Yearly Archives: 2011

Wine review — Capital Wines, Z4 and Katnook Estate

20 February 2011Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Capital Wines Canberra District

The Backbencher Merlot 2009 $25
The Senator Chardonnay 2009 $22

Capital wines is a partnership between the Moody and McEwin families with Mark Moody in the vineyard, Jennie Moody in the marketing department and Andrew McEwin in the winery. Both of these wines come from their Kyeema vineyard, Murrumbateman. The merlot, though slightly paler than the sublime $46 reserve version, offers a terrifically fragrant, pure expression of the variety with a lovely core of plummy fruit flavour. The vibrant Senator chardonnay features fresh melon rind/ melon and peach varietal flavours with a touch of oak and a lively, refreshing acidity. It’s a lovely and simply poohs all over sauvignon blanc.

Z4 Wines Canberra District

Zoe Riesling 2010 $16
Zane Shiraz 2009 $19

Z4 is a merchant brand owned by Canberra wine marketers Bill and Maria Mason. I’m not sure if their wines or kids came first, nor if their given names, all beginning with Z, reflect the character of the wines they’re named after. The vinous versions of Zoe and Zane, both from the Four Winds vineyard and made at Canberra Winemakers by Rob Howell and Greg Gallagher, offer fair value in the Canberra regional style – the riesling fresh, crisp and reasonably dry and the shiraz savoury and medium bodied. You’ll find them in Canberra retail outlets and on restaurant wine lists.

Katnook Founder’s Block Coonawarra Riesling 2009 $18

A peculiarity, and blessing, of a white wine boom several decades ago is the considerable area of riesling planted in Coonawarra – an area noted more for red wine than white. Wine companies trying to be all things to all people often threw a little of everything into the vineyards. Riesling not only survives there, but also produces healthy yields and makes delicious wines at comparatively modest prices. Katnook, from the heart of classic Coonawarra, benefits, as well, from a couple of years bottle age – adding richness and texture to its zesty and still ultra fresh, light and delicate citrusy varietal flavour.

Wine review — Capital Wines, Rutherglen Estate, Black Jack, Main Ridge Estate and Lanson

16 February 2011Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Capital Wines The Frontbencher Shiraz 2009 $25
Murrumbateman, Canberra District, New South Wales

Winemaker Andrew McEwin sourced fruit for the Frontbencher from Kyeema Vineyard, Ellenvale and Barton Estate. It shows the same touch of class we’re seeing in so many Canberra 2009 reds – a great depth of vivid berry fruit flavours. And in the style long established by McEwin, there’s a generous dollop of tannin forming a chewy, satisfying matrix with the fruit. This’ll help it through a few years in bottle. But it also means you’ll need to glug a bit of air into it to reveal the lovely fruit now.

Rutherglen Estate Fiano 2010 $21.95
Rutherglen, Victoria

A number of Australian vignerons, mainly in hotter regions, now grow fiano, a white native of Italy’s warm, dry Campania region. Rutherglen Estate’s well made 2010, its third vintage, gives a good impression of what to expect from the variety. It’s clean, fresh, zesty, richly textured and dry. The varietal template says to expect “herbal, nutty, smoky spicy notes and hazelnut”. I found herb and spice and touch of pear, a pleasant savouriness and a quite grippy, pleasantly tart finish. This is a long way from our usual fare, but it’s unlikely to be the next sauv blanc.

Capital Wines Kyeema Vineyard Reserve Merlot 2009 $46
Murrumbateman, Canberra District, New South Wales

It’s not a case of move over shiraz. But Kyeema’s 2009 merlot confirms that Canberra has a second red variety in the very top league. It’s the latest and probably the best from a long line of distinguished merlots made by Andrew McEwin from the Kyeema vineyard. The colour’s limpid, the aroma’s alluring and the palate’s elegant, albeit firmly tannic. But crack the nut of tannin and revel in the kernel of pure, juicy, plummy merlot underneath. It needs a good splash in the decanter before drinking now. But Kyeema will best be enjoyed after another five or six years bottle age.

