Remember Eric Brand’s Laira Vineyard Coonawarra wines — amongst the best reds to emerge from Coonawarra from the late sixties to mid seventies? Their elegant but strong flavours enjoyed a moment of glory before technical problems struck.

In the short time it took to re-establish quality, Brand’s had been upstaged by dozens of top Coonawarra reds and so, in the 80s and 90s, Brand’s was pushed well and truly to the background as Bowen Estate, Leconfield, Lindemans, Rouge Homme, Wynns, John Riddoch, Jamieson’s Run, Zema Estate, Katnook and others grabbed the limelight.

But being out of the limelight in no way diminishes the enduring quality of Brand’s wines. The very special quality of grapes from the Laira Vineyard, based on the unique location, ensures that over time Brand’s will be at the heart of Coonawarra as long as red wine is in demand.

In every high-quality wine-growing area in the world, classification of wine quality over time finally gets back to vineyard location — the most highly refined example being that of Burgundy, France where the official naming rights for wine start at Bourgogne (covering the whole region) and go down to quite tiny vineyards (eg: Le Montrachet and Le Chambertin) covering only a hectare or two. The point being that over centuries, despite the strengths and weaknesses of individual owners, specific sites have been observed to hold the key to high quality.

It will be no different in Australia. And in Coonawarra, whose wines have already made it one of the world’s very special vineyard sites, we are just beginning to glimpse site-related variations in quality: there is a distinctive Coonawarra style for both shiraz and cabernet-based red wines, and now we can see that northern Coonawarra reds differ from southern Coonawarra reds. Inevitably, the intensive cultivation of vines in Coonawarra will hasten the definition of which sites make the best wines.

If we look at a map of Coonawarra, we see Brand’s Laira Vineyard sitting in the middle of a particularly distinguished sector: adjacent and to the north its neighbours are Redmans and Lindemans St George Vineyards; to the west is a Southcorp vineyard, source of material for the sublime Wynns John Riddoch Cabernet; and to south the Rouge Homme and Lindemans Limestone Ridge Vineyards.

These are some of the earliest-planted sites in Coonawarra, Brand’s oldest vines, for example, were planted in 1896. As Lindeman wine maker, Greg Clayfield (from an old landed Coonawarra family) quipped, “they didn’t plant the worst land first.”

Finally, good vineyard sites define themselves by the quality of wine produced. And if we look at the Brand wines over the years we discern a distinctive style: the reds deliver rich but elegant Coonawarra berry flavours with a special sweet lift in the aroma and an exquisite delicacy on the palate.

The latter characteristic seems particularly true of a shiraz produced solely from the 1896 vineyard and released in recent years under Brands Original Vines Shiraz label. To me this is one of Coonawarra’s great and largely undiscovered reds, expressing as it does flavours unique to one small vineyard.

Since McWilliams bought a half share in Brand’s in 1990, I think I’ve detected a slight and welcome lift in the ripeness and fullness of the reds. On a visit to the winery a little over a year ago, Jim and Bill Brand (sons of the now retired Eric) took me through a range of vintages, including the 1993s, then maturing in casks.

I tasted an impeccable and exciting range of reds all showing the Coonawarra and Laira Vineyard thumbprints. (Try Laira Cabernet, Shiraz, or Cabernet Malbec from any recent vintage and see what I mean.). One of the reds tasted from barrel that day, a 1993 Cabernet, for instance, has just been released and delivers all its early promise.

Last year McWilliams moved to full ownership of Brands at the same time acquiring a further 200 hectares of Coonawarra land. I’ve not visited this new vineyard site, but I have seen a new 100-hectare vineyard McWilliams was developing jointly with the Brand family in 1993. It was to the west of the railway line, well removed from the original Laira Vineyard.

On behalf of red wine drinkers I ask McWilliams chief, Kevin McKlintock to keep wines from the new vineyards separate from those made off the original 27 hectare Laira Vineyard. These wines are too good to dilute, and with time you’ll get good money for them as the world realises how special they are.

Padthaway is a dear friend of Australian wine drinkers. Yet its contribution to the quality of our everyday drinking has often been anonymous or, before Lindeman’s success with chardonnay from the district, served up under the name Keppoch. As a viticultural area it barely existed until broad acre plantings began in the late 1960s.

For reasons best known to itself, the ABS lumps statistics on Coonawarra and Padthaway together, making it hard to trace separately the growth of what are probably the two most important modern wine-growing areas in Australia.

But to give some indication of the phenomenal growth of the region, the combined Coonawarra-Padthaway grape tonnage for wine making in 1968 was about 1000 tonnes. By 1973 that had grown to almost 5,000 tonnes, leaping to 18,000 tonnes in 1978; 22,000 tonnes in 1983, 42,000 tonnes in 1992 and by locals’ estimates, 55,000 tonnes in 1994.

By parting with a modest $400 I prised split figures from the ABS for the decade to 1992, revealing Padthaway’s wine-grape production at around 20,000 tonnes a year for the late eighties and early nineties but now moving closer to 30,000 tonnes. That’s more than twice the output of Western Australia, and the equivalent of about 2.1 million dozen 750 mL bottles.

According to James Halliday, Seppelts were the first in the area, planting small trial plots in 1963, followed by 25 hectare vineyards in 1964 and 1965. Hardys and Lindemans arrived in 1968 and were followed by Wynns, a private grower, Don Brown, Orlando, Tolleys, and Padthaway Estate.

Broad-acre plantings were the order of the day. And although Seppelts original plantings focused on red wines, Padthaway was soon feeding the white wine boom of the seventies and eighties. Today, grape production is 60 per cent white, 40 per cent red. But that may well be swinging the other way as exports gather pace and the area’s reds reveal their full potential.

Despite such phenomenal grape output, Padthaway did not have a winery until Padthaway Estate commenced operations in 1989. It remains the district’s sole winery.

The large operators simply truck grapes or juice to wineries elsewhere. Southcorp, for instance, sends most output from its 1100 hectares in Padthaway to the Rouge Homme and Wynns wineries in Coonawarra, 80 kilometres to the south; BRL Hardy sends juice northwards to Reynella and McLaren Vale.

Seppelt, Lindemans, and Hardys all originally saw the area as a source of large-quantity, reasonable quality grapes for commercial table-wine production. Despite high grape yields in those early days, quality was generally far better than the wine makers had expected. Even so, most output disappeared anonymously into big commercial blends.

