Category Archives: People

Wine review – John Duval and Yellowtail

15 May 2011People, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

John Duval Plexus
Barossa Valley Marsanne Roussanne Viognier 2010 $30
Barossa vignerons face a challenge making whites to compete with popular varieties, like sauvignon blanc and chardonnay from much cooler regions. The Barossa succeeds on a limited scale with semillon, and the slightly cooler Eden Valley, to the east, makes wonderful riesling. Rather than trying to emulate cool area wines, John Duval sets out “to build structure and texture, rather than just acid crispness”. His new blend, partly matured and aged in mainly old oak, achieves that deliciously. Its pleasant, citrusy aroma leads to a soft, tasty, savoury, medium-bodied palate with a gentle texture and fresh but not acidic finish.

John Duval Plexus
Barossa Valley Shiraz Grenache Mourvedre 2009 $37–$39
Former Penfolds Grange maker, John Duval, shows his great mastery of fruit selection, winemaking and blending in this beautiful red. It’s a blend of old-vine shiraz (48 per cent) from Krondorf and Marananga, grenache (31 per cent) from old bush vines in Stockwell and Krondorf and mourvedre (21 per cent), some vines more than 100 years old, in Light Pass and Krondorf. It’s appealingly aromatic – led by the grenache – and vibrantly fruity, savoury and spicy on the palate, finishing with delicious ripe berry flavours and soft, fine tannins. It’s a wonderful, harmonious, satisfying drink – with the structure and depth to age well.

Yellow Tail 2010 vintage reds $8.55–$10

Pinot Noir
Merlot
Shiraz 2010
Cabernet Sauvignon

The Casella family’s legendary Yellow Tail took America by storm some time back, selling millions of cases there every year. It started as an adventure, using an off-the-shelf label from Barbara Harkness design, Adelaide, then succeeded beyond anyone’s maddest guess. Amazingly, the Casella’s funded the massive expansion and retained control of a business that focuses squarely on the business end of wine. The winemaking aims at capturing flawless, ripe, friendly, fruity wines on a very large scale, and succeeds – particularly with the full, soft shiraz and cabernet sauvignon. They’re decent wines at a fair price.

Lark Hill triumphs in difficult vintage

11 May 2011People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

In a vintage plagued by mildew and botrytis outbreaks, biodynamic Lark Hill, like several traditionally managed Canberra vineyards, overcame the vine diseases and ultimately harvested good quantities of healthy grapes.

During our post-vintage visit to Lark Hill, David and Sue Carpenter and son Chris seem relaxed, perhaps relieved to have all the good stuff bubbling away in the winery. There’s a fair bit of it, too, says David Carpenter, estimating a yield of about six tonnes a hectare – double 2009’s crop and significantly up on 2010. It’s a wonderful outcome for a vineyard at 860 metres in a cool, wet season.

The fight against disease began early, says David. In winter 2010 Australian grape growers had been warned to expect a cool, wet spring and summer – ideal conditions for mildew – “so we could see it coming”, says David, “and commenced a protective regime”.

That meant spraying before outbreaks of mildew, beginning very early in the season with cupric oxide (permitted in biodynamic farming). “By doing it early we used only a little bit of spray on a small target”, says David. Later in the season sprays included a canola base with tee tree and, after fruiting, copper based spray followed by a biodynamic preparation aimed at building up natural predators.

While spraying can kill mildew spoors, a long-term regime aims at building healthy soils and strong, resistant plants – based on “spraying the vineyard with various preparations and endless involvement with deep composting”.

Even in traditional viticulture “spraying makes up only about 20 per cent of the arsenal against mildew – the rest’s vineyard management”, says David. He’s referring to practices like shoot and leaf thinning and hedging vines to maximise air circulation and allow penetration of sunlight.

The Carpenters say their commitment to biodynamics began at a conference in 2003 at Beechworth. Sue recalls “lots of arms folded tightly across chests”, theirs included, at the beginning, but a rush to sign up towards the end – sparked largely by a visit to Julian Castagna’s magnificent vineyard.

In their current newsletter, the Carpenters write, “from inception, we avoided insecticides and steered a careful path utilising biological controls wherever possible, but it is in the last eight years that we have fully entered the totally biodynamic regime”.