Black Jack Chortle’s Edge Shiraz 2008 $18
Bendigo, Victoria

It’s dark and big and bold and ripe and juicy and fifteen per cent alcohol. But belying its mammoth size, it’s spicy and savoury and very much in the cool-climate shiraz aroma and flavour mould – a true and big-value example of the Bendigo style. Chortle’s Edge, made by proprietors Ian McKenzie and Ken Pollock, comes from the Turner’s Crossing vineyard, Bridgewater, and Fielding family vineyard, North Harcourt, within the Bendigo region.

Main Ridge Estate Chardonnay 2009 $55
Main Ridge, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria

Hemingway’s description of wine as “one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection” captures Main Ridge chardonnay – a wine brought to its current beauty over many decades by Nat and Rosalie White. The combination of vineyard work, aimed at perfecting berry flavours, and sensitive winemaking, aimed at capturing flavour and building texture, deliver a full, silky, delicate chardonnay that demands, always, just one more sip. It’s a beautiful wine and from experience, evolves well in the cellar.

Lanson Champagne Brut NV $65
Champagne, France

Most Champagne houses put their base wines through a malo-lactic fermentation, a process that reduces total acidity and softens the wine. There’s good reason to do this in a cold region where austerity in wine is the norm. Because Lanson elects to block this process, their wines present a pleasantly tart but still delicious face of the region. I find it too acidic to enjoy on its own; but well chilled with food it comes to life as a great refresher and teasing foreplay to something more substantial.

Canberra’s Jim Murphy and Michael Phelps buy historic Clare vineyard

16 February 2011People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

In July 2009 wine retailer Jim Murphy and Canberra lawyer Michael Phelps bought the Schobers vineyard – one of three prime Clare Valley sites offered by Constellation Wines Australia in a mass clearance of its Australian wine assets.

In October 2008 Constellation had announced the coming sale of three large wineries – Langton in Western Australia, Stonehaven on South Australia’s Limestone Coast and Leasingham in the Clare Valley. Also on offer were 1,322 hectares of vineyard in South Australia, including Schobers, and 169 hectares in Western Australia. The company had already sold its Kamberra Wine Tourism complex and 85-hectare Holt vineyard to Canberra’s Elvin Group.

With a glut of vineyards on the market at the time and buyers nervous, prices fell. Murphy won’t reveal what he paid for Schobers vineyard, but said, “It was a good price, below replacement cost”.

“I always loved the area”, he said, “and all the great Leasingham bin wines. I first visited there in 1970 with Max Schubert [creator of Penfolds Grange]. Max bought wine from Mick Knappstein [Leasingham winemaker] for Grange. Max was fascinated with the area and always needed Clare grapes for Grange, Bin 707 and Bin 389. He thought the wines were very elegant”.

Then in 2009 Murphy took a call from Peter Dawson, Constellation’s former chief winemaker, urging him to buy the Schobers vineyard.

As winemaker for Australia’s second largest producer and exporter, Dawson knew intimately the quality potential of hundreds of vineyards in every important wine-growing region in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania.

Dawson rated Schobers among the top 20 red vineyards in Australia, recalls Clare Valley winemaker David O’Leary (uncle of Canberra’s Nick O’Leary). He’d received the same excited phone call from Dawson, but not having the money to buy it, joined Dawson in urging Murphy to do so.

Murphy didn’t need much persuasion and over lunch with Michael Phelps found a partner. “We bought it in July”, says Murphy, “and by August we were busy pruning. We’d hired a full time manager, Allen Weedon, and he got contractors in to work it. It had been let go under Constellation”.

The quick restoration paid off and in 2010 Murphy and Phelps sent 200-tonnes of shiraz and cabernet sauvignon to the nearby O’Leary Walker winery for processing. O’Leary describes the wines as “concentrated and powerful”.

Processing the fruit seemed like working with an old friend again, says O’Leary, as he’d made reds from Schobers vineyard in the early nineties at Hardy’s Tintara winery, McLaren Vale. Hardys had acquired Leasingham from H.J. Heinz in 1988 (Constellation Brands USA bought Hardys in 2003). From 1991 to 1994, O’Leary recalls, he made components of the powerful Leasingham Classic Clare reds and sparkling shiraz at Tintara. Chris Proud, and later Richard Rower, produced other components at Leasingham. All used grapes from Schobers.