Where the area was acknowledged on the label, both Seppelt and Hardy used the name Keppoch or Keppoch Valley. But Lindemans phenomenal commercial and show success with its Padthaway Chardonnay and Fume Blanc soon saw that name adopted by all parties. By a quirk of marketing, Keppoch remains an obscure place name on a map, while Padthaway slowly but surely strides onto the world stage as a unique wine-making region.

Padthaway may ever remain source of commercial wines with no acknowledged district of origin. Hardys Sir James is a good example of that (around 120,000 cases a year, the local rep tells me). But, equally, we are increasingly seeing the cream of the crop acknowledged on labels or in press releases.

Lindemans Padthaway Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Verdelho have a place in most liquor stores and remain the region’s best-known ambassadors. But there is another level of quality above these now emerging.

Orlando’s Lawsons Padthaway Shiraz consistently demonstrates the area’s ability to produce exceptionally-high quality long-lived reds. And in recent years, I notice Penfolds impeccable Bin Number reds acknowledging Padthaway on their labels. I understand fruit quality was good enough for Bin 707 in 1993.

Wine lovers visiting Coonawarra might slip up the road 80 kilometres to see Padthaway’s great sea of vines. A gentle slope flattening out to the west contrasts with Coonawarra’s unbroken flatness. But 700,000 years back they were part of the same coastal formation.

The terra rossa soils of both areas are weathered from the same limestone bed deposited all those years ago. Padthaway, with its shorter wine-making history has a less clear-cut identity than Coonawarra with its world-class, unique reds.

My bet is that Padthaway’s highest achievement are yet to come and they will be reds not whites.

Canberra’s wine buyers are in for big changes this year following the collapse of the Capital’s largest wine merchants, Farmer Bros. Many of the changes were underway before the collapse, but the vacuum left by Farmer Bros’ demise will quickly be filled by players old and new.

Farmer Bros stores are about to be taken over by Liquorland, a division of Coles Myer, Australia’s largest liquor retailers. They moved quickly after a meeting of creditors recommended the Liquorland offer over one from Cellarmaster wines on Friday, December 16.

On Saturday morning, Shane Sinclair, a shareholder and former operations and purchasing boss for Farmer Bros, received a phone call from his new master, Craig Watkins, head of Liquorland. “I’ve bought back the farm for you, Shane. Pick up the accountants at Canberra airport Monday morning and take them to the office will you.” That’s the call as reported to me by Shane.

So, on Monday morning, Shane found himself walking in the same door he’d walked out of just a few weeks earlier.

That may appear to be the end of Farmer Bros after nineteen and a half years, but we may yet see David Farmer’s smiling face here again. In Sydney a few days before acceptance of the Liquorland offer, Terry Davis, head of Cellarmaster Wines, told me that if he lost the bid for Farmer Bros, he may still set up shop in Canberra trading under a David Farmer banner.

Whether or not David Farmer will play a role in such a venture, I don’t know. Regardless, Cellarmaster has a walk-up start here in Canberra having use of Farmer Bros mailing list, including around 4,000 Canberra wine buyers, recipients of Farmer Bros Wine Newsletter (first published in October 1978 but managed for the last few months by Cellarmaster).

And just to complicate things, Liquorland’s Craig Watkins tells me he has the right to use the Farmer Bros name. It may well become Liquorland’s third store brand following the successful launch of Vintage Cellars in more posh locations over the last twelve months.

Liquorland rides into town on a wave of change that has been transforming liquor (especially wine) retailing Australia wide. Canberra was unique. For historical reasons, Liquorland had been virtually excluded from the town with independent supermarkets picking up the market share in Canberra that in other cities was shifting to Coles (Liquorland) and Woolworths (Macs).

See how richly merchandised are the wine sections of some of our better-located independent supermarkets — Supa Barn in the Canberra Centre for example. Finally, when everyone is selling the same brands at the same price, convenience becomes a determining factor in where people shop. We’ve reached that stage now and the wine sales pendulum has swung towards well-located-and-stocked supermarkets.

If Liquorland initially missed out on the new spoils it now appears set to catch up on Macs, the liquor stores belonging to arch-rival Woolworths. In the last year, extended trading hours and top locations, by my guess, have pushed liquor sales away from independents into Macs. Sit outside the Macs attached to Woolworths Dickson and be amazed at the steady flow of traffic, twelve hours a day, seven days a week. And the Manuka location may not be far behind.

And then, of course, you have the surviving long-time independents, notably Jim Murphy’s Market Cellars and Cand Amber, and relative newcomer Georgas Liquor Stable. Not to mention a hundred licenced supermarkets across the A.C.T. and all the clubs and restaurants as well.

Just how all those independents weather the winds of change remains to be seen. Especially as it seems the Liquorland attack on Canberra may be countered by Cellarmaster and, a little bird tells me, The Wine Society.

Then there are the local wineries, plus the big mail order houses, Cellarmaster

Wines (operating several wine clubs) and the Wine Society all pumping quite big volumes of wine into Canberra homes from warehouses in the Barossa and Sydney respectively. These are topped up with dribs and drabs going direct to the consumer from hundreds of small wineries, and substantial volumes coming either by mail order, or returning in boots of cars, from aggressive Sydney retailers like Kemenys of Bondi and Kellys of Kogarah.

It all adds up to variety and competition for bargain-conscious wine drinkers. But the strength seems to have moved decisively away from independent operators into the hands of the big, well-capitalised, increasingly professional retail chains.

There will always be a role for the spontaneity and expertise of independents, but the operators will have to be good to move with the rapid changes now underway.

In October, fields around Canberra showed a little green fuzz instead of the usual rampant spring growth. Teasing drizzle underlined for local vignerons their absolute reliance on dam, river or bore water to produce a crop every year. Canberra’s rainfall pattern, as for most of the continent, just does not favour vignerons.

At the time, some were in good shape. For Roger and Faye Harris at Brindabella Hills, for instance, water from an irrigation bore seemed as sweet as ever and showed no sign of drying up. Vines flush with spring growth suggested all was well. But for Rob and Kay Howell at Jeir Creek Winery, Murrumbateman, the outlook was bleak.

The vineyard looked good. Under a warm spring sun, 10,000 vines sprinkled over 6 hectares showed delicate green shoots. But the dam was almost empty and Rob talked of budgeting $10,000 for buying water essential to maintain vine growth. The Howell’s simply could not afford to lose this year’s crop.