Biodynamics is sort of like organics with the added principles espoused by Rudolph Steiner. This includes the use of seemingly mysterious biodynamic preparations, numbered from 500 to 508, and adherence to the lunar calendar – practices, write the Carpenters, that some “regard with the deepest suspicion”. They add, “we assure you our attire has not progressed to sandals and loin cloths”.

However, a big part of biodynamics, certainly as practised by the Carpenters, appears to be giving tremendous attention to care of the land and vines. Who can argue against composting, deep mulching and keeping potentially hazardous chemicals out of the environment.

The more astrological components of biodynamics, such as planting, harvesting and racking wine by phases of the moon draws derision and satire from some quarters. And there’s much scepticism regarding the 500-series preparations – particularly regarding the legendary the cow horn full of dung – sometimes scoffed at as a belief in channelling cosmic forces.

But even scientists like the Carpenters have to stick with the Steiner precepts to be accredited as biodynamic producers – which they have been from vintage 2008.

They explain, for example, that the cow horn of dung isn’t about channelling cosmic or any other forces. It’s the beginning of breeding program for useful bacteria and fungal spores. It’s the base for the “500” preparation. Each autumn they fill the horns with cow dung, seal them with clay and bury them in shallow pits on beds of compost.

In spring they dig up the horns and use the dung as a starter culture in warm rainwater – adding 50 grams to every 200 litres and aerating it. The theory is that at around body temperature the bacteria and spores breed rapidly. The Carpenters then spray the mix around the vineyard where the microbes fix nitrogen in the soil and spores stimulate growth of fungi that enjoy a symbiotic relationship with the vines.

Whatever we make of the more arcane elements of biodynamics, the Lark Hill vineyard looks a treat and is delivering probably the best wines since the Carpenters began planting it in 1978.

Across the years they’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. As a result, they’ve pared the vineyard back to the proven varieties, riesling, chardonnay and pinot noir. And following a suggestion from Jancis Robinson, a visit to Austria tasting gruner veltliner – and the fortuitous discovery of two vines of the variety in Tasmania – propagated a thousand vines and planted them in 2006.

Gruner veltliner, say the Carpenters gives them a high-quality white that sits in style somewhere between the delicacy of riesling and opulence of chardonnay.

Like all of their table wines, bar riesling, it’s fermented by indigenous yeasts. Unfortunately the sensational 2010 sold out recently. But, says Chris Carpenter, the 2011 (still a lovely, sweet, acidic juice when I visited) will be released around October.

Wine review — Wallaroo, Eden Road and Vasse Felix

8 May 2011People, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Wallaroo Wines Canberra District Riesling 2009 $20
Wallaroo Vineyard, Hall, belongs to ABC Europe correspondent Philip Williams and family. It’s a near neighbour of Brindabella Hills Winery, where Roger Harris makes the wine. We happened on the 2009 at Taj Agra Indian Restaurant, Dickson, over Easter. What a great discovery – especially at $27, a modest mark up on the $20 cellar door price. It’s a really delicious, racy young riesling with probably years of good drinking still in it. At present it’s lemony, brisk and dry, with deep, pure riesling flavour and still with the austerity of youth. It’s an outstanding wine.

Eden Road Wines

Canberra District Riesling 2010 $21
Tumbarumba Chardonnay 2008 $45

Eden Road Wines, established in 2006, leased Kamberra Winery, Watson, from the Elvin Group until its recent purchase of Doonkuna Estate, Murrumbateman. Winemaker Nick Spencer makes wines from Canberra and surrounding districts, focusing on regional varietal specialties. Here we see the strength of Canberra riesling and Tumbarumba chardonnay, made in Spencer’s distinctive taut, slow evolving style. It all starts with grape selection of course. The pure, lean, acidic riesling is about as tight and austere as they come. Over time the lovely varietal flavour unwinds, suggesting long-term cellaring potential. Similarly the complex, three-year old chardonnay is still slowly revealing itself.

Vasse Felix Margaret River Cabernet Merlot 2009 $18–$25
On a Margaret River tour late last year, Vasse Felix’s wines pushed the excitement button right across the range, from their cheaper products to the top of the line “Heytesbury” label. Their mid-price cabernet merlot, made by Virginia Wilcock, offers a pure, elegant, drink-now expression of the region’s great red specialty. The colour’s limpid and vibrant, with the aroma and palate delivering vivid, fresh berry character. There’s an irresistible juiciness to the fruit flavour. But this is cabernet, after all, and fine tannins cut through the sweet fruit to complete the red-wine equation.

