Ten years ago it was hard to pick the quality difference between many of the $10 bubblies appearing on the market and the mass-selling $5 brands. However, quality arrived in the $10 bottle during the 1990s and consumers are moving away from the mass brands to slightly more expensive, more flavoursome products.

While total sales of domestic sparkling wines are in decline (down 3.7 per cent January-July 1995 versus the same period in 1994) wine makers report healthy growth in the around $10 segment.

That trend reflects the continuing decline in per capita consumption of alcohol across Australia and a move, amongst wine drinkers at least, to better quality. Sales of cask wine are in decline, while bottled reds and whites are enjoying increases of 11.8 per cent and 10.7 per cent (1995 versus 1994) respectively.

In the sparkling wine category, the lift in quality this decade reflects an abundance of suitable grape material coming on stream and follows tremendous leaps in wine-making technology achieved during the 1980s — all of which demonstrates the tremendously long lead times between concept and achievement in the wine industry.

In the case of sparkling wine, serious efforts at improving techniques and sourcing the right grapes began in the late 1970s. Pioneers like Norm Walker at Seaview and Ian Holme (founder of Yellowglen) were employing the classic French Champagne varieties, pinot noir and chardonnay, in sparkling wine by the early 1980s.

But the arrival of large scale production using those grape varieties was a decade away and, as consumers, we can thank those prescient wine makers who planted broad acres in Coonawarra and Padthaway in the 60s, 70s and 80s for much of the improved quality we enjoy today.

At the cutting edge of quality, where invariably wines are modelled on those of the France’s Champagne region, fruit sourcing has moved solidly to growing areas notably cooler than in Coonawarra and Padthaway.

Yarra-Valley based Domain Chandon sources grapes from southern Victoria and Tasmania; Seppelt looks to both southern latitudes and alpine areas of New South Wales and Victoria; Petaluma’s Brian Croser sticks to the Mount Lofty Ranges overlooking Adelaide; Cloudy Bay and Deutz make strikingly contrasting styles from Marlborough at the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island; and Jansz employs only Tasmanian grapes.

What these and other premium makers seek is the richness with delicacy achieved only from grapes ripened slowly in mild conditions, and the overlays of flavour that come from following French techniques: gentle extraction of the best juice from the best grapes; secondary fermentation in the bottle (producing the bubbles) and a comparatively long maturation of the wine in cool cellars with the sediment of fermentation still in the bottle.

There are two major inputs to wine aroma and flavour from this maturation period. Firstly, prolonged maturation at a low temperature in the absence of oxygen produces subtle, pleasing changes; and secondly there is a further overlay caused by contact of the wine with the expired yeast cells as they undergo an enzymatic breakdown (autolysis).

Ask a wine maker from the Champagne region about the input to aroma and flavour of yeast autolysis and you will hear that it’s completely misunderstood and grapes are what the flavour is all about. Most of the so-called ‘yeastiness’ attributed to Champagne has more to do, they say with the grape pinot meunier (the third permissible variety) or bottle aging after removal of the yeast cells. The role of autolysis, they say is subtle and part of a larger comlex.

According to Ian McKenzie, Chairman of Judges at the Canberra Wine Show and overseer of the phenomenal changes at Seppelts Great Western Cellars for two decades, our understanding of French technique and its adaptation to Australia was largely complete by the middle of the 1980s. The biggest contributor to sparkling wine quality since then has been growing availability of good grapes — and the improvement is far from over yet, he says.

Development of those top shelf bubblies has a trickle-down effect. What’s learned in developing the best wines, improves the quality of everything underneath it. And, in the case of Seppelt, a flood of new grapes has even meant that what’s now going into mid-priced wines was Salinger material five years ago.

But, of course, sparkling wine does not begin and end with Champagne look alikes. The world makes numerous tasty bubblies from grapes other than the French classics. And the long and costly traditional bottle fermentation process is not necessarily the best way to make sparkling wine in all circumstances. More on this next week.

October 29th, 1995

Perhaps we were glimpsing the future direction of Australian top-shelf sparkling wine when Dominique Portet’s Clover Hill 1992 won the Trophy for best sparkling wine at the Adelaide wine show last week.

Clover Hill (the name of both the wine and Taltarni’s 20 hectare Tasmanian Vineyard from which it comes) has that rare combination of delicacy and deep, sweet fruit flavour — that elusive, special flavour sought by our sparkling wine producers and which stems from the vineyard, not wine making techniques.