Then the rain came, mostly in dribs and drabs as we’ve seen in Canberra. Murrumbateman, however, struck it lucky with five inches recorded over the last two months, according to Ken Helm. As a result vines are surging ahead with new growth of up to 4 centimetres a day recorded in one vineyard.

“Now we’re laughing”, Rob Howell told me on the phone, “we’re in for a potentially big crop.” But he’s not writing the $10,000 water bill out of the budget yet. Several hot, dry months to endure before vintage with a dam only part full don’t inspire confidence.

Uncertainty is the lot of the vigneron. And vintage differences are a big part of what all the fuss over wine is about. For all the scientific control within wineries, and all the prudent vineyard management, what the vineyard produces remains significantly at the whim of nature.

In 1993 warm, wet conditions promoted the growth of mildew; followed by a 1994 vintage blighted for local makers by a freak spring frost that nipped a horrifyingly large portion of chardonnay in the bud; and then a 1995 vintage first seeming threatened by drought then shaping up as a cornucopia. Hopes are up at Jeir Creek and for Ken Helm’s estimated 21 vineyard owners within 6 kilometres of Murrumbateman.

As Rob Howell says, the weight of vineyards and, more importantly for drinkers, the concentration of cellar-door outlets in the vicinity, makes Murrumbateman something of a hub in a wine district spread over literally hundreds of kilometres, from Yass to Bungendore to Lake George to Bredbo.

Jeir Creek you’ll find a few kilometres to the right of the Barton Highway up Gooda Creek Road, before Murrumbateman Village. The winery and cellar-door/maturation shed sit behind the vineyard, all on gently rolling country — a tranquil and quite lovely setting, conveniently close to Canberra.

Rob and Kay, like so many small-scale operators (there are 800 in Australia at last count) committed themselves to wine making in 1984 after a long passion with the product.

Planting at Jeir Creek commenced in 1985 and progressed through until 1992 when a final chardonnay planting brought the total area under vine to 6 hectares — small but, nevertheless, one of the biggest single holdings in the Canberra district.

Chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, riesling and sauvignon blanc are the dominant varieties planted, with a tiny patch of pinot noir. But following the success in the district, and strong demand for red wine, the Howells intend planting 2 hectares of shiraz.

Jeir Creek, for the Howells continues to be an extra career rather than alternative one. Like so many other small makers, the venture is funded by full time daytime jobs. Rob’s career has been in surveying and mapping — topics he now teaches at Bruce C.I.T. while Kay works in childcare.

Rob says the aim is to move full time into wine making but there are several more capital hungry stages to pass through before that’s possible. A new mezzanine level in the winery is about to go in (as a tasting cellar-door sales area), then there’s 2 hectares of vineyards, an air-bag press to increase juice extraction and quality; and finally, a proper sandstone cellar-door sales facility.

All that takes money, labour, time, and expertise.

In the Howell’s case it’s resulting in a small range of high quality wines, of which the sauvignon blanc and a sweet botrytised semillon-sauvignon blanc blend have become house specialties.

From my own tasting of bottled, tank, and barrel samples two months ago, I can vouch for the quality, and especially recommend the 1994 Riesling, 1994 Sauvignon Blanc and 1994 Bredbo/Jeir Creek sweet semillon/sauvignon blanc.

It’s well worth making a day of it and heading out to Jeir Creek.

all they are worth. And because marketers began feeding show results to drinkers as definitive quality statements, organisers responded by altering shows in varying degrees in recognition of a growing responsibility to consumers.

Consumer-orientated changes introduced by wine shows range from judging wines within price points (Adelaide) to conducting winery audits to ensure that what the drinker drinks is what the judges judged (Canberra).

Even so, Canberra’s chairman of judges, Ian McKenzie, believes the fundamental purpose of wine shows is not to enlighten the consumer but to “improve the breed”. Wine shows, he points out, are still run by agricultural societies as part and parcel of wider agricultural exhibitions.

Ian sees this year’s National Show (“… the grand final of the Australian wine show system… ”) as one of the strongest in quality across the board — the percentage of gold medals awarded being higher than ever and with a notable lift in competition from New Zealand in the riesling and chardonnay classes.

He sees over-oaking of whites as mostly a thing of the past, attributing the increase in wine maker skill, in part, to the prohibitive cost of oak.

The only weakness he noted was a tendency for wine makers to over-react to strong demand for traditional full-bodied reds by simply making wines “too extractive” — wine maker jargon for reds made apparently fuller by extracting extra tannins from grape skins, a procedure that adds grip, not flavour.

For wine makers, ‘improving the breed’ comes not just in heeding the judge’s decisions, but in attending the exhibitors’ tasting following the show. Here, in a furious four-hour session, they compare their own wines with those of rival makers, especially the medal winners. Final judgments, though, tend to be independent of what the catalogue of results said.

Consumers ought to take the same skeptical view as exhibitors. For the fact is there are sufficient anomalies in any list of wine show awards, Canberra included, to say no medal’s worth should be taken at face value.

Take, for example, the large-volume sparkling class for vintage and non-vintage sparkling wines. The judges, led by Domaine Chandon’s Dr Tony Jordan in this instance, really should be made to stand in the corner. Either that or we accept Minchinbury, Carrington, Great Western, and Seaview at $4-$7 as better wines than Salinger 1991 ($30).

And why a gold for Mildara Jamieson’s Run 1992 in one class and nothing in another? Or what does Orlando wine maker Robin Day make of a silver medal for Jacobs Creek Chardonnay 1993 and nothing, in the same class, for the twice-as-good, twice-as-expensive St Hilary? That’s not to mention numerous other excellent wines overlooked.

Glaring errors like these do nothing to improve the breed or inform consumers.

On the other hand, if we look through the list of trophy winners, it’s difficult to quibble. At the most, we might have a few different preferences. Note, too, the industry giant is stirring. Southcorp, accounting for about one third of Australia’s wine production, picked up half of the trophies — and I find it hard to argue against any of them.

To do in two hours what three panels of judges did in one week being not possible, I explored fairly whimsically through the exhibitors’ tasting to spot the interesting ones.

In the current vintage riesling class, so often the source of good value, Aussie wines showed their predictable colours. But it was the New Zealanders offering a delightful new range of aromas and flavours. From now on include Marlborough Rieslings on your shopping list.