Canberra’s Eden Road buys Doonkuna Estate

4 May 2011People, Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Last week Chris Coffman’s Eden Road Wines took over Doonkuna Estate, one of Canberra’s oldest vineyards. The purchase lands Eden Road plum in Murrumbateman’s reputation-making shiraz and riesling belt – giving the vineyard perhaps its best hope in nearly forty years.

Doonkuna’s history of hope, death and almost making it, began in 1972 when Wing Commander Harvey Smith established the first vines. Smith sold the property to Sir Brian and Lady Jane Murray in 1978. The Murray’s built a winery in 1980 and made their first estate-grown wines in 1981.

But the Murray’s tenure, too, proved comparatively short, and interrupted by Sir Brian’s term as Governor of Victoria. After he died in 1991, Lady Janet continued the business for a time, but in 1996 sold to pathologist, Dr Barry Moran and wife Maureen.

With great energy and vision, Moran and family expanded the vineyard sixfold and built a new winery and cellar door. Despite these efforts, however, Doonkuna’s wines still lagged the quality of Canberra’s best when Moran died in 2009.

But Eden Road winemaker Nick Spencer sees great potential in the vineyard, located on granite soils, similar to those at Clonakilla and other proven sites nearby.

“We always had a long-term plan to look for a vineyard and build a winery in the district”, he says. And when Doonkuna came on the market it proved almost a perfect fit.

It’s in a plum location, has mature vines and there’s a well-equipped winery with capacity to process around 500 tonnes of grapes (equivalent to around 35 thousand dozen bottles).

“There’s something exciting about Murrumbateman in general”, says Spencer. “It’s a special feeling walking up and down rows of vines every day, getting to know them intimately. It helps quality and it’s an inspiration. We need to have a home and it’s very exciting having our own patch of soil and trying to express a sense of place”.

Even before last week’s settlement, Eden Road had begun moving wine barrels from its old home in Elvin Group’s Kamberra complex, Watson, to Doonkuna. But the main game, once they’ve moved the tanks of bulk wine, will be in restructuring the vineyard.

Spencer expects to halve the current plantings of around 14 hectares to around seven or eight, “focusing almost entirely on shiraz and riesling, with a touch of viognier”.

The half that’s coming out lies in a frost hollow, so nothing can save them. But the vines, many of them mature, are in generally in good shape. Spencer expects in reshaping the vineyard to graft rather than replant, especially among the older vines.

Though he expects to commence vineyard work this winter, Spencers says they’ll look carefully at the whole vineyard before restructuring.

Even with its own vineyard, though, Eden Road intends to continue sourcing grapes from growers in Canberra and surrounding regions. Spencer sees great excitement in material from Canberra, Hilltops, Tumbarumba and the Southern Highlands.

Though Hardys left the area five years ago, he says they left two lasting legacies: vines planted by numerous growers, originally to meet Hardy’s needs; and grape growing know-how as they taught growers how to manage vineyards for wine production. He adds that as these vines mature, they’re contribution to a huge improvement in local wine quality.

And while shiraz and riesling remain the main game in Canberra, he points to the white viognier as an important niche variety. Small amounts co-fermented with shiraz contribute to fragrance and structure.

But he says, “Canberra is an exciting area for viognier. Here you can pick it early while the acid’s still high and it still has varietal flavour – this is special. It means you can make nice tight wines”. Elsewhere, he says, it tends to deliver flavour at high sugar levels, meaning big, soft, sometimes oily wines.

And Tumbarumba he singles out for two varieties, chardonnay and pinot noir. The area already enjoys a strong and growing reputation for taut, long-lived table wines made from chardonnay. But pinot has been principally grown for sparkling. He believes this is changing.

Spencer attributes the big price difference between Tumbarumba chardonnay and pinot noir to the earlier recognition of chardonnay as a table wine variety.

This probably dates back to Southcorp’s “white Grange” project, to make the best white it could from whatever variety or region, and a similar quest by Hardy’s with its Eileen Hardy chardonnay. Both companies included Tumbarumba chardonnay in their searches.

But Spencer believes growing demand for pinot noir will see Tumbarumba emerge as an outstanding region as growers reduce yields and change overall management in return for higher prices. The wines, he believes, will be become more concentrated and complex but “remain light and graceful and feminine”.