If the search for the very best takes our wine makers to cool growing areas to the south or in the alps, the fact remains that most of Australia’s grapes come from comparatively warm areas. And these areas are the source of most of our sparkling wines.

Table wines from these areas reflect our warm climate: grapes ripen to high sugar levels and these in turn make very rich, comparatively high-alcohol wines (fermentation converts grape sugars to alcohol). It was the rich, tasty, heady nature of our wines that led British commentators to dub them “bottled sunshine”.

If nature allows us to make such well-loved rich wines so readily, why then are sparkling wines sourced from the same areas so much lighter and more acidic? The answer is that our wine makers are so mesmerised by the French model that they may be overlooking a great opportunity to make sparkling wines that truly reflect our beautifully sunny climate.

There are parallels here with wine maker attempts to emulate the ‘elegant’ wines of France in the 1970s and 80s. At the time Max Schubert, maker of Grange, quipped that if they wanted elegance, they should grow grapes in cooler areas. Instead, some makers produced reds using early-picked grapes from warmer areas. The experiment failed. Instead of elegance, they produced thin, tart wines that were rejected by consumers.

I see an element of this in many current-release sparkling wines: they’re fresh, lively, and have an overlay of the autolysis character described in last week’s column. But where’s the grape flavour? Too often it’s missing. What you get, once your palate is past the froth and bubbles, is the taste of green, unripe fruit, with its coarse edge. Free of faults and flavour.

But sparkling wine doesn’t have to be a feeble French look alike. There is life beyond French method and the traditional French grape varieties.

It was a bulk-fermented Eden Valley Rhine Riesling, labelled as Barossa Pearl and released in 1956 , that gave post-war Australia its first popular taste of the grape; more recently, Brian Croser used Clare Valley Rhine Riesling in the now defunct Farmer Bros Cuvee Clare. Canberrans loved the stuff because it not only bubbled, but tasted of grapes.

And there is the example of wine maker Mike de Garis of Cellarmaster Wines. Rather than follow his colleagues down the thin and tart path, he took ripe Riverland Chardonnay, bulk fermented it and released it as Pelican Point Chardonnay Cuvee. Delicious fruity stuff, it was — a sparkling table wine.

McWilliams have done something similar with its new Kanandah brand — a blend of Riverina Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, bulk fermented, then bottled fresh and fruity.

Sparkling burgundy is perhaps the greatest example of letting rip with our wonderful fruit flavours. Numerous wine makers now take ripe Aussie shiraz, make a rich, full-bodied table wine from it, mature it in barrels for a year, then bottle it for a secondary fermentation. Why can’t we do the same with other red and white grape varieties.

This could open up tremendous marketing opportunities for the makers as well as giving our tired palates new thrills. The original sparkling wine, Champagne, is not just a general wine style, but very much a strong expression of distinct regional aromas and flavours.

Our own wine makers rely increasingly on table-wine district of origin in appealing to the consumer. Sparkling wine could be part of this regional appeal, just as the better sparkling burgundies are already doing. The key, though, is in letting the grapes ripen, instead of picking them green and trying to make them into something the can never be.

The original and distinct flavours of German Riesling Sekt, France’s Sparkling Vouvray or Italy’s Asti Spumante are three contrasting examples of non-Champagne sparkling wines — a hint of what we might achieve.

With the international successful of our table wines, it seems timely to break away from our narrow, French orientated focus when it comes to sparkling wines. Let’s embrace the diversity of our wine making regions and multitude of grape varieties spread across our sunny land and start making bubblies that say “Australia”.

Australian wine makers continue pushing into every likely corner of the continent in search of the perfect wine grape. Vineyards flourish across southern Victoria, south to the bottom of the Mornington and Bellarine Peninsulas, westo Drumborg, and even to Portland. Real money is pouring into Tasmania, too, setting the apple isle up as a great future source of cutting-edge wines.

In the West perhaps the most promising new grape growing area is at Pemberton, south east of Margaret River. Influenced by Dr John Gladstones, John Horgan, brother of Leeuwin Estate’s Denis Horgan, established Salitage Winery and a 52-hectare vineyard. He and others now demonstrate with extraordinary wines that selection of vineyard sites using climatic and geological data can be fruitful.