If you thought Pinot Noir was the domain of small makers, pop in to cellar door sales at Seppelts Great Western winery and grab a few bottles of Drumborg/Tumbarumba Pinot Noir 1992 ($19). This is a fantastic wine, made by Ian McKenzie, using the best fruit from Seppelt’s Drumborg (southern Victoria) and Tumbarumba (Snowy Mountains, NSW) vineyards. Ian rates the not-yet-released 1993 its equal and the 1994 as even better.

Pam Dunsford’s Chapel Hill McLaren Vale Coonawarra Cabernet 1992 stood out for sheer lush fruit flavour; and the Schrapel family’s Bethany Shiraz 1992 shows the Barossa’s red specialty in all its rich glory.

Amongst sparkling wines, Salinger 1990 finally got what it deserved — a trophy for being the best. But for a glimpse of future flavours in Australian sparkling, take a sniff and sip of Dominique Portet’s Tasmanian Taltarni Clover Hill 1991. Superb stuff, finally getting to the heart of what intensity of flavour, combined with delicacy is all about.

For a local wine maker turning out less wine in a year than a good-average retailer sells in a week, Ken Helm captures an astonishing amount of radio, television and newspaper attention. And like anyone who dares speak up, Ken cops as much flak as he does praise, usually from fellow wine makers too mean minded to give credit where it’s due.

Industry folk still scratch their heads wondering how an outspoken bloke from an obscure winery in Murrumbateman managed to shift the limelight away from the captains of industry during last year’s wine sales tax debacle. As Ken recalls, when he raised his hand to be heard, convinced that very small wine makers had been dealt out of negotiations, one professional lobbyist remarked, “Ken, even if you win, don’t expect to make any friends out of this.”

The lobbyist was only partly correct. If Ken alienated some within the industry, others viewed him as a saviour. And, more importantly, he won the hearts of thousands of consumers unaware, until Ken stuck his big moustache in front of national TV cameras, that Canberra had a wine industry.

Ken was a founder of that industry, setting up at Murrumbateman in 1974, at about the same time Harvey Smith planted what is now Lady Janet Murray’s Doonkuna Estate, and three years after CSIRO colleagues Drs John Kirk and Edgar Riek established vines at Murrumbateman and Lake George respectively.

Ken grabbed the promoters mantle early in the piece, my first recollection of him being in 1979 when he presented a paper — on the local wine-making experience, written by himself, Dr J.Kirk and Mr G. Bond — at an ANU Wine Symposium.

At the time, Ken had made few wines. But he was five years into a commitment destined take him from the CSIRO into full time wine making and spruiking.

Some of the very early Helm vintages won medals. My own recollections of those formative years are of generally decent wines with the odd peculiarity or failure. But Ken moved up the learning curve quickly and by the mid eighties had established a reputation for making good wine always and one or two outstanding wines every year.

Quality has been good enought for Ken to earn 7 Trophies as well as 10 gold, 5 silver, and 76 bronze medals for his efforts.

In common with other local makers, Helm makes wine on a tiny scale, battling always for the capital to plant and grow grapes, make, hold and package wine, and provision the winery with the right equipment.

Where larger wineries provide wine makers with all the latest bells and whistles, Ken works with comparatively rustic equipment, making his quality achievements all the more remarkable.

I visited Helm in late October gathering information for this gradual series on local makers (the individual stories to appear over the next six months or so). How’s this for Ken’s opening remark, “The district will make reds as good or better than Coonawarra”, backed up with a press release crowing over his 1990 Cabernet Merlot’s outpointing Penfolds Bin 707 at the National Wine Show in Canberra.

That’s Ken. It matters nought to him that the world sees Coonawarra as our best red area, nor that the judges may have erred that year (I mean what committee makes good decisions, anyway). Simply, Ken believes in the district and in his own wines and never misses a promotional opportunity.

Ken’s current releases include a rich, lush unoaked Cowra-Murrumbateman Chardonnay 1994; a yummy blended dry white, very rich on traminer aroma and flavour; a terrific Murrumbateman Rhine Riesling 1994; a full-bodied but soft and easy drinking Murrumbateman/Lake George Cabernet Shiraz 1993; and the house specialty, Cabernet Merlot 1993 (Murrumbateman and Hall), a most appealing, fragrant, deeply flavoured red.

Ken and Judy generously put on a tasting of four Rhine Rieslings and five Cabernet Merlot vintages. They’d all aged well and should give us all the confidence to stash a bottle or two of Helm’s wine in the cellar. But I found the 1991 Cabernet Merlot particularly appealing. (Ken tells me this wine subsequently went down well with Len Evans and others at an industry gathering in Canberra on the eve of the National Wine Show presentations.)

Better, a taste is worth a thousand words. Take a drive out to Murrumbateman, turn right at the Helms sign, and enjoy not only the wine and the company of the wine maker but also the gentle, green countryside.

Bruce Kemp, head of Southcorp Wines, dropped a few home truths about the direction of Australia’s wine industry at the National Press Club recently. The crux of it, for wine drinkers, is that the era of undervalued wine is over.

Profits from domestic sales are needed to fund rapid vineyard and winery expansion demanded by strong export and domestic growth. To put it in Mr Kemp’s words, “It’s most important that we strike a balance in the quality/price equation — we have to maintain quality while preserving margins, both domestically and internationally, to create funds for much needed expansion.”

Just five years ago, no one could have taken seriously a wine industry head saying he was going to keep prices up. That was in the days of wine surplus and cut-throat competition amongst big makers. But the surplus is gone and the big makers have since joined forces. Now we all know, through the higher prices we pay for wine, that makers (domestically at least) are well and truly “preserving margins”.

Higher prices, Kemp pointed out, have not deterred local wine drinkers. “… during the recession, bottled sales stalled as cask sales soared, Australian tastes are now changing to bottled wines.” In the last year, the switch to bottled wines has been dramatic: bottled red consumption grew by 10.2 per cent, white by 9.5 per cent and sparkling wine by 2.1 per cent. That last figure, because it includes all the bargain bubblies, hides a very strong growth in more expensive bottle-fermented sparkling wine.

If that trend continues, we will need more premium grapes. According to Bruce Kemp, the Wine Federation of Australia predicts an increased local demand for premium bottled wine of 42 million litres by 2000. To service that demand, our makers will need an extra 64,000 tonnes of grapes from a new 5,200 hectares of vineyards. And that’s just to meet domestic growth.

The rate of export growth appears even more dramatic, running at a compound annual rate of 27.1 per cent for ten years. In 1983/84 we exported 8.9 million litres of wine, growing to 124 million litres worth $365 million in 1993/94.