The beautiful wines we’ve seen from Eden Road to date suggests that Doonkuna’s vines will, at last, produce wines up there with the region’s best. And they’ll be accompanied by others from surrounding areas.

Wine review — The Islander Estate Vineyards, Port Phillip Estate, Chalmers, Eden Road and Wirra Wirra

4 May 2011People, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

The Islander Estate Vineyards “The Investigator” 2005 $60
Kangaroo Island, South Australian
In 2000 French winemaker Jacques Luton staked a claim on Kangaroo Island –198 years after its discovery by Matthew Flinders and circumnavigation by French Captain Nicholas Baudin. Magnanimously, Luton named his flagship wine The Investigator, after Flinders’ ship. The flagship wine, however, salutes south-western France, Bordeaux in particular. Made principally from cabernet franc (with a dash of sangiovese), The Investigator presents a ripe, fine-boned face of this fragrant variety. There’s a ghost of Bordeaux’s St Emilion in the aroma and flavour, but a sunny Australian smile, tempered by a faint Gallic leafiness, on the delicious palate. It’s a unique, beautiful wine, destined for five-star status as the vines mature and the wine gain greater length.

Port Phillip Estate Quartier Arneis 2010 $23–$26
Red Hill, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Downing platters of succulent oysters at Lake Conjola, we moved from the lovely, austere Simmonet-Febvre Petit Chablis ($19) to Sandro Mosele’s arneis. The variety originates in Piedmont, Italy, where it makes full bodied dry white wines. Mosele’s Mornington version, sourced from a neighbouring vineyard at Red Hill, had the succulence, stunning freshness and minerally dryness to match our still-living oysters. We lingered on it afterwards, too, savouring its fresh, crunchy texture. What a lovely and different drop it is – one to enjoy to the hilt right now. Move onto the 2011 as soon as it’s released.

Port Phillip Estate Pinot Noir 2009 $35.15–$38
Red Hill, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Winemaker Sandro Mosele writes that a freakish, week long heat wave in February 2009 scorched and shrivelled grapes on the western side of the estate’s pinot vines. The grapes dropped off, reducing yields by around 50 per cent, but leaving a healthy crop to mature in the subsequent benign conditions. The resulting wine reveals fragrant, ripe, varietal aromas, reminiscent of cherry. The medium bodied palate builds in interest as you sip through the bottle, the underlying ripe, vibrant varietal flavour in the grip of firm, fine tannins – setting it apart from many softer Australian styles.

Chalmers Vermentino 2010 $20–$24
Murray Darling, New South Wales
Many Australian vignerons seem hopeful that vermentino, a major variety on the coasts of Liguria, Sardinia, Tuscany and Corsica, might deliver bright fresh flavours in Australia’s warm growing regions. The Chalmers family cultivate many of these alternative varieties and throw up quite a challenge to our palates with the 2010 vermentino. Wild-yeast fermented on grape solids, it reveals probably as much about the winemaking as it does of the variety. Leesy, rustic characters push strongly through a savoury dry white that’s far removed from our usual fare. It’s idiosyncratic, for sure – meaning you’ll either love it or hate it.

Eden Road Shiraz 2009 $45
Murrumbateman, Canberra District, New South Wales
Eden Road’s flagship red sits at the very taut, savoury, firm end of the fine-boned Canberra spectrum. Winemaker Nick Spencer sources his fruit from Murrumbateman (with a splash from Hilltops), aiming for what he calls “a structural style, with gravelly tannins plus perfume”. He says the 2009 shirazes appeared powerful and opulent at bottling (usually this knocks the fruit out for a time) but “have closed up now” – suggesting they’ll evolve well. Eden Road fits this “closed up” description – starting savoury and firm when first poured then, over time, revealing marvellously complex, aromatic characters with a deep, sweet core of fruit. This is knocking on five stars.

Wirra Wirra Catapult Shiraz 2009 $20–$22
McLaren Vale, South Australia
This is a distinctive style of McLaren Vale shiraz, focussing on riotously vibrant, in-your-face fruit aromas and flavours. It’s deeply coloured and the aroma lures with its musky, floral high notes. The palate is juicy, plush and chewy with the vibrancy suggested by the floral aroma, and flavours akin to ripe, black cherries. Layers of tannin remind us this is red wine, not fruit juice. The distinctive buoyancy and aromatic high notes probably arise from a small amount of the white viognier in the blend.

