Category Archives: People

Nick O’Leary carves a Canberra niche

People, Vineyard, Wine

You don’t have to own vineyards or a winery to make your own wine. Ask Nick O’Leary, owner of one of Canberra’s hot new brands. You’ll find his wines on Canberra retail shelves and wine lists. But there’s no winery and no cellar door, just a web site (www.nickolearywines.com.au). And even that bears a ‘sold out’ sign.

Little wonder there’s no wine left, though, given the quality O’Leary achieved so quickly and the accolades that followed. These include rave reviews from Australia’s leading commentators, and an impressive string of awards at reputable wines shows – four gold medals for the current-release 2008 shiraz and a gold and two trophies for the 2009 riesling. Though sold out on O’Leary’s website, both can be found in stores and wine lists around town.

So what propels a newcomer so decisively into the limelight? The answer lies in careful fruit sourcing, attentive winemaking and sound judgement. Clearly, by the quality of his wines, O’Leary knew what varieties to use, where to source top-notch grapes and how to convert them to medal-winning wines. How come he knew all this at a tender 26 years?

Like his mentor and mate, Alex McKay, O’Leary worked at Kamberra Winery until late 2006 when Constellation Wines Australia (formerly BRL Hardy) sold up and made him redundant. But by then he’d served his winemaking apprenticeship under McKay, starting in 2003 as a cellar hand and working through the ranks to cellar supervisor then vintage assistant winemaker, running night shift for the whites.
O’Leary says he’d always wanted to be a winemaker and when Constellation left town he decided to stay on and build his own Canberra brand. By the end of 2006 a good grounding in winemaking made the decision natural. As well, he understood Canberra’s strengths and knew where to source good grapes.

He says, “Hardys gave me a good exposure to new technology and new techniques. I gained a good overview of wine and from where we were, we had a good ear to the ground”. And as well as making wine, O’Leary tasted widely and continues to do so. “I drink a lot with Alex and others who are not winemakers”, he says, finding inspiration in German riesling and “I love rieslings from the Clare and Eden Valleys”.

He and McKay assembled enough good shiraz from the 2006 vintage to blend and launch their own Nick O’Leary and Collector labels in 2007.
Then in vintage 2007, O’Leary bought about 10 tonnes of riesling and shiraz from growers he’d worked with during the Kamberra years, making the wine at Affleck Winery, owned by his in-laws, Ian and Susie Hendry.

The wines hit the mark immediately, largely attributable, says O’Leary, to the grape quality. He sources these principally from Wayne and Jennie Fischer’s Nanima Vineyard, Murrumbateman, but buys as well from Mike and Denise McKenzie’s Murrumbateman vineyard and from Wallaroo Vineyard, Hall.

These growers all understand the connection between fruit quality and wine quality, O’Leary explains. They’re prepared to do the hard work of shoot thinning and crop thinning – essential in getting crop levels just right, maximising flavour and balance. O’Leary works closely with his growers, “spending lots of time in the vineyard, especially just before harvest”, he says.

O’Leary and McKay maintained their connection after leaving Kamberra. In 2007 both joined the Karelas family at Lake George. They embarked on a major rejuvenation of the vineyard and made wine there in 2007, 2008 and 2009 – initially in Dr Edgar Riek’s original winery, then in the larger cellars next door after the Karelas family acquired David Madew’s property. The two left Lake George in late 2009.

But the Collector and Nick O’Leary labels live on. And they’re about to be joined by a joint brand to be launched in May or June. The initial wine, says O’Leary, is a 2009 vintage Canberra shiraz, likely to sell at a modest $18 a bottle. It’ll be joined later by chardonnay and pinot noir, both from the 2010 vintage. While these will be from Canberra, O’Leary anticipates sourcing future material from Tumbarumba as the cooler climate there better suits these varieties.

And what’s in store from Nick O’Leary wines in 2010? He says, “It was a challenging vintage. I haven’t seen one like this with rain towards the end of harvest”. But there’ll still be good wines from good producers, O’Leary says. In general whites came in ripe at lower sugar levels than usual and made sound, delicate wines. The reds “are not as robust as the 2009s, but they’re balanced. Whether they’ll live as long, I don’t know”.

We’ll see O’Leary’s 2010 riesling in a few months. And the 2009 shiraz should be a cracker when it’s released later this year. The riesling will sell at about $25 and the shiraz at $28.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2010

Canberra – vintage 2010 a rollercoaster

People, Uncategorized, Vineyard, Wine

What might vintage 2010 hold for Canberra wine drinkers? The season began exceptionally hot  and dry in November, turned cool and wet at Christmas, warmed up in January, then dumped rain again in February and March – encouraging berry split and fungal diseases. A slightly too-cool week following the early March rain retarded grape ripening. But as I write the mercury’s rising and we’re moving into a final, idyllic run of cool nights and warm days.

This is likely to save the day for the district’s red grapes. But the vintage could be down as much as fifty per cent for both reds whites, due largely to outbreaks of the fungal disease botrytis cinerea and berry split.

Ken Helm at Murrumbateman calls 2010 “the most topsy-turvy vintage ever”. Pessimism set in as the November heatwave stressed vines and seemed likely to bring vintage forward by weeks. But optimism rose at Christmas when four days of rain and cool weather revived the vines and put vintage back on a normal track.