H.J. Heinz planted the vineyard in 1976–77 at the height of a red wine boom. In unique wine industry fashion this was just in time for a cask-led white wine boom. Hardys expanded Schobers in 1996 to feed the next boom – seemingly insatiable global demand for Australian wine.

While the export boom persisted for another decade, it was, unfortunately, based mainly on cheaper, blended wine with the appellation “South Eastern Australia” or “Australia”. Despite some efforts our major exporters made few inroads with our fabulous regional wines and the world remains largely ignorant of their existence.

As a consequence, much of the vineyard expansion in high-quality, low-yielding areas like Clare (and Canberra) meant grape production cost beyond the level required for export wines. This realisation began mid decade of the new century but became bitter reality as our currency strengthened and the global financial crisis arrived.

Constellation headed for the exit – but not before Leasingham attempted to showcase the glory of Schobers vineyard.

Jim Murphy currently offers Leasingham Schobers Vineyard Shiraz 2005 and Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, made initially by Kerri Thompson and completed by Simon Osicka after Thompson left Leasingham in late 2006.

Thompson (now with her own Clare Valley winery, KT and the Falcon) says, “We focused on the Schobers and Provis vineyards and Schobers, being dry grown, was prone to inconsistent crop levels. But when it hit its straps it was bloody good”.

Indeed, recalls Thompson, Schobers 1994 shiraz proved bloody good enough to win the Jimmy Watson Trophy in 1995 under Leasingham’s Classic Clare label. But the style evolved considerably in the following decade. Under Hardys red winemaker Stephen Pannell, supported by Peter Dawson, the reds moved from the “solid oak and more rustic” style of the 1994 to become “refined and more expressive of fruit” – a perfect description of the exciting Leasingham Schobers Vineyard wines mentioned above (full reviews here next week).

Now for the first time in its history, the 71.8-hectare Schobers vineyard (shiraz 53.1ha, cabernet sauvignon 18.7ha), is receiving the single focus of private owners.

Murphy and Phelps will later this year release their first wines under the Schobers label at three price points – around $15, $22 and $35 – initially with some bought-in material, though form 2012, says Murphy, the reds (shiraz, cabernet and shiraz-cabernet) will be sourced entirely from the vineyard. The range will also include a Clare Valley riesling and, from the Adelaide Hills, a chardonnay and semillon sauvignon blanc blend.

Murphy and Phelps intend to enter Schobers wines in the show circuit and to seek wider distribution in retail outlets and restaurants.

Wine review — Wilson, Solar Viejo and Yarra Loch

13 February 2011Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Wilson Polish Hill River Riesling 2010 $24

We found this wonderful drop on the wine list at Starfish Deli, Bateman’s Bay, and enjoyed it with fish and chips – a happy combination. It’s from the Wilson family’s stony, low-yielding vineyard in the Clare Valley’s cool Polish Hill River sub-region. It appeals for its pure, intense, lime-like varietal flavour and refreshingly acidic but very delicate finish. Winemaker Daniel Wilson says the vineyard lies on hard, stony ground and the spindly, thirty-plus year old vines consistently deliver powerful riesling flavours. He added that a new distribution arrangement means we can now find it in Canberra and on the south coast.

Rioja Crianza (Solar Viejo) 2007 $27–$30

This savoury red, from Spain’s Rioja region, is imported by the Wingara Wine Group, owners of Katnook Estate, Coonawarra. It’s 100 per cent tempranillo, unaided by the region’s usual blending partners garnacha and graciano. Fourteen months in oak and about a year in bottle brings it to an appealing stage of maturity. Rather than the plump, bright fruitiness we’re used to in Australian reds it’s aromatic but lean and savoury with a fine, firm backbone of tannin, releasing teasing bursts of fruit flavour. It drinks beautifully now and should hold its appeal for another few years.

