This week Canberra’s Wig and Pen releases an oak matured beer, modelled on the ancient Belgian lambic style. Brewer Richard Watkins started the brew in January 2009 – a blend of 75 per cent barley and 25 per cent wheat malts – inoculated with a microbial tag-team, including brewer’s yeast, brettanomyces and lactobacillus (derived from Belgian lambic populations).
At the end of 2010, with the traditional lambic style now almost two years in barrel, Watkins sourced a batch of de-stemmed, de-seeded hail-damaged cherries from Young.
To build the mid palate of the beer, he added the pureed cherries to the two barrels – so the lambic became a kriek style, still following the Belgian tradition.
In early February 2012 Watkins transferred the beer to tank for final adjustments, including carbonation and freshening up with a dash more cherry.
Wig and Pen Lambs-go-Baa (Kriek Lambic) 285ml balloon $9 Three years in the making, this is perhaps Richard Watkins finest brewing achievement. The colour’s a medium cherry-skin red and the flavour combines sour cherry and marzipan. Brisk acidity keeps the palate lively and fresh. But there’s a rich texture, too, and a hint of oak-derived vanilla in the dry, delicious aftertaste.
Capital Wines Reserve Shiraz 2010 $52 Kyeema vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, New South Wales Capital Wines is about to release its Frontbencher Shiraz 2010 ($25) – with today’s wine of the week to follow in March. The former is simply delicious – a fine-boned, spicy shiraz to enjoy now, and, to me, the best yet under the label. The Reserve wine, from the Kyeema Vineyard (established 1982), goes to another level – although it needs more bottle age or a good splash in the decanter. This is elegant, spicy, cool-climate shiraz of a very high order.
De Bortoli Yarra Valley Syrah 2010 $33 Dixon Creek, Yarra Valley, Victoria There’s a unique cut and thrust to this wine, setting it apart from any other Australian shiraz. The cool growing climate (four east-facing blocks of De Bortoli’s Yarra vineyard) drives the style. But harvesting time, gentle fruit handling, winemaking and maturation techniques all contribute to the layers of flavour and texture. The intense flavour combines vibrant, fresh berries, cool-climate white pepper and a note of stalkiness, probably a result of including whole bunches in the ferment. The structure is lean and tight, even sinewy, but with a lovely suppleness.
Hungerford Hill Shiraz 2010 $35 Hunter Valley, New South Wales Hunter reds like this were once called “Hunter Burgundy” – a salute to their medium body and silky texture, which bore some style resemblance to Burgundian pinot noir. Michael Hatcher’s latest vintage captures that classic old style in a clean, bright modern way. It’s a gentle, juicy red, focussing on delicious, vibrant fruit flavours, supported by the district’s distinctive tender, silky tannins. This provides great drinking pleasure now and I suspect that a few years’ bottle age will add regional earthy and savoury characters.
Riposte The Dagger Pinot Noir 2011 $20 Adelaide Hills, South Australia Winemaker Tim Knappstein describes the 2011 vintage as, “one of the most difficult in my 50 years of winemaking. The grapes for our ‘Sabre’ pinot noir did not meet my criteria so the wine was not produced. Fortunately, despite the challenges, ‘The Dagger’ pinot noir came through with good results. It will be an interesting year for the wine media as the 2011 red wines come up for review”. Indeed, The Dagger measures up. It’s a lighter style of pinot, featuring strawberry-like varietal character, a rich texture and a pleasing thrust of acidity and fine tannins.
Mud House Pinot Noir 2010 $21.85–$29 Golden Terraces Vineyard, Bendigo, Central Otago, New Zealand The two Mud House pinots reviewed here reveal a comparatively burly side of pinot – quite a contrast to Tim Knappstein’s elegant Riposte style. Led initially by Felton Road, the very dry Central Otago region (45 degrees south and around 350 metres above sea level), offers a unique environment for pinot noir. Mud House’s entry-level blend provides a good-value introduction to the regional style – full, plummy and ripe and backed by firm, savoury tannins.