Optimism faded with the February rain and outbreaks of mildew and botrytis – especially after bird netting made anti-fungal spraying a nightmare. But Helm and his grape growers found a workaround, using a small tractor and an improvised technique to spray a mix of hydrogen peroxide and acetic acid through the nets.

By now Helm had written off the chance of making a premium riesling in 2010, despite a record crush of the variety. Yes, there’s botrytis in some of it. But Helm is amazed by the combination of high sugar, exceptionally low pH and high acidity of the riesling juice – enough to revive hopes of a ‘premium’ riesling. It’s still a long shot and he says the jury’s out until the wine’s bottled in June.

Chardonnay withstood the botrytis charge less well and is a complete write off – there’ll be none made in 2010. A little sauvignon blanc survived to make a botrytis affected semi-dry style.

Helm’s main red variety, cabernet sauvignon, sourced from Al Lustenburger’s block, looks healthy, he says but won’t ripen until early April.

Clonakilla’s Tim Kirk calls 2010 “a difficult year that’s not in the same league as 2008 and 2009 – and in fact shows what remarkable years they were”. He’s glad to have picked riesling before the early March rain and says because it’s on the low-alcohol, high-acid side, it’ll be a delicate style.

By 13 March, he’d already processed 70 tonnes of “fantastic” red grapes from the warmer Hilltops region, but still had some whites and all of his reds hanging on the Murrumbateman vineyards. He anticipated harvesting the reds between mid March and early April. “It’ll be a selective pick”, Kirk said, “and some of the fruit will be declassified”.

Roger Harris of Brindabella Hills, Hall, describes 2010 as complex, “even the vines are confused”, he says, with cabernet ripening ahead of shiraz when it’s normally the other way around. Harris says he escaped disease but berry split (followed by shrivelling) caused by the rain reduced his crop significantly.

He’s made tiny amounts of good sauvignon blanc and riesling (crops are down 50 per cent) and, if weather forecasts prove correct, he anticipates a small but high quality shiraz crop.

At our highest and coolest vineyard, Lark Hill, vintage generally begins later – the first fruit generally coming in as the rest of the district polishes of the last of its whites. Running against the district trend, Sue Carpenter calls 2010 “our most striking vintage yet” with picking of pinot noir and chardonnay for sparkling wine scheduled for 19 March and chardonnay and riesling for table wine a day later. She expects to wrap vintage up on 15 April, harvesting the Austrian variety gruner veltliner and riesling for Lark Hill’s legendary auslese.

Carpenter says the vineyard has no botrytis and attributes this to biodynamic vineyard management. She believes that mulching interferes with botrytis’s life cycle. As well, the berry skins are too thick for the botrytis to penetrate and it therefore dies.

Down the hill at Lerida Estate on Lake George, Jim Lumbers reports good quality but quantities severely reduced by a “huge amount of botrytis”.  He says he salvaged 50 per cent of the chardonnay by using sorting tables – eliminating rotten fruit and sending only clean fruit to the fermenters. The resulting wine should be on the light and delicate side, reflecting the low sugar and high acid of the cool vintage.

Lumbers says unlike other recent cool vintages, 2002 and 2005, 2010 received far more rain. The combination of cool weather and moisture means big crops losses to botrytis and significantly later ripening for the red varieties.

Lumbers anticipates losing half of his pinot noir crop and sees his vineyard “sitting on the boundary of possibility” – meaning that when the chances of ripening fruit is marginal there’s also the possibility, given a run of slightly warmer days, of producing exceptional wine.

At this stage, he says, merlot and cabernet franc are “bursting with health, with berries like melons – but they need weeks to ripen”. And shiraz, says Lumbers, “is as green as green and needs ages. Perhaps Edgar Riek was right after all” (Dr Riek, founder of the neighbouring Lake George vineyard believed Lake George foreshore too cool to ripen shiraz).

At this stage, with the whites largely in the vat and the reds still on the vine, we can’t assess the vintage properly. What we do know is that quantities are down and the whites will be on the delicate side. The fate of our reds depends on weather conditions over the next few weeks. No rain dances, OK.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Trophy Collector — how a Canberra shiraz stole the Sydney show

People, Vineyard, Wine

There was no phone call, no email, no press release. Indeed, if it hadn’t been for a tip-off from one of the judges, Alex McKay’s success at Sydney’s 2010 Royal Wine Show might’ve escaped our notice. His Collector Reserve Shiraz 2008 won a gold medal and four trophies, including the Dr Gilbert Phillips Memorial Trophy for best red wine of the show.

It’s a significant win for Alex and Canberra shiraz, especially as Collector Reserve pipped one of Australia’s shiraz blue bloods, Best’s Great Western Bin O, for the top honour.

Alex reckons “it’s an achievement for the show to pick a wine like that. The judges are better and the classes are more sympathetic to this style”. But he’s not viewing the success of this elegant, cool climate shiraz as the end of big, traditional styles from warm areas. He says these regions have suffered a couple of very hot vintages, resulting in “a lot of over-ripe wines from South Australia, and they’ve not been doing well because of it”.

The Collector wine comes principally from the Kyeema vineyard, Murrumbateman, containing some of Canberra’s oldest shiraz vines, planted by Ron McKenzie in 1983. (Part of the small viognier component in the blend comes from Wayne and Jenny Fischer’s Murrumbateman). It’s been source of Kyeema Estate Shiraz (now part of Capital Wines) but the vineyard also provided fruit to Hardy’s during their period in Canberra. As Hardy’s winemaker, Alex appreciated the superior quality of Kyeema fruit and consequently maintained the relationship when he set up on his own after Hardy’s departure from Canberra.

