rutherglen Estates

8 August 2010Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Moppity Vineyards Hilltops Riesling 2010 $23
Moppity’s cheaper sibling, Lock and Key Riesling 2010, won the trophy as best riesling at the recent Winewise Small Vignerons Awards. The more expensive wine walked away without a medal. But it’s unquestionably the better wine of the two with its lovely floral aroma, fresh, intense lime-like varietal flavour and zesty, bone-dry finish. It’s not uncommon for better rieslings to flourish months, or sometimes a year or more after release as the delicate fruit flavour’s sometimes masked by high acidity. The cheaper versions, on the other hand, tend to flaunt it all from day one.

Bowen Estate Coonawarra

Shiraz 2008 $30
Chardonnay 2009 $30

There’s been some criticism of high alcohol in Australian red wines. It’s a complex subject, as even comparatively low-alcohol wines can appear hot and alcoholic, while in others like this beautiful Bowen Estate shiraz, high alcohol (15 per cent) simply disappears without trace into the sweet, ripe, supple fruit. It might be big, but it’s still graceful and elegant – a great joy to drink now and probably for a decade or more into the future. It’s made by father and daughter team Doug and Emma Bowen. Their chardonnay’s a full, vibrant style featuring pure, melon-like varietal flavour and a noticeable overlay of high-quality new oak.

Rutherglen Estates

Shelley’s Block Marsanne Viognier 2009 $13–$16
Burgoyne’s Block Mourvedre Shiraz Grenache 2008 $13–$16

Rutherglen Estate’s white blend provides quite a departure from our usual menu of white-wine flavours – led by the exotic, apricot-like richness of viognier. It’s a full flavoured drop and richly textured, though the alcohol’s a comparatively modest 13 per cent. And the red blend chips away at the Rutherglen stereotype – there’s no blockbuster here. Rather it’s fragrant and medium bodied with a delicious, gentle core of ripe-berries and spice and pleasant, rustic bite of tannin. Rutherglen Estates, with five vineyard sites, claims to be the largest grower in the Rutherglen region. We’ve been impressed with the quality and value of wines tasted to date.

Foster’s unveils new name for its wine business

4 August 2010People, WineChris Shanahan

On 21 July Foster’s Group Limited changed the name of its global wine business from Fosters Wine Estates to Treasury Wine Estates. The change followed Fosters decision in May to split its beer and wine divisions into two separate companies to be listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2011.

Despite the name change, the stench of failure hangs over Fosters wine assets. It’s a sad story, tragic for some participants, involving a near decade long destruction of wealth. On glug.com.au, David Farmer cites an estimate of around $8 billion to build Foster’s wine assets but a current value of just $2.5 billion.

Fosters moved into wine in 1996, acquiring Mildara Blass – a highly profitable business driven by the big volume Yellowglen, Jamiesons Run and Wolf Blass brands. Headed by Ray King, Mildara Blass was seen in the industry as a model for return on investment.

Ironically, at about the time of the Fosters acquisition, King detailed to a masters-of-wine gathering the wine industry’s history of dispersing wealth. It wouldn’t happen under King’s watch, but the same fate awaited Fosters.

In 1997 Fosters acquired Cellarmaster Wines, a highly successful, vertically integrated direct marketing business, based at Bondi Junction, with winemaking, packaging and distribution assets in the Barossa Valley.

Then in 2000 California’s Beringer Wine Estates joined Fosters wine business and the name changed to Beringer Blass Wine Estates (shortened in 2004 to Beringer Blass). By then the difficulty of running a wine business had become apparent. In the year to June 2004 the wine division returned just four per cent on its $4.4 billion of assets – compared to the beer division’s 25 per cent on $2.2 billion of assets.

But the wine headache was set to grow bigger, ultimately sweeping Chief Executive Trevor O’Hoy away.

As Foster’s ran into rough weather, another disaster had unfolded at Southcorp, owner of many of Australia’s greatest and oldest wine brands, including Wynns Coonawarra Estate, Penfolds, Seppelt, Lindemans, Leo Buring, Coldstream Hills and Devil’s Lair.

In 2001, the Oatley family engineered a merger of its highly successful Rosemount Estate business with the much larger Southcorp Wines. The Oatleys held a sufficiently large stake to control management, installing Keith Lambert, Bob Oatley’s son in law, as head. Catastrophe followed.

Poor management decisions saw market share decimated in the UK and Australia. And an unworkable arrangement saw John Duval, Southcorp chief winemaker, and Philip Shaw, Rosemount chief winemaker, appointed as joint chief winemaker. A holy trinity might work, but not an earthly duality. As the debacle unfolded both departed for their own reasons, making John Duval the first Grange maker not to see the job through to retirement.

In Australia, wine retailers large and small detested the merger and instantly changed their buying habits – much to the delight and profit of medium sized companies like McWilliams and De Bortoli.

No retailer likes to be controlled by a supplier. If, before the merger, purchases from Southcorp and Rosemount equalled, say, 50 per cent of a retailer’s total, after the merger, they’d likely fall to 30 per cent. The merged Southcorp-Rosemount learned the hard way that they were the tail, not the dog. And the big retailers would wag them, not the other way around. Lambert duly departed and John Ballard stepped in to repair the damage.

In 2005, before Ballard could complete the job, Fosters moved in, paying top dollar for Southcorp. Bob Oatley walked away with cash and the destruction of wealth gathered pace.

Fosters first major blunder after the acquisition was to funnel all sales across it vast beverage portfolio through a single sales force. Friends in the trade at the time said it was farcical. And the loss of market share experienced by the merged Southcorp-Rosemount was repeated by the merged Southcorp-Fosters.