Wig and Pen on the block

4 May 2011Beer, PeopleChris Shanahan

It’s been a Canberra institution since 1993, but the for-sale ad read simply, “Serious expressions of interest are sought for the purchase of the Wig and Pen Tavern and Brewery, Canberra. Retirement looms”.

Owner Lachie McOmish recalls starting the Wig with a barely-used second hand brewery from Sydney – offering five real ales on tap. “It was cutting edge stuff”, he says, offering beers that may have seemed peculiar at first taste.

But over time the sheer quality brewed by Richard Pass, then Richard Watkins for the last fifteen years, introduced clientele to an extraordinary range of unique styles – the latest being the sensational barrel-aged Belgian ales covered in last week’s column.

McOmish sees the Wig as unique – a place that connects people because they can just sit and talk without the intrusion of pokies, television, pool or bright lights.

“The year to be adventurous”, Tim Kirk

27 April 2011People, WineChris Shanahan

It started with a tweet by Clonakilla’s Tim Kirk, “It may not look like much but this is exciting I tell ya. Our first Tumbarumba chardonnay… 1.4 tonnes of it”. Playfully, Capital Wines’ Jennie Mooney tweets back, “Are you guys bored or something?” – drawing Kirk’s response, “This is the year to be adventurous Jen, and making small batches of interesting wine is a lot of fun”.

So why is it the year to be adventurous, we ask Tim Kirk, and what the hell are you doing out there? “We’re turning a negative into a positive in a difficult year”, he replies.

As we’ve heard a lot lately, it’s been a tough season across eastern Australia, Canberra included. The strong La Nina pattern, identified by weather forecasters last winter, crystallised into a wet, cool growing season.

The persistent wet periods brought serious outbreaks of mildew throughout the season, destroying crops in many vineyards and dramatically raising production costs through increased spraying and vineyard labour inputs.

As vintage neared, the botrytis cinerea mould arrived, wreaking more damage in some vineyards – but creating opportunities in others. Canberra vignerons therefore moved into vintage with a nervous eye on the weather and a fervent desire for sunshine and warmth, even heat.

If the sun failed to bear down with the heat loved by our local darling, shiraz, sufficient sunshine and warmth ripened most of the fruit remaining on vines. But the cool, wet season, in general, favoured whites more than reds. It also meant better prospects than usual for varieties that prefer really cool ripening conditions – pinot noir and chardonnay in particular.

The cool, wet season, then, provides the main rationale for Kirk’s vintage adventures. We’ll no doubt hear more stories from other wineries as the ferments settle down. But Clonakilla’s seasonal extras provide a good snapshot of the peculiarities.

This year, says Kirk, the season favoured pinot noir and chardonnay in his own vineyards. Then, serendipitously, Tumbarumba chardonnay grower, Steve Morrison, offered fruit from his vineyard at 730 metres above sea level.

The offer seemed too good to be true, says Kirk. Morrison said he’d send the fruit if Kirk paid the freight and to buy the fruit only if he liked it. But Kirk wouldn’t do business like that. He visited the vineyard over the weekend and tasted the “amazing” fruit. On Monday 1.4 tonnes arrived at the winery, setting off a train of tweets.

Kirk says the Tumbarumba chardonnay – in two barrels (600 litre and 228 litre) – sits beside a small quantity from Clonakilla’s vineyard. “It’s looking interesting this year”, says Kirk.

Kirk feels a new enthusiasm for chardonnay thanks to the taut, minerally, elegant styles now being made by some Australian producers, including Oakridge, Shadowfax, Hardys, Penfolds and Coldstream Hills.

He’s hopeful the Tumbarumba material might be in this mould. But if it’s not, we’ll never see it under a Clonakilla label, he adds.

Kirk loves great pinot noir, too. When he says, “I’ve observed and shared the frustrations of those who’ve made it almost but not quite good enough”, you know he wouldn’t be ramping up production this year without some hope of success.

Tim Kirk’s father, John, planted a small amount of pinot noir in 1978 and, in most years, Clonakilla makes about one barrel. Kirk generally blends this into the shiraz-viognier.