Without this fruit, we wouldn’t have a Sydney trophy winner. But it demonstrates Canberra’s potential for shiraz – good sites with properly managed mature vines can make great wines.

Alex made the trophy winner in the old Madew winery at Lake George (now part of Lake George Winery). He fermented numerous batches of the Kyeema fruit, ranging from half a tonne to four tonnes. They were all natural – that is, spontaneous, without the addition of cultured yeasts. Controversially, he used whole grape bunches in about 40 per cent of the ferments.

Whole grape bunches include stalks — and these add distinctive stalky and herbal aromas and flavours, as well as bolstering the tannins and, hence, texture of the wine. But generally a little bit goes a long way.

At the time, Alex thought he might’ve gone “a bit too far – I was a bit scared”. He says that this herbal, stalky, slightly hard edge was most apparent in the young wine and admits, “a lot of people could be turned off by it”. However, he sees the character becoming better integrated into the wine with every month that passes and the fleshiness seems to increase.

I’ve tasted the wine only once, at a Senso dinner hosted by Clonakilla’s Tim Kirk last October. I noted the whole-bunch stalky character. It was certainly right up front. But the wine was delicious – silky, smooth and elegant with the stalky character adding complexity. “Superb” was the final comment.

I’ve not tried the wine since last October. But Jeremy Stockman, a judge the Sydney Show, tells me his main impressions were the wine’s purity and brightness – a wine of sufficient depth to bear comparison with Best’s legendary Bin O Shiraz.

Collector Reserve Canberra District Shiraz 2008 is available at around $46 from fine wine outlets and www.collectorwines.com.au. Alex expects to sell out within one month as he made only 1,000 six packs. He also offers the outstanding Collector Marked Tree Shiraz 2008 at $26 and has in the pipeline an $18 Canberra shiraz – a joint venture with fellow winemaker Nick O’Leary

HOW COLLECTOR STOLE THE SHOW

Collector Reserve Shiraz 2008’s four trophy winning streak at the Sydney Royal Wine Show began modestly. A gold medal won alongside Wolf Blass Gold Label Adelaide Hills Shiraz Viognier 2008 – its only competitor in class 52 (premium shiraz viognier blends) – put Collector in the running for the John Swann Memorial Trophy.

It was tasted off against gold medallists from the other eligible classes – Lillydale Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2008, St Hallett Barossa Valley Gamekeepers Reserve Shiraz Grenache 2008, Yellowtail The Reserve Shiraz 2008 and Brookland Valley Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon 2008.

In this first ballot, “purity and brightness got it through”, recalls judge Jeremy Stockman – saying that of the other shirazes in the taste-off “one was too oaky and the other fruity but simple”. Collector then, by default, seized the Leslie Kemeny Memorial Trophy as none of the gold medallists from other eligible classes was from the 2008 vintage.

The real test of Collector’s mettle, though, came in the taste off for the Dr Gilbert Phillips Memorial Trophy for best red wine of the show. It faced a ballot against the other red trophy winners – Blue Pyrenees Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, Yalumba Hand Picked Barossa Shiraz Viognier 2008, Vasse Felix Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, Hardys Thomas Hardy Cabernet Sauvignon 2004, Wolf Blass Gold Label Pinot Noir 2008, Best’s Great Western Bin O Shiraz 2008 and Xanadu Next of Kin Cabernet Sauvignon 2009.

Stockman recalls “one seriously good cabernet in this class, but I voted one and two for the shirazes”. And Collector won the tally and the trophy. Winemaker Alex McKay, an associate judge at the show (associate scores don’t count), says he thought he recognised his own wine in the first taste-off but remained sceptical of its prospects – and then felt “surreal” as it stepped up to become red of the show.

It’s not clear from the catalogue of results (www.sydneyroyalshows.com.au) which wines Collector faced in the taste-off of for the Busby Trophy (best wine or brandy from New South Wales). But in theory it might have been lined up against whites, reds, bubblies fortifieds and brandies.

Collector Reserve Canberra District Shiraz 2008 — Trophies won at the 2010 Sydney Royal Wine Show

  • John Swann Memorial Trophy
    Best dry red wine two years and older in premium classes
  • Leslie Kemeny Memorial Trophy
    Best 2008 vintage red wine from premium classes
  • Dr Gilbert Phillips Memorial Trophy
    Best red wine of the show
  • James Busby Annual Prize
    Best wine or brandy from New South Wales

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2010

Wine among the Jenolan stalactites

People, Wine

Last weekend I visited the most stunning natural cellar – certainly the most extraordinary in Australia and, for natural beauty, even more striking than the famous chalk drives of France’s Champagne region.

In Champagne wine matures in hundreds of kilometres of tunnels carved in the soft chalk underlying the whole region (and baring its bright, white face at Dover, on the English side of the channel).

The temperature sits steadily at around 10 degrees Celsius in dark, humid, physically stable tunnels – some, as at Pommery, run from the bottom level of chalk quarries carved during the Roman Empire. Most, of course, have been carved over the last few centuries.