Yarra Loch Yarra Valley Arneis 2010 $25

Annoyingly in this age of regional marketing the Coldstream, Yarra Valley, grape origin isn’t included on the label. That quibble aside, it’s a beautiful wine, with punchy, herbal aroma and rich, vibrant, juicy palate with zesty, refreshing acid backbone and dry finish. Winemaker David Bicknell fermented the wine partly in oak, partly in stainless steel – the combination giving great purity as well as body and structure. It weighs in at a modest 12.5 per cent alcohol. Arneis, meaning little rascal, is a white variety of Italy’s Piedmont region.

Wine and love — thoughts for Valentine’s day

9 February 2011People, WineChris Shanahan

Wine and love can’t be separated. We woo with wine. We celebrate with it. We surrender to it. We let our hair down with it. We share its sensuality in ways not approached by other great human creations: We see it, smell it, taste it, feel its touch, fill our mouths with it, savour its lusciousness with our tongues and become intoxicated by it. It’s a component of attraction, seduction and shared pleasure.

Even that crusty old salt Ernest Hemingway praised wine’s unique sensuality. In “Death in the Afternoon” he wrote, ” Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing”.

Joni Mitcheel breathed wine’s sensuality into this beautiful metaphor for love and desire:

“Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet”.

While four centuries earlier Ben Jonson, longing for love’s pleasures, elevated it one notch above wine:

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine.

Jonson simply echoed the even older Song of Solomon, “How much better is thy love than wine!”

How dreary, dour, joyless and acerbic, even vinegary, by comparison was the temperance movement’s slogan “lips that touch wine shall never kiss mine”.

Busy Michelangelo, sniffing a sexual metaphor in wine, penned an evocative, even lurid, impression of vernaccia, a white wine from the ancient Tuscan town of San Gimignano. “It kisses, licks, bites, thrusts and stings”, he noted.

The description doesn’t gel with modern, tart, dry vernaccia. But it leapt to mind when tasting Tim Adams Botrytis Riesling 2010 featured in today’s wine reviews. Now there’s a wine that kisses and licks with its luscious, sweet fruit, then stings with its tangy, sharp, lime-like acidity.

An even more direct and anatomical metaphor came at a National Press Club dinner hosted by wine merchants David and Richard Farmer in the early eighties. A prominent female political journalist of the time likened Sauternes to “making love [euphemism inserted] when I’m drunk – dry but luscious”.

Perhaps her companion was sober. Perhaps he’d heeded the porter in Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things – nose-painting, sleep and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance; therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him”.

Here the emphasis shifts from sensuous wine and shared pleasure to alcohol-fuelled seduction and lechery – a notion neatly captured in Ogden Nash’s “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker”.

Wine-fuelled lechery, however, reaches its raunchy depths in the final verse of Flanders’ and Swan’s popular, “Have some Madeira m’dear”. Strangely, much drink turns out not to be an equivocator:

“Until the next morning, she woke up in bed
With a smile on her lips and an ache in her head
And a beard in her ear ‘ole that tickled and said,
‘Have some Madeira, m’dear’”.

Lechery might be OK for obscure, potent Madeira. But it’s a long way from the image Champagne likes to promote. Long seen as the ultimate wine of mutual seduction, Champagne combines an instant, subtle, inhibition-smashing rush of alcohol with a unique, delicate, sensual flavour. It’s a luxurious a symbol of generosity, sharing, celebration and sexiness.

Worth noting at Valentine’s, though, is a comment made by Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, head of Champagne Taittinger, reported by Decanter magazine from the Reuters Global Luxury Summit in June 2010: “Champagne’s stiffest competition comes not from Prosecco, Cava or English sparkling wine – but from Viagra”.

Tongue in cheek? Perhaps even more tongue in cheek, could this be a demographic indicator? Are ageing baby boomer males countering Shakespearean over indulgence with the wonder drug?

As thrilling as Champagne is, pinot noir at its best is perhaps the most sensuous wine of all. Perhaps it’s what Hemingway and Mitchell had in mind. Perhaps it might’ve been Michelangelo’s gold standard. Main Ridge Half Acre 2009 in today’s reviews is that sort of wine – deeply sensuous, aesthetically pleasing and “brought to perfection”.