In South Australia, the push for the sunny but cool ripening conditions that produces the best wine grapes has been both upwards and southwards. Those opting for altitude straddle the Mount Lofty Ranges from the foothills behind McLaren Vale in the south, spreading north through Piccadilly, Lenswood, Eden Valley and Clare Valley.

South Australian vignerons seeking a lower latitude, had no choice but to head towards the Limestone Coast, south of the Murray River. Coonawarra was the first and most prominent development, joined later by Padthaway, and in recent years by many quite large developments in the general region of these two major plantings.

Some of these, at Mount Benson, Robe, and Cape Jaffa, add a maritime influence to the growing environment and, over time, we will see how wines from these areas differ from those further inland around Coonawarra and Padthaway.

Within Coonawarra, it was accepted wisdom a few decades back that grapes would not ripen south of V and A Lane — a point well north of many subsequent and successful vineyard developments.

Still, the town of Penola marked the southern end of Coonawarra until Peter Rymill Riddoch, a descendent of pioneer John Riddoch, planted a vineyard on an outcrop of terra rossa soil several kilometres south of Penola this year — a sign of great confidence from an experienced grape grower. Rymill believes grapes ought to ripen this far south.

Sixty kilometres further south, well beyond Coonawarra’s boundaries, Martin and Merrilee Winter made a bold but considered move in 1988, planting 6 hectares of grapes just south of Mount Gambier.

They not only ventured further south than anyone in memory but planted on volcanic soil instead of the terra rossa sought by other growers.

They wanted a growing climate slightly cooler than Coonawarra’s, believing that the slower, cooler ripening would produce an extra intensity of grape flavour. They were also aware of some risk that an early autumn might shut down the vines before the grapes ripened.

Martin, a geologist by training, with Coonawarra viticulturist Ian Hollick as mentor, selected a site that ought to minimise frost exposure and maximise ripening potential.

He believes ‘terra rossa’ soil is not the real issue in selecting vineyard sites in the area. He says climatic issues are the most important and that good drainage and soils producing little vine vigour are important. Martin and Merrilee’s vines sit on a shallow layer of volcanic loam (10-12 centimetres) over 1.5 – 2 metres of calcareous sand, over limestone

Under these comparatively austere conditions vines are healthy but not well enough nourished to produce large amounts of foliage. Instead, they concentrate on producing berries. Here the Winter’s have a parallel with the better vineyards in Coonawarra: invariably the best fruit there comes from non-vigorous vines on shallow soil on well-drained sites. These vines, too, focus on ripening grapes rather than creating foliage.

Merrilee studied viticulture and now manages the vineyard, planted about 70 per cent to Cabernet Sauvignon, the balance being mainly chardonnay, with a little pinot noir and cabernet franc.

Yields have been very low but of high enough quality for pinot noir and chardonnay to find their way into premium sparkling blends at Seppelts Great Western Winery to the east, over the border in Victoria.

The Winter’s send cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay to Brands Winery, Coonawarra, for vinification under Bruce Gregory and Jim Brand. Early vintages suggest a good future for the vineyard, although we’ll have to form a judgement over the next decade or so as the vines mature.

From what I’ve seen the Winter’s cabernet has the area’s very deep colour and sweet berry aroma but lacks the fleshy depth of Coonawarra. But that probably has more to do with the age of the vines. The one and only Winters Chardonnay I’ve tasted (1994) shows an unusual concentration of flavour and a high, gripping natural acidity that suggests an outstanding future for that variety at Mount Gambier. Both wines are worth trying now and it will be interesting to see how things develop over the next few years.

Winedrinkers associate premium wines with particular grape varieties from particular areas. Thus, in Australia, some of the natural doubles are cabernet and Coonawarra, semillon and the Hunter Valley, riesling and the Clare Valley, and shiraz and the Barossa Valley.

Our biggest source of grapes, long stretches of the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers, churn out thousands of tonnes of fat, juicy, sweet, grapes. These make everything from bubbly to fortified wine. But the district of origin seldom appears on labels for the simple reason that most of the tonnage, while capable of making sound wines, bears no distinguishing aromas or flavours.