These are ideal cellaring conditions for a delicate wine like Champagne. I’ve tasted some pretty old vintages in beautiful condition – some brought to Australia by visiting heads of Champagne houses (invariably smiling like they can’t believe their own good luck – we’re such a good market for them); others on visits to the region.

But over there you don’t have to be a wealthy Champagne house to make a decent cellar. I once visited an ordinary suburban home with its garage cut partly into a hill on one side. The owner, winemaker for the tiny producer Salon-le-Mesnil, took to the chalk wall with a mattock and shovel, shaping a spiral, downward sloping tunnel about ten metres long. It was perfect – and it’d be the envy of anyone who’s ever struggled through a metre or two of Canberra’s iron-hard soils.

Natural cellars in warm Australia can’t achieve 10-degree temperatures. But the fourteen degrees, say, of the beautiful underground drives at Seppelt in Great Western, Victoria, is nevertheless ideal for most wine styles. It’s turned out some pretty fine old sparkling and still whites and reds over the last century.

If we accept that constant cool temperatures are best for long-term wine cellaring, the question is how do we achieve this at home and what happens if our cellars are a little warmer.

Over the last three decades I’ve tasted hundreds of wines from semi-undergound Canberra cellars – ranging from a bit of hole dug under the house to extensive areas snugged in under one or two stories and set back in a hillside. I estimate that, on average, these range from a minimum of around 10 degrees to a maximum of 20 degrees over the year, with only small day-to-day temperature movement.

From these cellars, including my own, I’ve tasted plenty of pretty good old reds and whites (lots of disasters, too, but usually attributable to failed corks or poor wine selection in the first place). But I’ve also tasted many of the same wines from temperature controlled corporate cellars (around 14 degrees constant). Almost invariably, these wines are noticeably better – fresher and more vibrant, but still with attractive aged flavours.

The message is clear: the better and more expensive the wines you cellar, the more important the cellaring conditions become. These days the very high cost of moving dirt, rules out completely underground cellars for most of us. Hence the growing popularity of climate controlled wine fridges and even complete cool rooms capable of holding thousands of bottles.

The adoption of screw caps makes cellaring, in general, more reliable. And I assume that humidity becomes less important now that we don’t need to keep corks moist and elastic. However, it’s still essential to maintain a steady temperature – at the very least eliminating big daily swings.

If it’s hard to maintain good cellaring conditions at home, it’s out of the question for most restaurants – attributable to lack of demand, lack of proper storage (and the expensive of providing it) or the cost of holding stock for long periods of time. Some, however, source small quantities of mature wine from auction or direct from private collectors or wine producers.

That’s why it was a surprise last weekend to find an embryonic cellar associated with Caves House, the fabulous old accommodation and dining establishment at the Jenolan Caves.

The house is under the control of the Jenolan Caves Reserve Trust, and therefore an arm of the New South Wales Government – hardly a body associated with fine wining and dining.

I suspect it’s hard slog for the current manager, James Brady, but he’s having a go. One initiative is his little cellar in the caves. It’s hundreds of metres from Caves House. But if you’re a house guest and prepared to select a bottle from the cellar (a very limited selection at present), James will escort you to the cellar.

The bonus is a personal tour of several hundred metres of the spectacular Imperial Cave to find the cellar (a single rack at present) buried deep below the surface at a brisk year-round 15 degrees.

It’s a terrific idea. And if James gets support from his masters, he’d have no trouble expanding the range of wines available and would surely find wine producers happy to sell already mature bottles for the racks.

What could be lovelier than dining on fresh local produce in one of Australia’s grand old buildings sipping a fine old Aussie red?

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2010

Visionary Kirk sees new Rhone in Oz Capital

People, Wine

Gourmet Traveller Wine recently confirmed what the local wine show and every critic in the land have been telling us for years – that shiraz is Canberra’s number one variety by a country mile.

Seizing the publicity opportunity, Clonakilla’s Tim Kirk, local shiraz trailblazer, took ten of our best on a road trip to Sydney’s Marque Restaurant, Jan Gundlach’s Senso, at Fyshwick Markets, and Attica Restaurant, Melbourne.

At the Canberra event Tim turned on his hot-gospel best. “Canberra is one of the world’s great shiraz regions”, he declared. “Shiraz is a collection of the savoury; a symphony of spice. Pinot, at its best, can be pure seduction, but shiraz [of the style made in Canberra] is like embracing someone you love”.

Turning from hot gospel to the inner Jesuit, Tim drew parallels between Canberra and France’s northern Rhone Valley, home of the shiraz grape. In both places the granite soils, altitude and continental climate (warm days, cool nights) produce medium bodied, elegant shiraz. The wines feature red currant, spice, pepper and herb flavours, soft, silky tannins and high natural acidity.

Jesuits, of course, frown on heretics. So Tim sunk the slipper (gently) into shiraz not grown in the one true climate. For example, the Barossa’s hot days and warm nights don’t preserve acids, don’t produce red currant flavours and don’t produce elegant, silky shiraz in the Canberra mould; these conditions produce altogether bigger, bolder wines.

Then the visionary hot gospeller returned. In fifty years time people around the world will talk about Canberra and its sub-regions as they do now of the Rhone. We’re their equals. We have a similar ancient landscape. They have only a few hundred years start on us and we’re catching up. Canberra is already among the world’s greatest shiraz producing regions.