In the spirit of Martin Luther’s “He who loves not wine, women and song remains a fool his whole life long”, and Cat Empire’s “I’m going to die with a twinkle in my eye, cause I sung songs, spun stories, loved, laughed and drank wine” — this week’s wine selections presents sensually pleasing wines of all shades – wines we can savour, love and laugh over on Valentine’s day.

Valentine’s wine review — Lambert Vineyards, Best’s, Taittenger, Main Ridge Estate, Riposte and Tim Adams

9 February 2011Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Lambert Vineyards Pinot Gris 2008 $24
Wamboin, Canberra District, New South Wales

Ruth and Steve Lambert use the French “gris” rather than Italian “grigio” and back it with a wine in the Alsacian style. The colour’s a deep yellow and fresh, pear-like varietal flavour rises above a viscous, smooth, moderately sweet and warmly alcoholic palate. The viscosity and residual grape sugar set this style apart from the crisp dryness of more mainstream varieties. The body, sweetness and a little kiss of tannin make it good company for robust food, for example grilled salmon.

Best’s Thomson Family Shiraz 2008 $150
Great Western, Grampians Region, Victoria

Why not celebrate Valentine’s day at home, enjoying home-cooked food and savouring a luxurious red. Thomson Family shiraz, sourced from vines planted in 1867, offers a profound savoury, firm expression of the variety – a wine of rare dimension for long cellaring. Its softer, more voluptuously fruity cellar mate, Bin O Shiraz 2008( $65), might be an even more-seductive-now option. It’s sourced from estate vines planted in the late nineteenth and mid twentieth century.

Taittinger Prelude Grand Crus Champagne $130

There’s a lovable elegance and creamy richness to the Taittinger Champagnes. And with the non-vintage Prelude blend comes an extra flavour dimension and pure magic that has little to do with winemaking technique. The key is grape quality – in this instance top-notch material from some of the Champagne region’s greatest vineyards, pinot noir from the Montagne de Reims and chardonnay from the Cotes des Blancs. What a lovely, gentle, elegant Valentine’s treat.

Main Ridge Estate Half Acre Pinot Noir 2009 $70
Mornington Peninsular, Victoria

Sex and wine share a sense of anticipation driven by sensual cues. And if any wine can be sexy, surely it’s pinot noir. No other variety seduces so completely – the shimmering, limpid, crimson colour; the sweet, floral, musky, earthy, savoury aroma; and the juicy, slurpy, slippery, firm-but-tender flood of liquid on our palates. Indeed, for the sufficiently temperate, there’s every hope of enjoying both in one night. Our Valentine’s choice is the demure but ultimately naked pleasure revealed in Main Ridge 2009.

Riposte The Sabre Pinot Noir 2009 $29
Adelaide Hills, South Australia

The Sabre, delivers pinot seduction at a realistic price. Like its impressive $20 cellar mate, the “Dagger” 2010, reviewed last month, it’s made by Tim Knappstein. Where the Dagger offers delicious, upfront, drink-now pinot flavour, The more tightly coiled Sabre needs time to unwind. Over time the fruity, savoury, spicy pinot flavours push through the firm but fine backbone of tannin. The Sabre won the pinot trophy at the Adelaide Hills wine show.

Tim Adams Botrytis Riesling 2010 375ml $31
Clare Valley, South Australia

This is another deeply sensuous Valentine’s wine, suited to sinfully creamy, stinky, veiny, runny cheese, perhaps mixed with honey, perhaps scooped out and slurped down with Silo bread. It’s very sweet, as the style should be. But the intense, lime-like varietal flavour and searing acidity keep it fresh, balanced and interesting for glass after glass. Tim Adams made it from late picked, very ripe, botrytis-infected riesling grapes from his Ireland’s Vineyard.

Wine review — d’Arenberg, Kingston Estate and Michel Chapoutier

6 February 2011Wine reviewChris Shanahan

d’Arenberg The Money Spider McLaren Vale Roussanne 2009 $17-$19

d’Arenberg, The Vale’s master of the Rhône Valley red varieties grenache, shiraz and mourvedre, some years back turned its hand, with equal panache, to the white varieties, marsanne, viognier and roussanne. The shy roussanne appeals strongly in the 2009 vintage. The aroma and flavour are reminiscent of stone fruit and honey. The palate begins juicy, full and smoothly viscous. But it’s also dry and savoury with a pleasant, subtle twist of tannin to finish. In its northern Rhone home, roussanne is normally blended with other varieties, but in Money Spider it stands comfortably alone.