Yet the ‘Riverland’ as this vast grape resource is called, is far from homogenous. A couple of degrees variation in latitude, as the system snakes its way westwards, creates many climatic – and, thus, quality differences. Seppelts, for example, grows broad acres of chardonnay at several points along the Murray. Far from being flung into one vat and branded ‘riverland’ the various batches head in different directions.

In an interview a few years back, Ian McKenzie, Seppelt’s Chief Winemaker, emphasized the two degree latitude difference between the company’s Qualco (South Australia) and Barooga (NSW) vineards, both on the Murray. As a result, grapes ripen several weeks later at cooler Barooga. And the fruit makes far superior wine.

Barooga, while not a exactly a household name like Coonawarra, Padthaway, or the Barossa Valley, is one of the few exceptions to anonymity along our major waterway.

Perhaps the most reviled of all stretches of the riverland’s grape growing districts was the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, with its centre at Griffith, N.S.W. Here is planted huge amounts of semillon and shiraz, both workhorses of the Australian wine industry.

A decade ago, wine quality from the area was seen as a joke within the industry. And having seen many extremely poor examples of bulk wine from there in the late seventies, I admit to a strong prejudice against MIA wines that lasted in my own mind until only recently.

Better vineyard management and the arrival of state-of-the-art winemaking equipment now means that much of the area’s output of bulk wine is as good as you’ll find anywhere. Taste, for example, McWilliams revamped Hanwood table wine range for a very pleasant surprise.

If the area does prove simply too hot, as seems likely, to make premium dry table wine, first de Bortolis and now others have exploited the hot, humid ripening conditions in developing fabulous sweet wines now winning the palates of consumers and show judges alike in recent years.

While not the first to make a ‘sauternes’ style in the district, De Bortoli elevated it to a higher level than anyone else before them, and paved the way for a little niche, both at home and abroad, for Griffith late-picked semillon.

De Bortolis achieved the impossible in having their botrytis semillon acknowledged so widely. The market for dessert table wines in Australia is small and very crowded as every winemaker nurtures a yearning to make the definitive Aussie sweet white. Indeed, there are so many late picked semillons and rieslings around, that few make any impression at all in the mind of the consumer.

The de Bortoli product, though, could not be ignored. Pick up a bottle, look at the back label, and you’ll see why: the list of trophies and gold medals seems longer than the original ACT ballot paper (more interesting, too).

De Bortoli’s success prompted a number of other Griffiths companies to blow the dust off slumbering brands or develop new ones, many of which already boast outstanding show successes. Stephen Chatterton’s Wilton Estate and the Miranda family are just two Griffith wine makers now winning impressive tallies of show medals for their sweeties.

What they have all done is to take one of the area’s most prolifically grown grape varieties, semillon, and exploited the warm, humid growing conditons to fashion a wine that towers above dry table wines made from the same variety. Before De Bortolis seized the opportunity, Griffith semillon was useful but undistinguished.

In Griffiths’ warm autumn semillon ripens to very high natural sugar levels. High humidity, thanks to some extent to all those irrigation channels, encourages the development on grape skins of ‘botrytis cinerea’, a parasitic fungus or mould. The mould (known also as ‘noble rot’, ‘edelfaule’ and ‘pourriture noble’) whithers the grape without breaking the skin, thus concentrating the juice (and adding its own lovely fGrGavour).

As Australia defines it wines regions in law, the Geographic Indications Committee, according to its permanent member, Ian Mackley, intends to use the law to enforce label integrity.

Enforcement, he says, will attempt to stamp out the rare, but when it does occur, misleading use of a winery address to suggest a prestigious district of origin.

Fortunately, fraudulent and misleading labelling appear to have been uncommon in Australia. Stupidity, bad judgement, poor label design and inadequate marketing have been far more prevalent, especially during the late seventies and eighties as wine consumption really exploded.

There were fewer established brands then than now, and often, rather than risk the launching of a new name, marketers expanded production, at the expense of quality, of known products.

In hindsight, there are many examples of good brands snuffed out, or temporarily corrupted. Remember Seppelts Moyston Claret. Originally it was a powerful, long-lived red from the Great Western district, Victoria. But it was ruined as a name as it stumbled from one identity to another.

Seaview was another brand to suffer as volumes grew, and grape origin shifted out of McLaren Vale in the late seventies and early eighties. However, it has been totally revived, first of all in quality under the ownership of Penfolds (now Southcorp) then in regional identity. Recent vintages are all sourced from McLaren Vale and the brand is back where it belongs. That integration of brand with region gives consumers a reason to buy and the maker the opportunity to earn a better return.