Mud House Estate Golden Terraces Pinot Noir 2010 $32–$36 Home Block, Golden Terraces Vineyard, Bendigo, Central Otago, New Zealand This is slightly deeper coloured than Mud House’s cheaper pinot and may challenge the palates of those accustomed to Australia’s generally softer styles – but that’s what regionality is all about. The fruit flavours are ripe, like dark plums and black cherries, and very concentrated. Mingled with very firm tannins and an underlying savouriness, this creates a bold, assertive style of pinot – all of which may sweeten up and become more silky and supple with bottle age. However, not having tried a bottle-aged version, we’ll have to wait and see.
This is the story of the little winery that weathered the storm of the great, shrinking, Hardy empire – and emerged as one of Australia’s leading producers of chardonnay and pinots noir and gris.
Bay of Fires, at Pipers River Tasmania, grew out of BRL Hardy’s quest for great sparkling wine. Sparkling specialist, Ed Carr, searched all the likely cool growing sites in south-eastern Australia – including nearby Tumbarumba, the Adelaide Hills, the coldest reaches of the Yarra Valley and further south, in Tasmania.
All of those places produced pinot noir and chardonnay, and even small amounts of pinot meunier, suited to delicate, flavoursome sparkling wines. But nothing equalled the fruit from Tasmania.
This was a period of great expansion for BRL Hardy, buoyed by booming exports, and, for a time, a shortage of suitable grapes. During the boom, the price of wine assets ballooned, peaking in 2003 when Constellation Brands USA bought publicly listed Hardys for $1.9 billion.
As wine assets deflated later in the decade, Constellation offloaded assets, including the historic Leasingham Winery and several vineyards in the Clare Valley and the massive Stonehaven winery on the Limestone Coast. Finally, in February 2011 it sold an 80 per cent stake in the business to Champ Private Equity for $290 million – crystallising a massive loss on its original investment.
Winemaker Fran Austin and the crew at Bay of Fires (founded 2002) kept their heads down during the crisis. They retained their 22-hectare vineyard adjacent to the winery. And under Ed Carr’s supervision they continued making table and sparkling wine components from across Tasmania.
The network of Tasmanian vineyards established by Carr, originally for sparkling wine, had pretty quickly contributed to the company’s best multi-region table wines – notably Hardy’s flagship white, Eileen Hardy Chardonnay. That Tasmania contributed the major component to one of Australia’s finest whites remained virtually unknown.
The Bay of Fires label, however, provided a face for the Tasmanian wines. And the release of the magnificent 2009 pinot noir, a trophy winner at Canberra’s 2010 National Wine Show of Australia, left no doubt about where the state’s strength lay.
By this time, little known even in the trade, the company had developed a flagship pinot noir under the Eileen Hardy label – made at Bay of Fires but transferred to headquarters in Reynella, South Australia. It was lost in the turmoil of Constellation’s final years. But we’ll see it before too long.
Fran Austin recently left Bay of Fires, handing the winemaking over to Peter Dredge and his assistant, Karl Schultz. They work closely with Ed Carr and Carr’s boss, Paul Lapsley, chief winemaker for the Accolade group.
Accolade’s presence in Tasmania – driven by a wide search for Australia’s best chardonnay and pinot noir (whether for table or sparkling wine) – lends practical support to the contentious argument that high latitude, near sea level, delivers better wine quality than high altitude. Dr John Gladstone reaches a similar conclusion in Wine, Terroir and Climate Change (Wakefield Press, South Australia, 2011).
Whatever the merits of the argument, the current Bay of Fires wines reveal just how at home chardonnay and pinots noir and gris are in a variety of sites around Tasmania. They also reveal an emerging mastery of winemaking that brings out the best in these varieties. That these remain largely undiscovered wines is reflected in the comparatively modest prices for wines of this calibre.