Kingston Estate Padthaway-Adelaide Hills Chardonnay 2010 $12–$14

In this blend Bill Moularadellis combines the full, ripe-melon and nectarine character of chardonnay from Padthaway (about two hours drive north of Mount Gambier) with tangier, citrus-like material from the cooler Adelaide Hills. It’s tasty, inexpensive and always tempting to come back for another sip as the wine’s complex and interesting but also bright, fruity and refreshing. Clever use of oak and contact with yeast lees added texture and subtle flavours as a backdrop to the vibrant varietal flavours.

Cotes-du-Rhone (M. Chapoutier) 2008 $15–$18

This is what a French country wine should be about but often is not – clean, tasty, pleasing to drink, realistically priced with flavours reflecting region and variety. Chapoutier’s blend combines grenache and shiraz from the Drome, Vaucluse, Gard and Ardeche in the southern Rhone Valley. It’s medium bodied, with spicy, earthy grenache leading the nose and palate and shiraz adding grip and structure. It’s not as fleshy or as in-your-face fruity as comparable Australian blends, but that’s only to do with individual style, not quality. What a terrific, distinctive drink at a fair price.

Tim Adams buys Clare’s Leasingham Winery

2 February 2011People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

It was all smiles and champers in Clare last weekend. The region’s biggest and one of its oldest wineries at last found a new owner prepared to buy local grapes, make and market wine and reopen the cellar door.

Leasingham’s previous owner, Constellation Wines Australia, a subsidiary of Constellation Brands USA, closed the winery in August 2009, sold three of its key vineyard, then in 2010 offered its winemaking equipment and winery-cellar door facility for sale.

Constellation retained the Leasingham brand. But its decision to abandon the winery deeply depressed the mood of the region. Leasingham had been the largest winery in the region since the 1890s. Its operations affected hundreds of families across the Clare Valley, especially those of independent grape growers.

At the time of Constellation’s decision, with winemaking assets already flooding the market and seemingly few buyers, locals feared the site, on the edge of Clare township, might be bulldozed for housing.

Constellation quickly found buyers for the Rogers, Dunns and Schoebers vineyards. Then in December last year they offered the winemaking equipment and winery-cellar building for sale separately.

Luckily for Clare and its grape growers, local winemaker Tim Adams and wife, Pam Goldsack, reached an agreement with Constellation to buy the winery as a going concern, provided most of the winemaking equipment remained in place. Constellation agreed, sold only a small part of the winemaking gear, and in December Tim Adams announced details of the sale, to be completed in January 2011. Adams confirmed that the price was “much less than replacement cost”.

Last Friday at noon, Adams and Goldsack settled on the deal, becoming Leasingham’s first private owners since America’s H.J. Heinz acquired it from the Knappstein family in 1971.

Adams aims to make it “a community winery” as it was during his apprenticeship to Mick Knappstein from 1975. He says, “I was Mick’s last apprentice – the last apprentice of the last private owner. He was a generous, community minded man. He loved making wine for all sorts of people to enjoy. He cared for the 130-odd growers, and hated it when Heinz cut back on buying. His wife Gela is over the moon about our news”.

Adams says the winery contains some of the best, most efficient winemaking equipment on the planet – enough to process up to 5,000 tonnes of grapes annually – equivalent to about 350 thousand dozen bottles. The winery has storage capacity of about 4.5 million litres.

Adams says he’ll focus mainly on Mr Mick, a new brand honouring his late mentor. But he’ll also offer a badly needed regional contract winemaking facility.

The local growers have been having a tough time, says Adams. But he expects Mr Mick, pitched at $12–$15 a bottle, with broad appeal across the retail and restaurant markets, to bring them back into the market. “These will be wines with a real story to them”, he says. He anticipates strong support from Coles and Woolworths, albeit with occasional discounts to $9.99 a bottle.