In Tim’s case that’s a fair enough claim. Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier stands tall around the planet. But we’ve seen other fine examples emerge in the last decade. Magnanimously, since this was a Clonakilla event, Tim included some of these at the dinner – five pairs of shiraz, each pair matched with a sensational dish.

This was a confident, polished act – the real showcase of Canberra’s best, something the local vignerons had attempted, and failed at, just a few weeks earlier at Old Parliament House.

The wines we enjoyed were: Lerida Estate Shiraz Viognier 2008 and Long Rail Gully Shiraz 2008; Ravensworth Shiraz Viognier 2007 and Kyeema Reserve Shiraz 2007; Nick O’Leary Shiraz 2008 and Clonakilla O’Riada Shiraz 2008; Collector Reserve Shiraz 2008 and Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier 2008; Clonakilla Syrah 2006 and Clonakilla Syrah 2008 barrel sample.

I’ll be reviewing those that are still available in my Sunday column. But if you’ve not yet discovered Canberra shiraz, now is the time. The 2008s now coming onto the market are just delightful.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Cowra part 1 of 2 — honey, they shrunk the wine industry

People, Wine

Two weeks ago a dozen independent Cowra winemakers visited Canberra. Their story is a microcosm of the shrinking act now underway in Australia as big makers pull the pin on grape contracts, export and local prices decline, and domestic tastes shift dramatically away from chardonnay to sauvignon blanc.

Cowra, the group told me, had already dropped wine grape production from about 25 thousand tonnes a year to 12 thousand tonnes. And the figure seems headed for further decline as big companies that used to queue up for Cowra chardonnay disappear over the horizon.

One of the region’s biggest holdings, a 400-hectare vineyard owned by Australian Vintage Limited, reportedly sold recently for just $1.5 million, about its land value according to the visiting winemakers – suggesting anything but a grapey future for the block.

The site, developed in the nineties for Orlando-Wyndham by Brian Sainty, traded originally under Orlando’s Richmond Grove brand before passing to McGuigan Simeon Wines Ltd. McGuigan Simeon, in turn, changed its name to Australian Vintage Ltd in January 2008.

But Cowra’s first vineyards had been established by Tony Gray in 1972. The area’s grape-growing potential had been identified by John Stanford acting for a group of investors. Gray acquired land and planted 36 hectares according to Stanford’s plan when the original investor group went broke.

It proved an ideal location. By the Lachlan River in central Western N.S.W. in a benign climate with plenty of water, it quickly and efficiently produced biggish crops of high-quality grapes.

Len Evans and Brian Croser recognised the quality early. Thus, Gray’s Cowra vineyard provided fruit for Croser’s first Petaluma chardonnay in 1977. At the time Croser was lecturing at Riverina College of Advanced Education (now Charles Sturt University), Wagga, where he made the wine.

In 1981 Evans, by now a partner in Petaluma as well as head of Rothbury Estate, in a controversial boardroom decision, acquired the Cowra vineyard for Rothbury. Some say this decision saved Rothbury’s bacon by severing it from a reliance on unpopular Hunter Valley reds and allowing it to meet an exploding demand for chardonnay at a modest price.

As an indicator of the scale of Rothbury’s Cowra investment, the vineyard produced 1,000 cases of chardonnay in 1981, 42,000 in 1990, and about 60,000 in 1993. The rapid growth in production reflected grafting over of the other varieties to chardonnay rather than expanded plantings.

The action at Cowra did not stop with Rothbury. Gray’s Cowra Vineyards Pty Ltd (CVPL) went on to plant a further 73 hectares of vines adjacent to Rothbury’s Holdings, with another 10 established by CVPL’s vineyard manager, Greg Johnston. That’s how Cowra found broad acres of grape vines nestling up to its suburbs.

This cluster of vineyards almost in the town was joined later by a 29-hectare planting about 20 kilometres downstream on the Lachlan’s beautiful plains. David and Elizabeth O’Dea established the vineyard on their 364-hectare ‘Windowrie’ hoping for better returns than those generated by breeding Simmental cattle and wheat farming. The O’Dea’s later extended their plantings and remain one of the area’s biggest independent growers. They now have a winery on site, The Mill restaurant in Cowra. And their son Jason was one of the 12 independent makers in Canberra two weeks back.

But Cowra can thank Brian McGuigan for its biggest vineyard. While head of Wyndham Estate, Brian foresaw sales outstripping grape supply. With viticulturist, Brian Sainty, he identified Cowra as a potential low-cost source of grapes for making soft, fruity, easy-drinking wines.

A small-investor scheme designed to fund the development failed to get the tax office nod and, as well, became caught up in the collapse of Wyndham’s parent company. Wyndham was acquired by Orlando and the merged Wyndham-Orlando Group decided to proceed with the Cowra development. Thus, Brian Sainty’s ambitious plans bore fruit.

In a development Sainty claimed was unprecedented in Australia, 222 hectares were planted on 56 blocks to 11 grape varieties in one year, 1989, complete with a computerised irrigation system that allowed tailored watering control for each block.

Between 1972 and 1993, Cowra’s area under vines grew from nil to 343.6 hectares. The majority of other growers now in Cowra arrived through the mid and late nineties.

Because most of Cowra’s production headed off to multi-region blends, the area attracted little consumer recognition – a fate shared by South Australia’s Langhorne Creek, Padthaway and Wrattonbully regions.