Bay of Fires Pinot Gris 2011 $24.69–$36.50 Fruit source: Lower Derwent 40 per cent; Coal River Valley 39 per cent; Upper Derwent 21 per cent. This is the best Australian pinot gris I’ve tasted – lively and fresh with intense pear-like varietal aroma and flavour, backed by a rich, silky texture. Winemaker Peter Dredge attributes the rich texture to a component of the wine undergoing wild-yeast ferment in older oak barrels.
Bay of Fires Chardonnay 2009 $29.95–$40.50 Fruit source: Pipers River 31 per cent; East Coast 29 per cent; Coal River Valley 40 per cent. The age reflects slow sales rather than a marketing plan. But it’s a plus in this sensational wine. Succulent, racy, lemony acidity pulls the many flavour components together in this full-bodied, taut, deeply layered, richly textured, barrel-fermented dry white wine. Should develop well for many more years.
Bay of Fires Pinot Noir 2010 $29.45–$42.99 Fruit source: Derwent Valley 55 per cent; East Coast 30 per cent; Coal River Valley 15 per cent. This fairly deeply coloured pinot reveals quite a lot of the pinot flavour and aroma spectrum. A light, “stalky” overlay suggests whole bunches, including stems, in the ferment. Behind that comes aromatic waves of varietal fruit characters, ranging from strawberry to plum – adding up to what can only be called “pinosity”. The rich, supple, elegant, tightly structured palate reflects the aroma.
PHI Heathcote Syrah Grenache 2010 $35 About five years ago the De Bortoli and Shelmerdine families launched the PHI label, for wines made by Steve Webber (husband of Leanne De Bortoli) from fruit grown in Shelmerdine family vineyards. The original releases – chardonnay, sauvignon and pinot noir – came from the Lusatia Park Vineyard, Yarra Valley. This new wine – “our first attempt at a Southern Rhone style blend”, says Webber, combines shiraz (= syrah) and grenache from the Shelmerdine’s Northern Heathcote vineyard. It’s a delicious, juicy, spicy, vibrant wine, cut with fine, savoury tannins – the beautiful fruit flavours completely masking its 14.2 per cent alcohol content.
Mr Riggs Adelaide Hills Montepulciano 2009 $25 Italy’s montepulciano grape (unrelated to the Tuscan town of the same name) is best known in the Abruzzi region, on the Adriatic coast. In the rolling hills leading up to the Apennines, it produces, at its best, dark, ripe, full-bodied, tannic, savoury reds. Leading producers, like Dino Illuminati (imported by Woolworths), bring out the best in the variety. Winemaker Ben Riggs sources his grapes from a warm site between Kersbrook and Williamstown in the Adelaide Hills. It’s a big, ripe, plummy, rustic style with herbal and spicy tones and loads of soft tannin – well suited to hard cheeses, like pecorino Romagna, or roasted red meat.
Yalumba Y Series South Australia Viognier 2011 $9.49–$15 Yalumba pioneered viognier in Australia, acquiring cuttings from Montpellier France in 1979, propagating these cuttings, and then establishing 1.2 hectares on the Vaughan vineyard, Eden Valley, in 1980 – probably Australia’s first commercial planting of the variety. The modestly priced Y viognier delivers on all those years’ experience. The variety’s naturally viscous texture, firmness and lush, apricot-like flavours form its heart. But the winemaking adds layers to this – in particular through controlled oxidation, indigenous yeast fermentation and maturation on yeast lees for a few months afterwards. The wine combines apricot- and citrus-like flavours on a fresh, richly textured, bone-dry palate.
Four Winds Vineyard Riesling 2011 $17 Four Winds vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, New South Wales This gold medal winner from the 2011 regional wine show could easily pass as a Mosel. The low alcohol (10 per cent), delicate lime-like flavour and high acidity move it way beyond the spectrum of flavours we normally see in Canberra. Just as Mosel vignerons do, winemakers Bill and Jaime Crowe arrested the fermentation, allowing residual grape sugar to mollify the tart acidity. The 13 grams per litre of sugar doesn’t register as sweet – it simply fleshes out the mid palate, creating a delicious tension between the fruit flavour and acidity.