Bruce Kemp views Australia’s $1 billion export target by 2000 as “a mission, not an end in itself … it puts the focus on what is needed to achieve the target.”

An additional 25,000 hectares of vines need to be added to the present 62,000 hectares to provide an additional 300,000 tonnes of premium grapes. Altogether, Kemp estimates the investment in vineyard and winery expansion to meet projected growth at home and abroad at around $1.2 billion.

And money is pouring into vineyard developments across Australia. Southcorp, as the country’s biggest maker, leads the way with a $100 million dollar expansion over the next three years: $64 million to vineyard development and $36 million to winery consolidation and expansion. And that’s not counting the long-term contracts to buy from new plantings undertaken by independent growers — an effective way, as Bruce Kemp puts it, to spread the risks as well as the rewards of an expanding industry.

Southcorp seems particularly well placed to grasp its share of growing markets. The company embraces the vigorous and formerly independent winemaking cultures of Wynns-Seaview, Penfolds, Lindemans, and Seppelt. With those businesses came not only brands but perhaps the best suites of vineyards and wineries in the world.

Southcorp’s 3,500 hectares of vines last year fed total sales of $352 million (including $106 million from exports). According to Bruce Kemp, Australia produces just 2 per cent of the world’s wine. But Southcorp ranks as the eight or ninth largest globally, accounting for about 0.6 per cent of world wine production.

Largely, Australia’s newly export orientated wine industry is making opportunities for itself. But as Bruce Kemp points out, some of the biggest risks stem from the rapid growth now underway. We’ve got to keep quality up and prices reasonable both here and overseas. And both quality and price are under pressure as fast growth pushes up grape prices and creates temptations for imprudent wine makers to stretch the blend.

There are just too many competitors from both the old and new world hungry for our markets for us to risk dropping quality. Good quality at the right price is what made our international reputation.

In the early seventies Lindeman head Ray Kidd began cellaring large quantities of premium wines for later release. The cellar became a treasure trove for consumers (through periodic releases of perfectly-cellared classics) and for the wine industry because of the sheer scale and scope of wines held. This massive wine museum continues to provide great insights into the potential of many regions, but especially of the Hunter Valley, Clare-Watervale, Padthaway, and Coonawarra.

The sublime skills of Lindemans wine makers under Ray Kidd, however, were not matched in the marketing department. And the original Classic Release Scheme, hatched in the late seventies, ignored fundamental changes that had taken place in the retail trade.

“Classic Wine Stockists” were appointed to carry the special cellar releases. These were widely sprinkled across Australia, but the majority of liquor retailers missed out. Most probably didn’t care and were incensed not that “Stockists” got a supply of the classics but that they bought Lindemans other premium wines at a substantial discount over the rest of the trade — a discount that, as far as I could gauge at the time, was not being passed on to consumers.

(Such an artificial arrangement could not last in a newly-freed, aggressive market. I well remember a short but pointed phone call from Richard Farmer to Ray Kidd in which the Trade Practices Act was mentioned. Before long the first discounting “Stockist” joined the fray.)

Today’s Classic Release Scheme operates in a far more open market in which most liquor outlets have access to stock, albeit in small quantities, and complete freedom to price it as they will.

Speaking at this year’s release, held on the verandah of Dr Lindeman’s Cawarra homestead at Gresford, wine maker Phillip John recalled the impressive scale of early cellarings. By the mid eighties, the original air-conditioned, humidity-controlled cellar at Nyrang Street Lidcombe in Sydney’s inner western suburbs was full. And there was talk of building another next door to accomodate the constant inflow of wines.

At about this time Phillip Morris New York (owner of Lindemans at the time) questioned the wisdom of so doing. The expansion did not proceed.

Instead wines were classified into “Classics” (the absolute gems) and “fine, aged premiums” prior to a major culling and transferral of the classics to Karadoc, near Mildura. About 200,000 cases made the trip.

John says there was some talk of selling off all the stock after Penfolds bought Lindemans in 1990. But then Penfolds itself was swallowed by South Australian Brewing Holdings (now Southcorp). They’ve decided to keep the cellar and, so, Ray Kidd’s dream is to be fulfilled with annual releases of true classics. Here are my reviews of this year’s releases:

Lindemans Hunter River Sparkling Shiraz 1986 (about $35)

If, unlike me, you enjoy sparkling burgundies, this one is first class. It does offer unusual richness and flavours unique to Hunter shiraz in a great vintage.

Lindemans Hunter River Chardonnay Reserve Bin 5881 (about $31)

A lovely old white, at the venerable old age of 13 showing sweet, honeyed aromas similar to those in old Hunter semillons. The palate has the rich, lush, roundness of chardonnay but with that lovely honey-like sweetness of age.

Lindemans Hunter River Semillon Bin 6855 1986 (About $35)

Simply glorious — a beautiful, delicate, gently ageing white.

Lindemans Padthaway Chardonnay 1986 (about $37)

A very good aged chardonnay in the rich Aussie mould but to my taste not in the league of the 1986 semillon and a style now surpassed by vineyards further south.

Lindemans Coonawarra St George Cabernet 1985 (about $45)

A great red from the vintage when all the development work on St George paid off.

Lindemans Coonawarra Limestone Ridge Vineyard Shiraz Cabernet 1982 (about $45)

The judges love it but some, like me, are put off by the “sweet mulberry” aroma that Phillip John tells me is caused by a compound called dimethyl sulphide. Wine makers now go to great lengths to eliminate it.

Lindemans Reserve Porphry Bin 6436 1983 (about $35)

As good as Australian sweet wine gets.

Lindemans Hunter River Shiraz Bin 5910 1980 (about $42)

Lean, taut, deeply flavoured Hunter Shiraz not yet fully mature.

Lindemans Hunter River Shiraz Bin 7200 1986 (about $37)

One of those rare, truly great reds unique to Lindemans Hunter vineyards with intense, earthy Hunter aromas, rich palate and quite tight structure. Will cellar much longer.

Lindemans Vintage Port Bin 5532 1978 (about $85)

A unique port, far removed from the blood and thunder Aussie style. Elegant but rich, made chiefly from Corowa gran noir grapes with a touch of Adelaide Hills shiraz.

Canberra’s wine industry was born twenty three years ago when two CSIRO scientists, quite independently of each other, established vines in the district. Dr Edgar Riek planted ‘Cullarin’ on the gentle slopes at the base of the escarpment overlooking the Federal Highway just a few hundred metres from Lake George. At the same time, Dr John Kirk established Clonakilla Vineyard at Murrumbateman.