After repeated write-downs and then a major review in 2009, Fosters structurally separated its wine and beer divisions. In May this year they went a step further, announcing the split into two listed companies.

This sets the scene for further shake-ups in the global wine and beer businesses. The beer business could easily be gobbled up by a larger player when the wine albatross is cut free. And it’s anybody’s guess as to where the wine business ends up. Will it prosper as a single entity? Or will it ultimately be carved up.

It’s a disparate group of brands, some of them now severely damaged. But there are some great gems with huge international potential, including Wynns and Penfolds. What a pair they’d make for the right private investor!

For the moment, though, there’s no talk of a carve-up. David Dearie, Foster’s wine boss for Australia and New Zealand, launching the new Treasury Wine Estates brand, said, “the new name and business identity reflect the wealth of treasured wine brands including global favourites Beringer, Matua Valley, Penfolds, Lindemans, Wolf Blass and Rosemount to regional labels such as Coldstream Hills, Devil’s Lair and T’Gallant”.

Dearie also talked of “a cultural change for of us working in the wine business as we return to a dedicated focus on viticulture and winemaking”.

This gets to the heart of great wine brands – the compelling stories of regions and vineyards and the people behind the wines. Marketers in large companies have largely failed at this, so we have reason to remain sceptical. As well, the treasury comes with dross as well as gold dust.

Separated from the brewery, Treasury Wine Estates will have to perform in its own right. Shareholders are unlikely to stomach more write-downs. And if there are any more, where will new capital come from? For the sake of our great old brands, let’s hope for success. But I suspect that would be more likely with a carve-up.

Wine review — Mt Langhi, Bowen Estate, Lock and Key, Philip Shaw, Black Chook and Draytons

4 August 2010Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Mt Langhi Shiraz 2007 $85
Grampians, Victoria
This extraordinary wine, now part of the Rathbone Wine Group (Yering Station Yarra Valley, Mount Langhi Ghiran Grampians, Parker Coonawarra and Xanadu Margaret River) comes from shiraz vines planted in 1963 at about 350 metres above seal level, in the shadow of Mount Langhi Ghiran. The particularly cool climate produces the distinctive graceful, spicy, elegant Langhi style – now being finely polished, under the Rathbones, by winemaker Dan Buckle and viticulturist Damien Sheehan.

Bowen Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2008
Coonawarra, South Australia
The 2008 continues a recent resurgence in wine quality from Bowen Estate – operated by Doug and Joy Bowen and daughter, Emma. It’s as pure an expression of cabernet as you’re likely to find – absolutely ripe, but not overripe, with deep, sweet berry flavours a plump (for cabernet) mid palate, persistent, strong-but-gentle tannins and Coonawarra’s signature elegance. It’s already irresistible. But the fruit depth and structure suggest a good cellaring life.

Lock and Key Riesling 2010 $12–$15
Hilltops, New South Wales
In a pattern common to Australian wine shows, modestly-priced Lock and Key outscored wines up to four times its price to carry off the Winewise Riesling Trophy a few weeks back. It’s an attractive, full, crisp, fruity riesling – perfect company for Asian food – and it’ll probably never be better than it is now. But I’ll back Ken Helm’s two silver-medal 2010 rieslings – and a few others overlooked by the judges –to power through in the months ahead as their intense fruit emerges from behind the austere acid of extreme youth.

Philip Shaw No. 11 Chardonnay 2008 $30
Orange, New South Wales
I can’t recall a better Orange chardonnay than Rosemount Estate1994, made by Phillip Shaw when he was chief winemaker for the company. There’s more than an echo of that superb wine in Shaw’s 2008. This is a pristine, cool-climate style – pale, finely structured and unevolved, with intense white peach and grapefruit varietal flavour, taut, spritely acidity and subtle, interwoven barrel-derived characters. It’s a style to enjoy now or in its evolution over the next five or six years, perhaps longer.

Black Chook Shiraz 2009 $13–$17
McLaren Vale and Langhorne Creek, South Australia
Black Chook is a free-ranging blend of shiraz, with a dollop of viognier, from McLaren Vale and Langhorne Creek. It roams the same coop as the Woop Woop, Penny’s Hill and Mr Riggs wines, all made by Ben Riggs as part of the Galvanised Wine Group. Like all the tastiest chooks, it’s big, plump, juicy and ready for the table now.

Draytons Vineyard Reserve Semillon 2006 $30
Pokolbin, Hunter Valley, New South Wales
Not everyone likes the idiosyncratic lower-Hunter semillon style. But for those who do this is a brilliant and delicious example. At four years it’s just beginning to reveal the textural richness that comes with age. The pale straw colour, twangy, lemony acidity and crystal-clear lemon and lemongrass varietal flavour provide good current drinking. But experience with the style says it’ll grow more interesting over the next decade, taking on a lovely toasty character. It’s from Drayton’s Oakey Creek Vineyard, established in 1899.

Beer review — Gage and Bulmers

4 August 2010Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Gage Premium Lager 330ml 6-pack $16.99
The label’s changed from “Gage Roads” to “Gage”, but the beer seems the same – a rich, smooth, very fresh lager, seasoned with the distinctive aroma and flavour of Hallertau hops; and has a pleasant, lingering bitterness. Woolworths bought 25 per cent of Western Australian based Gage in 2009.

Bulmers Pear Cider 500ml $4.99
The press release cites cider market growth of 22 per cent in the year to April 2010 – no surprise if you’ve noticed the growing shelf space lately. But please don’t expect from Bulmers the razor-sharp, intense pear flavours of the Norman versions. This one’s bubbly, sweetish and crisp with a hint of pear (or is it apple?) flavour.