Tintilla Estate Tarantella Sangiovese Cabernet Merlot Shiraz 2009 $30 Pokolbin, Lower Hunter Valley, New South Wales If you’re in the lower Hunter Valley, Tintilla’s a must-visit, not just for the wine but also for the estate-grown verjus (made from green-harvested sangiovese), vinegar and olive oil. It’s a bright, medium-bodied red, starting plummy and fruity, then bringing in deeper, earthy, savoury flavours and delicious, dry, savoury tannin – a wine to enjoy with savoury, food laced with roasted tomato, olives, capsicum and anchovy.
McWilliams Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon 2007 $60 Lovedale Vineyard, Lower Hunter Valley, New South Wales Maurice O’Shea selected the Lovedale vineyard site (next to Cessnock airport) in 1939, planted the vineyard in 1946 and made the first semillon from it in 1950. Over the years successive McWilliams winemakers, starting with O’Shea, made magnificent, long-lived semillons from the site. Released at five years (this one was harvested on January 15 2007), by which time Lovedale has emerged from the intense, austere, lemony phase and began to show greater body, texture and a hint of honey. The very fine, harmonious 2007 shows this classic, idiosyncratic style at its best. Should cellar for many decades in the right conditions.
Mount Eyre Three Ponds Shiraz 2009 $24.95 Mount Eyre Vineyard, Broke, Lower Hunter Valley, New South Wales This shiraz – made by highly regarded Hunter vigneron, Rhys Eather – comes from a vineyard at Broke (one valley away from Pokolbin). The vineyard was planted in 1970 by Neil Grosser and today belongs to the Iannuzzi and Tsironis families. It’s a gentle, medium bodied red with subtle, earthy, spicy, plummy fruit flavour and the Hunter’s signature, soft, tender tannins. It’s a modest (for Australia) 13.5 per cent alcohol. It slips down very easily now, but there’s a depth and complexity here to see it through a decade, perhaps more, in the cellar.
Hill-Smith Estate Chardonnay 2010 $23.95 Eden Valley, South Australia The Eden Valley, slightly north of the Adelaide Hills on the Mount Lofty Ranges, produces beautiful riesling but is generally seen too warm to match the elegant chardonnays of its southerly, cooler neighbour. If not at chardonnay’s cutting edge, Hill-Smith 2010, presents a juicy, lovely, more-peachy face of the variety, backed by the smooth texture of wild-yeast fermentation and oak maturation.
Yering Station MVR Marsanne Viognier Roussanne 2009 $25 Yarra Valley, Victoria This is a blend of three Rhone Valley white varieties, all fermented and matured in five-year-old, 225-litre French oak barriques. The older oak contributes no detectable woody flavours, instead allowing controlled oxidation that makes the wine more complex and contributes to its silky texture. Marsanne (50 per cent of the blend) contributes the generally citrusy flavour, while viognier and roussanne between them inject notes of apricot and honey and some of the smooth texture. This is a full but subtle wine of unique appeal.
Why all the pink on Valentine’s Day – cards, ribbons, flowers, packaging, love hearts – even rose wine? Has it really to do with the psychology of the colour, as a UK wine retailer asserts?
“In colour psychology pink provides feelings of caring, tenderness, self worth and acceptance. Pink makes us crave sugar. Out of all the colours pink is the sweetest (cakes are supposed to taste sweeter if served up on pink plates!).
“Pink has a calming effect. It causes the hypothalamus to signal the adrenal glands to slow their secretions, thus reducing heart rate and blocking anger (Science Digest). It’s used in some prisons to diffuse aggressive behaviour. This effect has been used in sport. Sport’s teams sometimes paint the locker room, to be used by their opposing teams, pink to neutralise them! Some studies of the colour pink suggest that male weightlifters seem to lose strength in pink rooms”, writes Bordeaux Undiscovered wine shop.