Both seminal vineyards flourished over time. Edgar Riek chose never to establish cellar door sales, instead selling his grapes to other makers in and out of the district, while making and bottling small quantities of superb wines in the vineyard.

John Kirk continues to hand craft terrific estate-grown wines and these are available at the cellar door and at some retail outlets and restaurants.

The area under vine has increased steadily, if slowly, in little pockets scattered mostly outside the ACT boundary ever since Kirk and Riek led the way. There are no broad-acre ventures as we see in areas like Coonawarra, Padthaway, or McLaren Vale, or, closer to home, at Cowra and Young. Rather, viticultural Canberra consists of a series of isolated vineyards with no major aggregations and, therefore, no large-scale production.

As far as I can see, the largest grouping of vineyards is the little Pankhurst-Harris-Lane cluster high up above the Murrumbidgee River at Hall. But I understand there are several mooted 20 hectare-odd plantings in the wind between Yass and Murrumbateman and possibly at Sutton, as well.

If these proceed the district may yet develop the mass to survive long term as a viticultural region.

Under the terms of our recent trade agreement with the EC, Australian wine growing regions need to be formally defined before a district of origin may be included on labels. Appropriate Federal legislation has been passed and the unexpectedly difficult task of defining production regions is under way.

Although the ‘Canberra District Wines’ boundary has yet to be recognised under the new law, local vignerons recently presented a proposal to the Geographic Indications Committee of the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation (AWBC), the body appointed by Parliament to control the process.

Dr David Carpenter of Lark Hill Winery, perched high up on the escarpment between the Federal Highway and Bungendore, tells me the boundary was fixed, in accordance with AWBC guidelines, “with reference to natural features.”

In Canberra, in the absence of a unifying geological structure dictating where vineyards might lie, that means rivers and mountains in proximity to our widely scattered vineyards. David says the proposed boundary is the Great Dividing Range to the East, the Yass River catchment area to the North, the Murrumbidgee River to the West, and to the South “a little river just over the ACT border.”

Take a drive around that quite large area — or simply look at a map, and it seems clear that Canberra’s vignerons’ major link is, as David Carpenter puts it, “some uniformity of climate with variations according to altitude.” He points out that altitude varies from about 550 metres to 860 metres above sea level.

That variation alone ensures a wide variation of wine styles from the district. Throw in the vastly different aspects, soils, and bedrocks of all the hills, gullies, and flats where vineyards lie, and it’s hard to imagine a distinct regional style emerging as it has say in comparatively homogenised Coonawarra or Padthaway.

The AWBC wants to define larger regions as well as specific districts. Just as the French break, say, Bourgogne into the sub regions Cote de Nuits and Cote de Beaune, and within those sub-regions into communes, and finally into individual vineyard names, Canberra appears set to be a sub-region of a larger Southern Tablelands zone embracing also Cowra and Young. (Just as Coonawarra and Padthaway are to be sub-districts of the Limestone Coast region).

For the future, as the district wineries and vineyards mature, it is quite possible that further sub-divisions might occur. Perhaps by 2020 we may have within Canberra District, distinctive wine styles (and names) for Murrumbateman, Hall, Yass, Sutton, Bungendore Escarpment, and Lake George.

For the present we have an industry producing high-quality table wines from professionally managed vineyards and increasingly high-tech wineries that probably sell more outside the district than they do within it. I’ll be telling the modern Canberra winery story over the next few weeks.

October 30th, 1994

Canberra’s wine production from locally-grown grapes (reckoned in conjunction with Ken Helm, a pencil, and the back of an envelope) runs at about 30,000 cases a year. That’s an appreciable increase on the 12,000 cases estimated in this column six years ago. And the volume appears likely to grow by 15 per cent a year for the next three or four years as new vineyard plantings come on stream.

The rate of growth may seem impressive. But the total really is small when we consider that production is spread over 17-odd wineries. Consider, too, that individual vineyards in nearby Young and Cowra produce far more than the combined Canberra District.

The fragmented nature of our local industry, and the minute scale of each individual operation, tells us that the Canberra industry has not, in any broad sense, come of age despite the high quality of wines.

Rather, we have a fragile wine industry, struggling for capital and almost totally reliant on the sheer hard graft of individuals and families devoting their lives and total wealth to a dream.

Unlike Young and Cowra, Canberra has no major players, no broad acres, no critical mass to underpin the industry and give it a power to endure beyond the lives of the individuals now involved.

As Ken Helm says, the life of the Canberra small vigneron has been one of long hours, and sleepness nights wondering how the bills might be paid, sustained by hope and a belief that the area can make top-notch wines. Ken now sees a light at the end of the tunnel as demand strengthens and prices firm.

Were wine simply a commodity, the locals might disappear from the map, unable to compete with better capitalised, more efficient makers elsewhere. But the romanticism of wine, and the desire by some drinkers to know the vineyard, the maker, and distinctive flavours produced by an area, keeps literally hundreds of small Australian wineries afloat— including our local ones .

Canberra’s wineries report increasing visits from Sydneysiders, thanks to improved roads and consequent ease of getting to Canberra, and stimulated by the promotional efforts in Sydney of, in particular, Helms, Lark Hill, and Madews. Melbourners look to Canberra as well, and the most visible brands there appear to be Clonakilla and Doonkuna Estate.

Bit by bit over the last few weekends, I’ve been visiting local wineries, chronicling what’s planted in the ground, stored in the cellars, and on offer to drinkers. I don’t have a complete picture yet, but I estimate about one third of local production sells outside Canberra, the rest — some 20,000 cases a year — selling to locals either direct from the winery or through restaurants and bottle shops.

The wineries are widely scattered, planted on numerous different soil types and, while marketed as ‘cool-climate’, actually vary from the warmish sites 540 metres above sea level at Hall, to the distinctly cool Lark Hill Vineyard 860 metres up on the Lake George Escarpment near Bungendore.

Murrumbateman has the biggest grouping of wineries: Ruker Wines, Murrumbateman Winery, Doonkuna Estate, Helms, Jeir Creek, Clonakilla, Yass Valley Wines and Kyeema Estate. And there is one, Benfield Estate, sitting all on its own at Yass .

At Hall, Park Lane and Brindabella Hills operate cellar door sales full time, while Allan Pankhurst, President of the Canberra District Vignerons Association, provides grapes to various local makers while having his own brand contract made at Lark Hill.