Despite a lack of wider recognition, smaller players had been chipping away for years, building their regional brands. But this side play has suddenly become the main game – hence the swathe already cut through production. And given likely permanent water shortages along the Lachlan, the days of mass production are unlikely to return.

The twelve independent growers recognise this. We’ll look at their wines and plans next week.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Wine quotes across the ages

People, Wine

In his great book, The story of wine, Hugh Johnson wrote of wine’s unique ability to banish care. Across the ages many of our greatest writers, scientists, historians and philosophers felt strongly enough about wine to record their thoughts for posterity.

Today’s column is a little tribute to these writers, featuring snippets from across more than two millennia of wine commentary.

Tasting notes
“See how it puns and quibbles in the glass”.
George Farquhar, Love and a bottle, 1698. (Evidence that sparkling wine existed in the seventeenth century).

“From the wine steward she ordered a bottle of Roederer’s Cristal. Even for those who dislike champagne, myself among them, there are two champagnes one can’t refuse: Dom Perignon and the even superior Cristal, which is bottled in a natural-colored glass that displays its pale blaze, a chilled fire of such prickly dryness that, swallowed, seems not to have been swallowed at all, but instead to have turned to vapors on the tongue and burned there to one damp sweet ash”.
Truman Capote, Answered prayers, unfinished novel contracted in 1966.

“It had the taste of an apple peeled with a steel knife”.
Aldous Huxley.

“… Mr. Tulkinghorn sits at one of the open windows, enjoying a bottle of old port. Though a hard-grained man, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine with the best. He has a priceless bin of port in some artful cellar under the Fields, which is one of his many secrets. When he dines alone in chambers, as he has dined to-day, and has his bit of fish and his steak or chicken brought in from the coffee-house, he descends with a candle to the echoing regions below the deserted mansion, and, heralded by the remote reverberation of thundering doors, comes gravely back, encircled by an earthy atmosphere and carrying a bottle from which he pours a radiant nectar, two score and ten years old, that blushes in the glass to find itself so famous, and fills the whole room with the fragrance of southern grapes.”
Charles Dickens, Bleak house.

“Did they shoot the horse?”
Anon.

“It tastes like it’s been drunk before”.
Anonymous.

“I’ll be glad when I’ve had enough”.
Gordon Shanahan.

Anecdotes
“Here is a story about two Australian swagmen who used to meet for a chat under the shade of a well placed tree. By Jacob’s Creek, I shouldn’t wonder. One day, Barry, the first, turned up with a bottle. He took a long swig, wiped his lips on his sleeve, and passed the bottle to his mate Kevin, who did the same. ‘Whad’ya think of it?’ said Barry.

‘Jes right’, said Kev.

‘Whad’ya mean, jes right?’

‘Well. If it’d been any better you wouldn’a giv’n it to me, and if it’d bin any wuss, I couldn’a drunk it.’

The art of wine selection in a nutshell.”
Hugh Johnson, Wine: a life uncorked, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 2005.

“In the wilds of Afghanistan I lost my corkscrew and for days was forced to live on nothing but food and water”.

“Some weasel left the cork out of my lunch”.
W.C. Fields

“On one occasion some one put a very little wine into a [glass], and said that it was sixteen years old. ‘It is very small for its age’, said Gnathaena”.
Athenaeus, circa A.D.200, The Deipnosophists.

“An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision, some wine was poured on his lips to revive him. ‘Pauillac, 1873’, he murmured and died.”
Ambrose Bierce, 1842 – 1914, The devil’s dictionary, 1911.

Wine qualities and philosophy

“My wines are sexy; they make weak men strong and strong women weak”.
Wolf Blass, 1974.

“Life is too short to drink bad wine”.
Anonymous, but popularised in Australia by Len Evans.

“A mind of the calibre of mine cannot derive its nutriment from cows”.
George Bernard Shaw.

“I drink it when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise, I never touch it – unless I’m thirsty.”
Lilly Bollinger, Manager, Bollinger Champagne, 1941–1971.

“Wine is sunlight, held together by water”.
Galileo Gallilei.

“Give me a bowl of wine, In this I bury all unkindness.”

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar.

“You haven’t drunk too much wine if you can still lie on the floor without holding on”.
Dean Martin.

“Both to the rich and poor, wine is the happy antidote for sorrow”.
Euripides.

“When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading”.
Henry Youngman.

“I can certainly see that you know your wine. Most of the guests who stay here wouldn’t know the difference between Bordeaux and Claret”.
John Cleese (Basil Fawlty), Fawlty Towers.

“There are no standards of taste in wine… Each man’s own taste is the standard, and a majority vote cannot decide for him or in any slightest degree affect the supremacy of his own standard”.
Mark Twain.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Book review: Wolf Blass — behind the bow tie

Book review, People, Wine

Wolf Blass — behind the bow tie
Liz Johnston, Fairfax Books 2009, $39.99

Old winemakers and merchants don’t retire. They push on past the golden years, working until they drop. At 75 years Wolf Blass remains the man behind the brand, owned by Fosters since 1996 – and out of his financial control since 1991, when Wolf Blass Wines and Mildara merged to become Mildara Blass.

He’s unquestionably one of the most influential figures of our modern wine industry. Wolf both tapped into and led public tastes across four decades, building an immensely successful brand in an industry more prone to disbursing wealth than creating it.