Eighteen months before buying Leasingham winery, Adams bought its 80-hectare Rogers Vineyard. Panted to shiraz, riesling, cabernet sauvignon, semillon, chardonnay and malbec, it was source of Leasingham’s once legendary Bin 56 cabernet malbec.

He’s been using these grapes in his own brand (made at the 1,500-tonne capacity Tim Adams winery). In future the vineyard will also supply the Mr Mick brand.

In fact, we can enjoy the first Mr Mick wines later this year – a 2010 riesling, from the Rogers vineyard, and three wines sourced from grower vineyards: 2010 pinot gris rosato (a dry rose style), 2009 cabernet shiraz and 2009 shiraz. These were all made at the Tim Adams winery.

Adams doesn’t plan to combine the two wineries as their functions are distinct – Tim Adams to make dozens of small batches for the premium end of the market, and the Mr Mick facility for bulk production.

He’ll reopen the Mr Mick cellar door and hopes also to offer Leasingham wines should the new owners of Constellation Wines agree to it. Meanwhile Constellations Brand USA announced in November plans to sell its Australian and UK wine divisions to a private equity company, Champ, for around $290 million. Constellation paid a little under $2 billion for the assets in 2003, joining a long line of large businesses exiting the Australian wine industry through the same hole they came in at – but notably poorer.

Tim Adams can’t save the name Leasingham. But he’l have saved the landmark facility, given hope to local growers and kept the Clare flame burning.

Leasingham timeline

1894 – Company founded by J.H. Knappstein and others

1895 – Opens for business in the old Clare Jam Factory

1900 or earlier – Making more wine than all other Clare wineries combined

1911 – J.H. Knappstein gains total control of the company

1971 – Knappstein family sells to H.J. Heinz

1988 – Thomas Hardy and Sons acquire the company

1992 – Thomas Hardy merges with the Berri-Renmano cooperative to become publicly listed BRL Hardy

2003 – Constellation Brands (USA) acquires BRL Hardy. Name changes to The Hardy Wine Company

2008 – The Hardy Wine Company becomes Constellation Wines Australia

2009 – Constellation Wines Australia closes Leasingham Winery and sells three vineyards but retains ownership of the Leasingham brand

2010 – Constellation offers Leasingham Winery and winemaking equipment for sale separately. Tim Adams and Pam Goldsack agree to buy winery and equipment as a going concern.

2011 – Tim Adams and Pam Goldsack settle on the winery and plan to launch a new Clare Valley wine range, Mr Mick, in honour of legendary winemaker Mick Knappstein. CHAMP equity buys 80 per cent stake in Constellation’s wine assets, including the Leasingham brand, changing the company name to Accolade

Wine review — Ashton Hills, Coldstream Hills, Mount Riley, M. Chapoutier and Quarry Hill

2 February 2011Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Ashton Hills Estate Pinot Noir 2008 $40
Adelaide Hills, South Australia

The highlight of a recent meal at Sabayon Restaurant was Ashton Hills Piccadilly Valley Pinot Noir 2008. Alas, it’s sold out says winemaker Stephen George. But its cellar mates, Estate 2008 and Reserve 2008 ($60) are still available. The seductively high-toned Estate wine captures the juicy, plush, sexy, naked beauty of this great variety. And the slightly more coy Reserve needs to be stripped back, layer by layer – revealing a glorious, even profound Australian pinot.

Coldstream Hills Single Vineyard Chardonnays $28–$35
Rising and Deer Farm vineyards, Yarra Valley, Victoria

In 2009 winemaker Andrew Fleming applied similar winemaking techniques to two batches of Yarra grapes – one from the high, cool Deer Farm vineyard, the other from the lower, warmer Rising Vineyard. The wines express the distinctive flavours of grapes ripened at different temperatures: full, ripe nectarine and peach from the Rising Vineyard and lean, taut grapefruit from Deer Farm. Of course, this is all in the context of rich, barrel-fermented chardonnay.