Towards Bungendore, Lark Hill has as its neighbours Afleck and Brooks Creek (formerly known as Shingle House under Dr Max Blake).

Queanbeyan’s one and only vineyard, belonging to the Madew family, recently went under the bulldozer. But the supply of excellent wines seems set to continue as the Madews have bought Geoff Hood’s Westering Vineyard at Lake George where I understand the vineyard is to be expanded and the winery and cellar door facilities upgraded.

Next door to Westering (on the Canberra side) Dr Edgar Riek maintains ‘Cullarin’, one of Canberra’s two original vineyards, selling most of the grapes to others while making some of the most exciting wines in the district. I think Edgar and trade visitors drinks most of what he makes, but wines under his Lake George label sometimes grace retail shelves and restaurant wine lists.

November 6th, 1994

Drive away from Canberra on the Barton Highway and turn left at the ‘wineries 10 kilometers’ sign near Hall. On a mild spring morning — a flush of green in the paddocks, blue Brindabellas serene in the distance beyond the Murrumbidgee Valley — you could almost be tempted to plant a vineyard.

Roger and Faye Harris did in 1986. Not so much for the scenery, but because a granite ridge 100 metres above the Murrumbidgee appeared well suited for wine-grape growing.

As Roger writes, the site enjoys “… brilliant sunshine in abundance, and cool nights in the ripening season which contributes to the development of intense berry flavours … red and yellow duplex soils are of low fertility but very well drained and vines thrive without excessive vigour. Their roots can penetrate the crumbly granite underlying the soil and once established the vines are very drought hardy.”

2.6 hectares of vines now test that last proposition. While those vines took root, the Harrises built and equipped a winery and cellar door building and made the first “Brindabella Hills’ wines. Roger added a Charles Sturt University degree in Wine Science to his Adelaide Chemistry Ph.D., finally quitting his job with the CSIRO to work full time in the new business.

While I’m sure Roger and Faye don’t wish to be type-cast, they share common threads with other Canberra District wine makers in their struggle to establish Brindabella Hills: pouring a life’s wealth into a dream; learning to be agriculturalist, manufacturer and marketer; and the sheer hard yakka of working two full-time jobs in the early years before finally casting adrift into uncharted waters.

Like most Australian wineries, Brindabella Hills concentrates on the classic French wine-grape varieties, semillon, sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and merlot plus the great German grape, riesling.

The latter seems to have done extraordinarily well. A note just received from Roger says the riesling won a silver medal in the tough Adelaide Show and bronze at Stanthorpe.

While it’s too early to draw firm conclusions about which grapes do best in the area, Roger has already concluded from his own measurements that growing conditions are somewhat warmer than first anticipated. That’s one reason he’s considering grafting shiraz, a proven variety in our warmer areas, onto his pinot noir vines. (These make decent wine at Brindabella Hills but lack the fleshy richness the variety produces in cooler climates like the Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula).

He’s encouraged in that thinking by the lovely, sweet, intense cherry-like flavours found in wines made of shiraz grown at a similar altitude and in similar granite soils around Young. (Even closer to Hall, try Jan Murray’s Doonkuna Estate Murrumbateman Shiraz 1991 for those familiar rich, soft flavours).

To make wines as well as he does, Roger needs to be something of a magician. His counterparts in large wineries enjoy all the refrigeration, filters, membrane presses — in fact, every piece of modern equipment they want. Without the same capital resources to equip Brindabella Hills, Roger relies more on a sound understanding of wine chemistry, eternal watchfulness, and just enough of the right equipment.

Regardless of constraints in the winery, Roger’s wines from the very start were, in my view, above average for the district. As wine drinkers, we can confidently order any Brindabella Hills wine knowing we’ll get value for money.

Small makers have higher production costs per case than large producers and there was once a very large gap between small-maker cellar door price and large-maker retail price.

But the gap appears to have narrowed in recent times as bigger makers have jacked up domestic prices. To me that makes the $11.50 to $14 a bottle asked for a Brindabella Hills wine very reasonable indeed.

The best way to buy wines from the Harrises is to motor out to the winery, taste the lot and buy what you like. For me, the Rhine Riesling 1994 ($13 a bottle, $11.50 when bought by the case) is the stand out. After that I move to the lovely 1992 Shiraz ($14.50/$13) made from grapes grown on the Nioka Ridge vineyard, Young, and 1993 Chardonnay ($15.50/$14), a barrel-fermented and matured Young/Canberra blend.

Roger and Faye also believe wine drinking can be fun and offer the tasty Picnic Creek Les Trois Blancs at $6 a bottle, and Bulk Pinot Noir/Cabernet Franc blend at $3.50 a litre.

The good news about Australian pinot noir is the superb quality now available from our best producers; the bad news is that good pinot noir will always be dearer than wines of comparable quality made from other grape varieties.

Australian grape growers and wine makers during the 1980’s learned to mass produce high-quality dry table wines from all the classic varieties except pinot noir.

Lindemans Bin 65 Chardonnay, a million litre blend, conquered world markets before its huge success here at home. Like Woodleys Queen Adelaide, Yalumba Oxford Landing, and many others, its success stems from a grape that gives rich flavours wherever it’s grown… in these cases from high-yielding vineyards along the Murray River. It didn’t happen overnight, mind you. It took a decade to get vineyard management and wine making skills right. But these now form the basis of many of our export successes.

Good, cheap rhine rieslings were with us long before chardonnay arrived on the scene. Widespread plantings of riesling pre-dated those of chardonnay by a century. With the arrival of refrigeration in wineries in the 1950’s, mass production of high-quality, delicate rieslings spread quickly.

Notable pioneers in this field were, incidentally, Sydney Hamilton and Count Von Seeck at the Ewell winery (now disappeared beneath suburban Adelaide) and Colin Gramp of Orlando. Gramp’s first major success with cold-fermented riesling arrived with the Melbourne Olympic games in 1956.

In the early 1950’s Colin brought to Australia from Germany two things that changed the face of the Australian wine industry: temperature controlled, sealed fermenters, and a young wine maker, Gunther Prass.

Using Eden Valley rhine riesling grapes, Gramp and Prass made a delicate, slightly sweet white which they then refermented in a sealed vat. They’d invented Barossa Pearl. It was launched at the Olympics and became one of Australia’s most successful wines, recruiting a new generation away from beer and spirits to table wine.