He deserves a book. But what credibility can we expect of an official biography (Fosters owns the copyright) marking Wolf’s 75th birthday, and launched in a blaze of publicity for the brand?

But scepticism is unfounded. Like all things associated with Wolf, there’s substance behind the fanfare. History isn’t rewritten; Wolf’s not canonised. Indeed, Liz Johnston gives us the best wine book in years. Like Wolf’s wine it’ll engage a wide audience.

It starts, of course, with an interesting subject – Wolfgang Franz Otto Blass. He was born into a wealthy German family in 1934, spent an adventurous, at times dangerous boyhood under the Third Reich in Stadtilm, Thuringia; and lived under American, British, French and Russian occupation after the war before settling and training as a winemaker in West Germany.

At age 22 he became cellarmaster for Karl Finkenauer at Bad Kreuznach; moved to England as wine chemist in 1957; and in 1961 emigrated to Australia to become sparkling wines manager at the Kaiser Stuhl Co-operative in the Barossa Valley.

He registered ‘Bilyara’ as a business name in 1966 and made small quantities of wine under this brand, while working full time at Tollana, the wine arm of United Distillers. In 1973 he started Wolf Blass Wines International; floated the hugely successful business in 1984 and merged it with Mildara to form Mildara Blass in 1991.

Fosters bought Mildara Blass in 1996 but retained Wolf as brand ambassador, a role he plays very actively today – travelling, promoting and working with the winemaking team, led by Chris Hatcher and Caroline Dunn.

But the book’s more than just a chronology. It’s a reflective work that puts Wolf and his life in historical context. Some of the most interesting and confronting bits cover his childhood in wartime Germany.

Some of it’s boys-own adventures like pilfering food from German supply trains between strafing runs by British Spitfire squadrons. But other memories continue to disturb Wolf today – for example, as a child he witnessed the beginning of the death marches from Buchenwald prison, located near his home.

Johnston writes of Wolf seeing prisoners shot and the corpses left on the roads – and being told that the victims were criminals and deserved their fate. It was years before Wolf realised what he’d witnessed as an eleven year old.

The toughness of the war years and the period of shortages that followed, though, helped shape a determined and resourceful Wolf Blass.

In Australia Wolf initially made sparkling wine for the ‘pearl’ styles, pioneered by Colin Gramp in the 1950s. But when he moved to Tollana under United Distillers began making the bright, fruity, easy-drinking styles that ultimately made the Wolf Blass brand famous.

The commercial history sprinkled through the book introduces us to other key figures that shaped our wine drinking habits, including Max Schubert (creator of Grange), Harry Brown (a remarkable, Sydney-based wine merchant), Len Evans and Peter Lehmann. But we also see the commercial players, notably Ray King, the man behind Mildara’s commercial success and later, the success of the combined Mildara and Wolf Blass. This was the industry benchmark for return on investment.

King must scratch his head wonder at the destruction of wealth in Foster’s wine division since its disastrous acquisition of Southcorp in 2005.

We learn a lot, too, about Wolf the promoter, the brand builder, the womaniser, the racehorse owner – a colourful and refreshingly frank, politically incorrect commentator. We see Wolf through others’ eyes – notably his wife’s and two exes. Now that is being frank.

It’s a terrific read and will appeal to different people at different levels – the human perspective, the wine perspective and the large wine industry view.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Jim Barry Wines, delicious old rieslings and a great Clare vineyard

People, Vineyard, Wine

In the Clare Valley a couple of weeks back Jim Barry Wines hosted its fiftieth anniversary celebrations. The highlight was a tasting of memorable Jim Barry, Leo Buring, Lindemans and Richmond Grove rieslings from vintages 1972 to 1998.

And what lovely twists there were to the tasting: the beautiful old Leo Buring wines came from a vineyard that now belongs to the Barry family; the Jim Barry wines came from a vineyard that the family no longer owns; and the sole Richmond Grove wine, the youngest in the line up, came from the same vineyard as the old Buring wines. And it was made by same winemaker, John Vickery, in the same (but now renamed) winery where he’d first made wine for Leo Buring in 1955.

The thread linking all this is the Florita vineyard at Watervale, located towards the southern end of the Clare Valley. This was the source, acknowledged in the fine print of the labels, of the legendary, long-lived Leo Buring Reserve Bin Rhine Rieslings of the sixties, seventies and early eighties.

When Lindemans put Florita on the market in 1986, Jim Barry saw a unique opportunity to grab one of the region’s great and proven vineyards. But it was tough times in the industry and, according to Jim’s son Peter, Nancy (Jim’s wife) said to Jim, ‘you don’t want it’. But he did.

So Jim said to his sons, Peter, Mark and John, ‘mum won’t let me, so you boys had better do it’. And they did. Peter recalls the financial stretch, approaching several banks ‘with figures to back the lie – bullshit on paper. Several banks knocked it back, one accepted it, lent us money and we made it work’. It’s that sort of vision and risk taking that makes or breaks businesses.

To help fund the purchase, the Barrys sold a corner of Florita to Ian Sanders (the corner became Clos Clare) and another vineyard in Watervale, source of their earlier Watervale rieslings. They also sold Florita material, as juice, to other makers, including Richmond Grove (owned by Pernod Ricard and located in Leo Burings old winery at Tanunda, Barossa Valley).