Whatever the reason for our pink valentine’s (a female plot to soften men up, perhaps?), still and sparkling rose now play a big part in the celebrations. Just look at all the wine adverts next week. But the increasing number of labels and styles makes for a difficult choice.
Just what is rose? It’s not white; it’s not red. Is it a mongrel or hybrid, or even a specialty style in its own right?
As a show judge I’ve endured my fair share of rose classes – generally unrewarding line-ups of wines ranging in colour from pale onion skin to lurid, slutty, lipstick pink; from cloyingly sweet to achingly dry; and from flabby soft to searingly acidic. The better ones, of whatever hue, display fresh fruit flavours, rather than just sweetness, and finish clean and fresh, whether slightly sweet or very dry and savoury.
That rose performs poorly in wine shows while sales continue to climb reflects a couple of things – firstly, that show judges often move in a different direction than popular taste; and that too many ordinary roses, and not enough good ones, find their way into wine shows.
For example, judges at last year’s National Wine Show of Australia failed to find a winner for the rose trophy. The rose class (table wines) attracted just 13 entries. Judges awarded one silver and five bronze medals and commented, “Good wines showed bright fruit balance and freshness with good use of sugar. Rose needs to be more than an after thought”.
The comments say much more to exhibitors and would-be rose makers than they do to the casual reader. It’s really a shorthand, contributing to the longer, deeper discussion about rose going on across the industry.
On the one hand, you have the growing popularity of rose. It’s come from nowhere to being a must-have at cellar doors – in some respects becoming the “moselle” of the early 21st century, a pop wine for visitors not all that much into wine.
Popularity always generates me-too products and an element of cynicism in some quarters – the attitude that “if it’s that’s what folks want, let’s crank up the volume”. It’s the stupid attitude behind our many mediocre and poor roses, exactly what the judges panned.
On the other hand, we have a number of very good producers, falling into broadly two camps. The first camps says, “If people want rose, we’ll give them the best we can make at the price they’re prepared to pay”. The second camp says, “We love a certain style of rose, we’ll do everything it takes to make it and we’ll bring people on our journey”.
Behind the judges’ ratings and comments lies the belief that whether you’re making lower priced rose or shooting for the stars, and hang the price, you have to build it from the vineyard up.
Incidentally, the National Wine Show medal winners – largely cheaper roses – included Jacob’s Creek Shiraz Rose 2011, Lindemans Bin 35 Rose 2011 and Peter Lehmann Art Series Rose 2011. These are all extraordinarily well made wines built on bright, fresh fruit flavours.
And as rose gains popularity, we’re seeing an increasing number of very good wines from the second camp – personified by a small group behind the Rose Revolution campaign. These producers favour purpose-built, dry roses, like the Yarra Valley styles made by Steve Webber and Leanne De Bortoli.
The group’s website, www.roserevolution.com, includes links to supporting producers and to the popular Facebook and Twitter sites. This should lead you to many of the best dry roses in Australia – great tipples for Valentine’s Day.
Bellarine Brewing Lonsdale Lager 24X330ml $80 Bellarine Estate, on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula, offers both wine and beer and gives brewery tours each Saturday. Their pale, golden lager offers smooth, generous malt flavour backed by pleasant citrus-like hops flavour and moderate bitterness. Our sample showed signs of age, so expect a better experience with fresh stock. See www.bellarineestate.com.au
Sierra Nevada Brewing Torpedo Extra IPA 355ml $4.99 Sierra’s boom-box interpretation of India pale ale maxes the volume on all components – malt, hops and alcohol. Opulent malt provides, deep sweet mid-palate flavour and texture – the boom. Alcohol fills the mid palate. And hops deliver both the tweeting, citrusy high notes and a pervading, intense, lingering bitterness.