Then in 2004–05, Kirk planted another 500 vines on an east-facing slope of a vineyard he owns with wife, Lara. For the first time this year it cropped well. With fruit, some from the original plantings and a little from the neighbouring Long Rail Gully vineyard, he made 12 barrels.

Kirk seems hopeful of this “fruit from a monumentally cool season. It’s in very good French oak, 25 per cent new, and I’m watching it with intense interest”. He adds, he love to make a half-decent, succulent, juicy pinot. But it won’t appear under a Clonakilla unless it measures up.

While botrytis can be a great destroyer, on occasion it helps concentrate sugars, acid and flavour in local rieslings. Several makers, including Clonakilla, intend turning these disgusting looking, rotten grapes into golden nectar this year.

Kirk says Clonakilla’s last was in 1991 when his father made two versions labelled as spaetlese and auslese. He says this year’s pump-clogging, sticky juice achieved auslese-level sugars.

Clonakilla’s fourth adventure in 2011, though, presents a paradox. For the first time they’re making a grenache – a southern Rhone Valley style more likely to perform in hot, dry conditions, not in the cold and wet.

Kirk says his father, loving Rhone Valley grenache-based reds like Chateauneuf-du-Pape, planted small amounts of grenache, mourvedre and cinsault. A couple of days after I talk to Kirk, winemaker Bryan Martin tweets about the lovely grenache coming into the winery, adding “John’s mourvedre and cinsault”.

Shortly after, Tim Kirk tweets, “John and Julia [his parents] were out picking the grenache yesterday. Looks good”.

And what’s the grenache role model? Chateau Rayas, says Kirk, “The greatest grenache there is in my experience”. He’s referring to an all-grenache Chateauneuf-du-Pape made by the Reynaud family and regarded as the greatest (and most expensive) of the region.

Perhaps that’s a long stretch for vintage one. But by knowing the world’s best, wineries like Clonakilla become their own most relentless critics – and that’s what leads to such profoundly good wines.

But on the way to that destination they’re being adventurous, having fun and making terrific wines for us to enjoy.

Creative genius at Canberra’s Wig & Pen

20 April 2011Beer, PeopleChris Shanahan

The creative genius of brewer Richard Watkins puts Canberra’s Wig and Pen brewpub in a category of its own. Few small breweries in the world could match the diversity and quality of beer currently on tap there.

On a recent visit, the Wig offered 15 beers and an apple cider, all made in the tiny cellars.

To the core of regular beers, Watkins frequently adds seasonal specialties. Most excitingly, there’s a growing range of specialty ales fermented and matured in oak barrels – inspired partly by Watkins’ recent visit to classic European breweries.

The three just released “Brewer’s Stash” ales, all served in brandy balloons, are simply sensational – albeit idiosyncratic styles to sip and admire.

Big Ass Barley Wine (one year in barrel) offers sumptuous, toffee-like malt flavours balanced by hops bitterness. Lunch with the Monks (six months in barrel), inspired by Belgium’s Triple style, is complex, sweet-malt and buoyantly fruity. And Bob’s Armpit (eight months in barrel), modelled on Orval, is an intriguing sweet and sour beer brewed with yeast and a cocktail of bacteria.

Such tweet wine

13 April 2011People, WineChris Shanahan

A few weeks back an American bloke, Rick Bakas, wandered around Australian wine regions looking like he couldn’t believe his own good luck. Feted by the media and trade, Bakas sipped his way through the Hunter, Barossa and Yarra valleys, leading a series of global Tweet-ups.

He’s a guru, apparently, billed by Wine Communicators of Australia Inc as “one of the world’s foremost social media experts” and “a leader in wine communications in the digital age”.

The hype set off our sceptometer. But it also kindled our curiosity. Could social media, especially Twitter, really help take Australian wine to the world – or even to other Australians?

The answer, say several wineries and marketers, is yes, definitely. But like any facet of marketing, to succeed it needs to be part of a structure that ultimately delivers people what they want.

An instigator of the “Tweet-ups”, Trish Barry, of Mastermind Consulting, views the Bakas visit as a catalyst, fusing together a train of international activity. Importantly, says Barry, the activities led directly to sales of Hunter, Barossa and Yarra wines across the USA and sparked a possibly long tail of enquiries about these unique regional specialties.

Since creating awareness of Australian regional wine styles is the industry’s holy grail (major export markets know little or nothing of Australian wine regions) the value of this sort of activity could be significant.