Now, cheap rhine rieslings, all cold fermented, are the wine drinkers best friend when it comes to flavoursome, everyday quaffing. Try rieslings like Seaview and Leasingham and Hutt Creek, available for $5 to $7, and you’ll see what I mean. Pay a little extra, and you move into spectacular quality with wines like Mitchelton at around $10.

Cabernet sauvignon, like chardonnay, was a relatively late arrival on the mass-production scene. Widespread plantings started in the late sixties, then boomed through the 1970’s and 1980’s. As broad acres came on stream in Coonawarra, Padthaway, the Murray River and with significant areas in McLaren Vale and the Barossa Valley, production and quality lifted while prices fell dramatically in real terms.

Our mass-produced cabernets must surely now be the best in the world. Show me a red as good as Seaview McLaren Vale Cabernet 1992 retailing at around $8-$9. Then there’s Hardys Nottage Hill at $5 to $7 (lighter than the Seaview, but a lovely drink nevertheless) and Seppelt Black Label at $7-$9. These are just a few examples. And though wholesale prices have risen, retailer hoarding has so far protected the consumer from the full effects.

Shiraz has been with us since the 1830’s. Just as rhine riesling provides a huge mass of good cheap white, shiraz is the red-drinkers friend when it comes to value. On its own, or blended in Australia’s unique shiraz-cabernet combination, it provides an ocean of deep, rich, satisfying drinking.

Along with riesling, chardonnay, cabernet, and shiraz, our wine makers have now conquered mass production of semillon, sauvignon blanc, chenin blanc, colombard and a host of other varieties making up commercial blends.

Pinot noir, I suspect, will never join this list. Of all the varieties capable of making profound wines, it simply refuses to be mass-produced. The good ones have three things in common: they come from vineyards with tiny yields; the winemakers literally control every step of production from hand-picking of selected bunches to putting the final product in bottle; and the vineyards are in cool areas.

Small yields push costs up not just through having less grapes for capital invested, but also through the high labour costs of keeping vine vigour and yields under control. To some extent this applies to the very best wines made from any variety.

But pinot noir seems to be the most uncompromising of all. Shiraz, cabernet, riesling, and chardonnay all give good flavour from comparatively high yields. Pinot alone makes miserable, thin wines if the vigneron takes his or her eye off the vineyard for just a few moments. But the good ones from the Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula, and Tasmania and occasionally from other cool growing areas deliver some of the velvety richness we see in good Burgundy.

October 2nd, 1994

Jancis Robinson, in Wines Grapes and Vines (Mitchell Beazley, London, 1986) tells us pinot noir is one of the most mutatable of all grape varieties. Thus, on its home turf in Burgundy, France, exist more than 1,000 different clones of this one variety. What she doesn’t tell us, and all pinot lovers know this already, is that it makes one of the most intoxicating of all red wines. Perfumed, luscious, velvety smooth and seductive in every way, pinot is not a wine to enjoy in moderation.

I rediscovered its glories on a long and warm Sunday afternoon at Chateau Shanahan recently with a run of 1982 Burgundies. Ruchottes Chambertin Clos des Ruchottes and Charmes Chambertin from Domaine Armand Rousseau and Clos Vougeot from Domaine Georges Roumier delivered the sweet, sensuous, decaying wonders only old Burgundies offer. Thankfully they were acquired when the Australian dollar was stronger and Burgundy not in such great demand. Alas, to repeat the exercise in a few years with, say, the 1990s is well beyond my pocket.

That means looking to the better Australian Pinots for similar pleasure in the future. And while we cannot say for sure which ones might age so gracefully, there are some pretty smart wines on the market, all from quite cool growing areas.

If the pinot focus has shifted to cool Southern Australia, it was a road blazed by Murray Tyrrell. He introduced Australian wine connoisseurs and opinion makers to Australian Pinot with Vat 6 back in the 1970’s. His efforts were given a great fillip when the 1976 won its class in the Gault-Milleau wine olympics in Paris in 1979.

While the award focused attention on Tyrrell’s achievement, it hardly sent Australian wine drinkers on a pinot noir shopping spree. The fortunate few who tasted the 1976 could have no argument that Murray Tyrrell’s success with this very difficult variety was a major achievement in Australian wine making. But the fact was that Australian red-wine drinkers preferred fuller-bodied styles. And if they encountered a pinot during the seventies and eighties, it probably tasted more like raspberry cordial than wine.

If the average quality of Australian pinot in the 1970’s and 1980’s was ordinary, it wasn’t for lack of trying, and there were isolated successes. Tyrrell’s success was perhaps all the more notable because he achieved it in the Hunter Valley, by popular wisdom an area too warm for the variety. It was not achieved by luck but by smart vineyard management, and smart winemaking inspired by Murray’s love of the original pinot, French Burgundy.

Nevertheless, Tyrrell’s the only one to make a go of it in the Hunter, the other successful pioneers being further south. Guill de Pury at Yeringberg in the Yarra Valley consistently turned out terrific pinot in minuscule quantities from the late 1970’s. And his neighbours at Mount Mary and Yarra Yerring succeeded, too.

Now, of course, there are any number of quite good pinot noirs coming out of the Yarra Valley, with particularly notable achievements from James Halliday’s Coldstream Hills as well as Yeringberg — the newly released 1992, for instance, offering that wonderful decaying opulence that sets pinot apart from other varieties.

Gary Farr’s Bannockburn pinot, from Geelong, offers a particularly robust expression of the variety, although my taste runs more to the delicacy of the Yeringberg style. Elsewhere on the western side of Port Phillip Bay, Scotchman’s Hill shows flashes of class.

Some studies suggest the Mornington Peninsula, wedged between Port Phillip and Westernport Bays, may be the best site in Australia for pinot. Stonier’s Merricks winery and others encourage that view. In the West, Wignall’s King River Winery (near Albany) shows promise.

And, of course, there’s Tasmania. where a number of sites may produce the goods. I particularly like Freycinet Pinot, and enjoyed last weekend a Julian Alcorso1991 from the Derwent, under Cellarmaster’s Famous Maker Label.

In 1993, Australian winemakers crushed 10,000 tonnes of pinot and by my estimate more than half of that went into sparkling wine. But it’s the one variety where small makers have the edge on the big companies. The Pinot story is still being written in Australia. It’s far less advanced than for other grape varieties. And I believe the only thing we can say with certainty is that the best are yet to come and they will come from relatively cold growing areas.