Twenty-three years on, the entire Florita vineyard is back in family hands and it provides fruit for three labels – Jim Barry Watervale Riesling ($15), Jim Barry The Florita Watervale Riesling ($45) and Clos Clare Watervale Riesling ($24). The Barrys also offer a riesling ($19) from their Lodge Hill Vineyard in the northern Clare.

As we tasted the older riesling Peter Barry recalled that John Vickery at Burings had the technological over his dad in the seventies, and it wasn’t until the eighties that Jim Barry Wines acquired essential refrigeration and other protective technology that Burings had enjoyed since the sixties.

The gap shows in the extra vivacity of the old Buring wines – like the beautiful Reserve Bins DW C15 Watervale Rhine Riesling 1973 and DW G37 Watervale Rhine Riesling 1977. Even so the older Jim Barry wines from1972, 1974 and 1977 in particular drink well, albeit in a rounder, softer style than the Buring wines.

But the gap has been closed in recent times and I’ve no doubt that Jim Barry The Florita and Clos Clare will equal the great wines made by John Vickery so sustainably over so many decades – especially now that we have screw caps protecting these beautiful wines.

The best vintages will be as delicious at almost forty years as they are at one. The connection, of course, is the Florita vineyard. You can see it by searching ‘Old Road Watervale South Australia’ on Google Earth or maps.google.com – it’s the vineyard furthest from Cemetery Road. The little plot on the corner near the cottage is Clos Clare. It’s a great Australian regional story to be explored primarily in the glass.

Florita Vineyard timeline

1940s
Leo Buring purchases the Florita site. He plants pedro ximenez and palomino for sherry making and, believes former Buring employee John Vickery, perhaps small amounts of crouchen, trebbiano and shiraz.

1955
John Vickery joins Leo Buring at Chateau Leonay (now Richmond Grove), Barossa Valley. John makes table wine and sherry.

1950s
Among the wines Vickery makes is a fino sherry sold under Buring’s ‘Florita Fino’ label. This is probably the first label to bear the vineyard name. Leo Buring established the solera before Vickery’s arrival.

1961
Leo Buring dies at 85 years.

1962
Lindemans, under Ray Kidd, purchases Buring’s business, retaining Vickery as winemaker. At about the same time Kidd replants Florita almost entirely to riesling, leaving about one hectare of crouchen.

1963
In time for vintage, Lindemans installs protective winemaking equipment, enabling production of riesling and other crisp, fruity whites in a style pioneered by Colin Gramp, of Orlando, in the 1950s. The stage is set for Vickery to make his legendary Eden and Clare Valley rieslings, the latter from the Florita vineyard.

1960s, 1970s, 1980s
Vickery’s Leo Buring rieslings, including those from Florita, become Australian benchmarks.

1986 and thereabouts
Lindemans, now owned by Phillip Morris, sells Florita vineyard to Jim Barry Wines.  Lindemans retains the Florita trademark.  To help fund their purchase (it was a stretch, says Peter) the Barry family sells a two-hectare corner with vines and a cottage to Ian Sanders. Sanders names this corner Clos Clare. The Clos Clare wines are made by Tim Knappstein and then Jeffrey Grosset. (Sanders later sells Clos Clare to Noel Kelly. Wines are then made at O’Leary Walker).

The Barrys immediately graft the one-hectare of crouchen, planted by Lindemans in the 1960s, to sauvignon blanc. Four years later they grub this out and plant riesling. Florita vineyard is for the first time planted entirely to the variety that made it famous.
1994–2003

The Barry family sells juice from riesling grown on the Florita vineyard to John Vickery, now working in Orlando’s Richmond Grove Winery (formerly Chateau Leonay). From 1994 to 2003 Richmond Grove Watervale Riesling contains material from Florita.

2004
The Florita trademark lapses and the Barry family takes it up, allowing the launch of Jim Barry ‘The Florita’ Riesling 2004.

2007
The Barry family buys back the lost corner of Florita. Peter Barry’s sons Tom and Sam run Clos Clare as a separate business, making the wine at John and Daniel Wilson’s Polish Hill River winery.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Dalgety — a snowy brew

Beer, People

The Dalgety Brewing Company bills itself as the true snowy brewer. Located about half way between Berridale and Dalgety, the microbrewer also claims to be the first commercial producer in the snow mountains region. But I suspect they’d be in a photo finish with Lion Nathan’s Jindabyne-based Kosciusko Brewing for that honour.

I’ve not visited the cellar door (it’s part of the Snowy Vineyard Estate) but the bottled version, distributed in Canberra by Z4, is already available at the Ginger Room at old parliament house and Canberra Cellars, Braddon.

The beers are made on site in 100 litre batches by David Lowe. And if they don’t have the classy polish of Lion’s Kosciuszko Pale Ale, there’s an appealing, idiosyncratic, homespun, wholemeal goodness about them (a natural cloudy yeast haze and a slight resinous edge to the hops that builds as you sip).

There’s the foundation for real quality and character across the range, best evidenced in the very fresh, zesty Golden Ale. It’s not inherently a better style than Dalgety’s Blonde Ale, Pale Ale or Red Ale – just fresher, livelier and showing finer, clearer hops aroma, flavour and bitterness. This could be related to the difficulties of small batch bottling – a tricky feat for the even the cleverest brewer.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009