Barry says the raw figures of the Tweet-ups tell only part of the story. It’s impressive that 2.92 million people followed the tour on Twitter. And it’s impressive, too, that 1,022 individuals tweeted 6,381 times.

But the true marketing success story lies in how Bakas and the Australian organisers lined up their ducks – who they recruited to the cause and, of crucial importance, their involvement of American retailer, Wholefood Markets.

They recruited Bakas, says Barry, because of his reach and influence among wine drinkers in the USA. Importantly, Bakas’s 50,000 Twitter followers and 5,000 Facebook friends included a number of other influential Twitterers and bloggers.

With help from Bakas and other sources, the Australian team identified then recruited several influential digital commentators – bypassing mainstream wine critics, including the influential Robert M. Parker. They then sent samples of regional wines and tasting notes in preparation for the Australian tastings.

Bakas also helped bring Wholefood Markets to the party. Unlike Australia’s large liquor retailers, says Barry, Wholefoods embraces social media. And with 1.8 million Twitter followers and 500 thousand Facebook friends, they began promoting Yarra, Barossa and Hunter wines ahead of the tweet-ups down under.

Barry says the retail connection completed the cycle: producers brought wines to the regional tastings and the tweets flowed freely. The tweets created interest in the regions and wines. And wine drinkers interested in the regions were able to buy at Wholefood outlets.

The tour lasted about two weeks. But the tweet-ups and associated master classes on YouTube continue to generate enquiries direct to producers from American retailers, restaurants and consumers, says Barry – setting the scent for long-term commercial connections.

Barry laments the absence of a major retailer in the Australian social-media scene. She says last year’s rose revolution – a Twitter campaign led by De Bortoli and joined by eighty wineries, including five from Canberra – created significant consumer interest in high-quality, dry roses.

The increased consumer interest drove significant sales in participating wineries and restaurants. De Bortolis reportedly sold a year’s supply in three months. But retailers missed the opportunity, probably disappointing some of their customers as well.

Jennie Mooney, the marketing voice of Canberra’s Capital Wines, says Twitter delivers huge benefits for her business. In a recent Wine Business Monthly article, she tore into Professor Larry Lockshin, head of UniSA’s marketing school, for his article, “Anti-social media”, published in the October 2010 edition.

Mooney says Lockshin had argued that Twitter was mainly about the trade talking to each other. It was therefore a substitute for traditional communications channels and not good for generating new buyers.

Mooney countered this with, “I’m trade and I buy wine – don’t other wineries buy wine too? I have also made a lot of friends on Twitter. Wineries, restaurants and others right across Australia; right across the world actually! By getting to know restaurateurs via Twitter, we are not just another winery making cold calls to their restaurant.

Most of our stockists came from Twitter – certainly all of our interstate restaurants, our east coast distributor and our Western Australian distributor are all new buyers due to Twitter. As well as trade, we have lots of consumers buying our wine and new members in our cellar club. I have sent our wine to people around the world and am in the process of talking to several potential distributors regarding export. October sales from Twitter were just over 3 pallets, which is significant for a small winery like ours”.

Mooney also talks at length of the power Twitter gives her to build direct relationships and trust with customers – and in the turn the direct voice this gives to her customers. These sentiments were echoed, too, by David Brookes, marketing manager of Teusner Wines, Barossa Valley, and Leanne De Bortoli, a principal of De Bortoli, Yarra Valley.

These wineries all agree, too, that Twitter isn’t a magic bullet. It’s just part of the marketing mix. For a tiny winery like Capital Wines, it’s a big part of the mix; and for a large operator like De Bortoli, a small but growing part.

Several marketers and wineries also agreed that Twitter leans more to business than private use, though many individuals participate by following others or tweeting their own views.

Trish Barry says the average age of Twitter users is 39 and users tend to be people who were early adopters of Facebook. One recent estimate, based on Google analysis, puts the number of active, unique Twitter users in Australia at 1.1 million – far short of our 9.4 million Facebook users.

This suggests the majority of readers of this column use Facebook but few use Twitter. In all likelihood, then, most of us missed all the recent chirping from the Barossa, Yarra and Hunter valleys. But whether we tweet or not, it’s there, it’s growing and it gives us direct access to people who grow and make wine for us.