Three years ago Wig and Pen brewer, Richard Watkins, laid down an oak cask of beer modelled on Belgium’s unique “lambic” style.
It’s risky stuff indeed as the tag team of microbes that create the beer could well bring the whole batch undone; the barrel itself might harbour uninvited micro guests; and the oxidative environment brings its own risks.
The style originated in the Brussels region and, indeed, a visit to brewers in the area sparked Watkins’ desire to have a go.
English beer expert, the late Michael Jackson, described it as “the oldest style of beer readily found in the developed world. Lambic beers gain their tartness from a content of at least 30 per cent raw wheat …but their defining characteristic is the use of wild yeast”.
Next week we’ll review the Wig’s lambic and get the full story on how Watkins made it.
Yalumba Y Series Vermentino 2011 $12–$15 Originally from Sardinia, the Liguria coast and Corsica, vermentino seems well suited to Australia’s hot, dry conditions. Not that heat was a problem in 2011 when cool weather pushed the harvest out six weeks later than in 2010 at the Reichstein-Trenwith vineyard, Renmark. It’s a comparatively low-alcohol wine at 11.5 per cent and makes a good alternative to sauvignon blanc. The flavours are lemony and savoury and the palate soft, but crisp and dry. Yalumba seem to have the right approach with this fairly neutral variety – protective winemaking to retain freshness and a short period on yeast lees to build palate texture.
Louee Nullo Mountain Rylestone Chardonnay 2011 $25 Louee Nullo Mountain Rylestone Riesling 2011 $25 Mudgee’s David Lowe advocates lower alcohol wines as a responsible step for Australian winemakers. He also recognises the challenges in achieving ripe grape flavours at lower sugar levels (and hence lower alcohol). His Louee Mountain vineyard, at 1100 metres, offers the cool conditions likely to achieve this balance. The very cool 2011 vintage, however, pushes the concept to the limit – and perhaps beyond the threshold of many drinkers. The very austere, 10 per cent alcohol riesling may age well, but challenges the palate right now. Likewise the 11 per cent alcohol chardonnay promises much for the future, as age accentuates its intense grapefruit and white peach varietal flavours and the searing acidity mellows. There’s a parallel between these wines and the long-lived, low-alcohol semillons Lowe mastered during his years in the Hunter Valley.
Punt Road Napoleone Vineyard Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2010 $22.79–$26 After not producing any wines in the heat and bushfires of 2009, Punt Road makes a classy comeback with this delicious 2010 pinot noir, made by Kate Goodman. She describes 2010 as “one of the dream vintages, certainly the highlight of the last decade”. Sourced from the Napoleone vineyard, the limpid, crimson-rimmed wine seduces with its pure, vibrant red-berry aromas and savoury, spicy background. These characters flow through to a taut, intense palate with fine tannins giving excellent structure. It’s approachable now, but needs four or five years bottle age for pinot’s sweet, velvety mid palate to flourish.
Len Sorbello the day before he died. Photo: Melissa Ablitt
On 9 January, Canberra lost Len Sorbello – a wine-loving bloke, loved and respected across the wine industry and among former public service workmates.
Laughter lightened the farewell service as brother Sam, old wine mate, Lester Jesberg, and elder son, Stephen, recounted a very full, generous life infused with an infectious, passion for wine and food.
Stephen said, “If dad wasn’t eating, he was thinking of eating. If he wasn’t cooking, he was thinking of cooking”. He recalled a monumentally littered kitchen and six o’clock dinners starting at nine.
Brother Sam remembered Len’s early food infatuation, indulged lavishly by a Sicilian mother. Black muscat juice accompanied meals, said, Sam. But this gave way to Barossa Pearl and Ben Ean during Len’s youth in north Queensland.