Mount Riley Pinot Gris 2010 $17.99
Marlborough, New Zealand

Mount Riley is a 100-hectare vineyard and winery owned by the Buchanan family. Their pinot gris presents the variety’s off-dry, richly textured face. It’s modelled on the originals from Alsace France and quite a contrast to the taut, bone-dry, Italian-inspired Chapel Hill reviewed last week. This Marlborough version captures varietal pear-like aromas and flavours and there’s plenty of acid, plus a twist of tannin, to offset the pleasant, low-level sweetness.

M. Chapoutier Domaine Tournon Syrah 2009 $16.99
Victoria, Australia

Following French “domaine” tradition, Michel Chapoutier sources fruit for his Australian wine from Tournon’s vineyards in Heathcote, Beechworth and the Pyrenees, Victoria. Unusual for an Australian wine it’s matured in stainless steel and concrete tanks – no oak at all. This leaves spicy shiraz at its heart – medium bodied, subtle, supple and plush, with a convincing line of fine tannin for structure. This and Chapoutier’s Crozes-Hermitage, reviewed below, could well serve as proxies for the general Australian and French styles – the first plush and fruity; the second, lean and elegant.

M. Chapoutier “La Petite Ruche” Crozes-Hermitage 2008 $26.99
Crozes-Hermitage, Rhone Valley, France

Don’t fret too much about the fancy name, Crozes-Hermitage is just a grape-growing town in France’s northern Rhone Valley famed for its shiraz (or “syrah” in French). The wine’s medium coloured and intensely aromatic – featuring the distinctive pepper-like character of cool-grown shiraz. The pepper comes through, too, on a sinewy, savoury, beautifully elegant palate with its underlying kernel of sweet berry flavours and fine, gripping finish.

Quarry Hill Shiraz 2008 $18.50
Canberra District, New South Wales

Dean Terrell’s Quarry Hill vineyard sells grapes to Alex McKay for his Collector brand. With this connection, it made sense for Terrell to hire McKay as winemaker for the Quarry Hill label, too. In 2008 that resulted in a vibrantly fruity, medium bodied shiraz with a fine, firm backbone of tannin and noticeable touch of oak. It’s an appealing, drink now red sitting high in the three-star range. This is a vineyard to watch. Outstanding value.

Wine review — Binbilla, Wignall and Bourke Street

30 January 2011Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Binbilla Hilltops Good Friday Shiraz 2009 $25
Binbilla is a tiny, hand-tended vineyard near Young, owned by Gerard and Bez Hines. Nick O’Leary makes the wine and describes the 2009 as a “leaner style” than the typical Hilltops shiraz. He picks the grapes comparatively early, “when the vines are healthy, before the leaves turn yellow” – thus capturing the fruit at its vibrant best, before it shrivels. The result is a fragrant, lively, bright, medium bodied shiraz with a firm, fine, silky, tannic structure. It’s wonderful to see so much innovation and excitement in Canberra’s backyard. Watch this vineyard. See www.binbillawines.com

Wignall Albany

Pinot Noir 2009 $31
Sauvignon Blanc 2010 $18.50

At only 35 degrees south and just 33 metres above sea level, Albany ought not be cool enough to make good pinot. But high humidity helps retain varietal aromatics. And, says Rob Wignall, the “Albany doctor”, whistles in from the Antarctic, dropping afternoon and nighttime temperatures dramatically, further enhancing varietal flavour. It shows in Wignall’s highly aromatic, vibrant 2009 – a deliciously fruity drop probably best enjoyed in the first five years from vintage. Likewise the 2010 sauvignon blanc delivers clear but subtle varietal flavour in a distinctive zesty but soft way. See www.wignallswine.com.au

Bourke Street Canberra District

Pinot Noir 2010 $21
Chardonnay 2010 $21

Local winemakers Alex McKay and Nick O’Leary launched their Bourke Street brand last year with a lovely Canberra District shiraz 2008. They recently added to the range pinot noir and chardonnay, sourced mainly from Bob Knight’s high-altitude, low-yielding vineyard. While on the light and elegant side, the pinot shows good varietal character and has the flavour depth and structure to be taken seriously. The chardonnay is a notch better again. It’s on the tight, lean side, but packed with delicious nectarine and grapefruit varietal flavour – barrel fermentation and maturation added subtly to the texture and complexity. Both wines are bargains.