@ChateauShanahan

Last fling for pedro ximenez — a curio worth tasting

6 April 2011People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

Pedro ximenez probably isn’t on the radar of most wine drinkers. And where we see the name, it’s probably on the label of a dark, sweet, sherry. But it exists as a delicate, long-lived dry white wine as well. And there’s a dwindling but significant treasure trove of it at Campbells of Rutherglen.

It seems hard to believe now, but this Spanish white grape once starred in Australia’s wine industry. Brought to Sydney by James Busby in 1832, pedro ximenez spread to our hot, dry growing regions, including Rutherglen, Victoria. A century later it underpinned production of Australian “sherry”, much of it destined for the UK.

Rutherglen became an important production centre, with two of Australia’s largest producers and exporters located there. Winemaker Colin Campbell recalls Seppelt, at Rutherglen, and Lindemans, at nearby Corowa, New South Wales, being “based on sherry soleras”.

But by 1968, when Campbell returned to the family business from winemaking studies at Roseworthy College, fortified wine, including sherry, had begun its long decline, and table consumption was on the rise.

To meet growing demand for dry white wine, Campbell turned to the only two white varieties in the family vineyard – pedro ximenez and trebbiano. Both had been planted for sherry production and their fruit sold to Lindemans.

He says the pedro vines had probably been planted between 1900 and 1908, by his grandfather, David Campbell, son of the property’s founder, John Campbell.

Like other Victorian grape growers, the Campbells lost their original vines to phylloxera – the small but deadly American vine pest that also devastated European vineyards in the late nineteenth century.

To relieve distress among grape growers, says Campbell, the Victorian government despatched Francois de Castella to Europe. There he sourced vines, including pedro, grafted onto phylloxera-resistant rootstock. David Campbell’s new plantings came from de Castella’s material.

Campbell installed refrigeration at the winery and set about making a dry white pedro ximenez. Picked early, with comparatively low sugar and high acidity, the wine began life austere and dry, but developed greater richness and character with bottle age.

However, a run of wine show successes failed to spark interest in the variety. Incredulous winemakers, including Leo Buring’s John Vickery, laughed in wonder but stuck with established table wine varieties.

Vickery, the father of modern Australian riesling – an experienced sherry maker, too, using pedro ximenez in Buring’s popular Florita Flor sherry) – rightly dismissed pedro as a curio.

Campbell says bottled aged pedros invariably spark a similar reaction from drinkers ¬– scepticism before tasting, followed by an incredulous smile. I’ve been there twice. The first time, about eight years ago, on a retail buying trip, we tasted 20 or so vintages. The earlier wines carried “Chablis” labels, in line with generic naming of a past era; but from the late eighties carried the varietal name, pedro ximenez. What surprisingly delicious and delicate old wine they were. More recently, a lovely, fresh, delicate, slightly honeyed 1999 vintage, served at a dinner party, prompted a call to the winery, and this article.

Curio or not, pedro succeeded for Campbell’s from the late sixties until production ceased after the 2007 vintage. Colin Campbell says, “We stopped then because it was a curio and because we only made a small volume, it was difficult to handle”.

He says pedro shoots early, making it prone to damage from spring frosts. And the big berries tend to swell and burst in rain, or rot and fall off. However, pedro vines remain in the vineyard and now contribute to cheaper sweet fortified wines. Campbell says these vines are descendents of those established by his grandfather a century ago – the vineyard having been replanted in the mid 1990s.

While the winery discontinued production after 2007, Campbell expects stock to be available at the cellar door for some years as they’ve always released it as an aged wine. Because it’s so acidic and austere as a young wine, explains Campbell, “it needs at least five to six years to develop bottle age character. And it also needs cork character to age properly”.

But using cork exposes the wine to two risks – cork taint and random oxidation. And oxidation, laments Campbell, takes a massive toll, rendering up to 60 per cent of older pedros unsaleable. He says they destroy bottles that fail pre-release assessment.

Campbell’s dry, white pedro ximenez remains a curio – but a loveable, mellow and drinkable one, at a refreshingly low 11.5 per cent alcohol. Unfortunately, it’s destined for extinction.

But there’s still time to enjoy it. Campbells currently offer at cellar door the 1997 vintage for $35 and the 2004 vintage for $25.90. And all of the vintages from 1998 to 2007 remain in the cellar for future release. It’s history in a bottle.