By the time Sorbello, by now a barrister, met Lester Jesberg in 1976, his wine tastes had moved up a notch. Recalls Jesberg, “Len was a year ahead of me in wine at the time and for a beginner that was a big gap. He was already into the great wines of Europe”.
“It was at a Rothbury Estate ribbon dinner in Canberra”, Jesberg remembers. “I introduced myself to Len and his table and many of those people, including Mike and Maggie Bond, were there the other day [at the funeral]”.
“We just clicked”, says Jesberg – and Sorbello offered to host a tasting for him. “I’ll show you some real wines”, he said, shortly thereafter treating Jesberg to an extraordinary line up of 1970 Bordeaux reds – all the first growths plus Chateau Cheval Blanc. Jesberg joined Sorbello’s tasting group, based initially on the Rothbury Estate ribbon tastings.
This dragged the two into the orbit of Murray Tyrrell, owner of Tyrrell’s Wines, and the legendary Len Evans, driving force behind Rothbury. Over many trips to the Hunter and endless tastings, Sorbello and Jesberg earned their prestigious purple ribbons – Rothbury’s highest accolade.
I met Len Sorbello during this period in the late seventies, for me a period of intense wine exploration with David Farmer of Farmer Brothers. We tasted largely separately from the Sorbello-Jesberg group, but knew them well, tasted together on occasion and sold them heaps of wine.
I recall early on Farmer saying, “Len’s got a great white palate”, something I came to appreciate over the next thirty years as we ate, drank and, eventually, judged together.
What I also saw in Len a great joy in drinking wine. He’d analyse, dissect, and discuss it endlessly, but finally it was a drink to be savoured to the hilt, with food. And that’s what he did.
Bruce Tyrrell, son of the late Murray Tyrrell, met Sorbello and Jesberg in the late seventies. He said, “We’d get on the drink in the Hunter and have a lot of fun”. He recalls the pair impressing Murray with their palates.
The Sorbello-Jesberg group maintained the passion and in 1985 founded “Winewise” magazine. Jesberg became the editor largely, he says, because Sorbello by now was married, had two sons and wanted to give them plenty of time.
Bruce Tyrrell believed that Winewise could become “Australia’s answer to Robert M. Parker [all-powerful American wine critic] if the industry would get behind it”.
Tyrrell said, “These guys were not full-time industry pros, but they had tremendous knowledge, they were completely independent and there was no bullshit in any of them”.
In 1990, the Winewise team, established the Small Vignerons Award, designed especially for boutique wineries unable or unwilling to enter larger shows. It’s now one of Australia’s most prestigious events, attracting our bests show judges and a broad representation from small makers.
Sorbello judged at the awards from the outset, building on an already formidable palate and winning tremendous respect among judges. He held strong views, argued his point but always listened and finally accepted any outcome with good humour.
Sorbello’s wine passion spilled into a successful public service legal career, culminating as head of legal services at Comcare. A colleague, Ken Whitcombe, said Len brought his enthusiasm for wine and food to work – a gusto that meant large wine bills whenever Len organised a staff lunch. This caused some nervousness among less well-paid staff.
“Len was constitutionally incapable of ordering a bottle of wine that cost less than the rest of the meal put together”, says Whitcombe. But Whitcombe also observed in Len a similar gusto for family, friends and career. And he recalls Len hosting a dinner for work colleagues at his own home, cooking “one of the most delightful meals they’d ever had” and digging into his private cellar.
The ever-ebullient Len put wine at the centre of a generous life, sharing his knowledge, enthusiasm and precious bottles with work colleagues, family, friends and many contacts in the wine industry. He put wine and food where it belonged – on a shared table with family and friends.
Len Sorbello’s life ended in a tragic irony – he died suddenly while travelling to visit his terminally ill mother in Townsville. The day before he’d held court at Adrienne Jesberg’s 60th birthday celebrations in Sydney with 40 or so old wine friends. “Len loved an audience”, says Lester Jesberg. We’ll all miss you Len.