Leo Buring was another brand to lose direction. Numerous new Buring labels joined the discount fray in the eighties so that eventually nobody new what Burings stood for. The idea of a brand, after all, is to reassure the consumer — to signal a consistent quality message and identity.

Burings, too, recovered, again under Southcorp ownership. The brand now stands for a small range of high quality Barossa and Eden Valley reds and whites.

Overall, wine branding now seems clearer than what it was ten years ago. Labels generally carry more useful information than they used to. But some confusion still exists.

In some ways this article is an open letter, on behalf of wine drinkers, to Jean Louis Lepeltier, energetic new head of Orlando Wyndham wine group. Some aspects of the group’s revitalised Richmond Grove brand confuse me. And if they confuse somebody in daily contact with the industry, how confusing must they be to the casual wine drinker?

Firstly, this is not a complaint about the quality of Richmond Grove wines. The wines offer good value and several notable highlights. My only complaint is about identity.

Originally Richmond Grove was associated with the Hunter and several of its labels still have that association. Then, Orlando Wyndham’s remarkable Cowra Vineyard was named Richmond Grove and a Richmond Grove Cowra label hit the market.

Later still, Orlando Wyndham acquired Leo Burings old Chateau Leonay winery on the outskirts of Tanunda in the Barossa Valley. And as the vendor, Southcorp wines, kept both the Buring and Chateau Leonay names, Orlando renamed the winery Richmond Grove. So now we have Hunter Richmond Grove, Cowra Richmond Grove, and Barossa Valley Richmond Grove.

And there’s more confusion. The brands new livery includes on the neck label a picture of the old Chateau Leonay with the words “Barossa Valley Winery”.

So, I can now walk into a retail store and buy quite a range of Richmond Grove wines with this “Barossa Valley Winery” label: there’s a Coonawarra Cabernet, a Watervale (southern Clare Valley) Rhine Riesling, a Barossa Valley Rhine Riesling, and now a multi-region Pinot Chardonnay NV Brut. The Cowra wines, though, have their own label.

It should be said again that the wines are good. And the rieslings, made by John Vickery in the Barossa winery, offer exceptional quality and value.

And there is no question as to Orlando Wyndham’s honesty. If the label is confusing, there has certainly never been any hesitation when it comes to providing region-of-origin details for any of the wines, on request.

They own great vineyards and employ some of the most distinguished wine makers in the country — John Vickery and Phil Laffer, for example.

I suppose my point to Mr Lepeltier is that not everybody has time to go looking for details of origin. And some of us seeing “Barossa Valley Winery” on a front label might assume that to be the origin of the wine in the bottle.

A terrific new wine brand, Deakin Estate, is about to hit retail shelves across Australia after twenty-two years in the making. The story began in 1973 when the Yunghanns family (owners of Katnook Estate, Coonawarra) established vineyards on the Murray River 35 kilometres from Mildura, Victoria.

At the time, consumption of table wine was growing but not yet at the phenomenal rates that would be recorded later in the decade and into the early 1980s. The Younghanns were therefore anticipating a trend rather than following one. As well, the industry was far more fragmented then than now and the family was content to grow and sell grapes.

The early plantings were a mixed lot but the Yunghanns had the prescience to establish chardonnay on a scale not before seen in Australia. In 1980 the family built its Riverland winery just as the industry began screaming for chardonnay. With the largest single chardonnay holding in the country, the family had a ready market both for grapes and bulk wine processed in the new winery.

In 1989 the Riverland winery launched its own Sunnycliff brand onto the market. Wines under the label were consistently good, but only patchily distributed and marketed. Now the brand has been scrapped to make way for the new Deakin Estate range which joins Katnook Estate and Riddoch under the new Wingara Wine Group banner.

The wines reflect twenty two years’ evolution in the vineyard; introduction into the winery of the very best equipment; and appointment of accomplished wine maker Mark Zeppel, a dux of Roseworthy College and former wine maker to Penfolds and Warrenmang.

The new Deakin Estate wines are the product of winery and adjacent vineyard working together with the end product in mind.

In the vineyard, dual-purpose varieties have given way to premium table-wine varieties. And the viticulturists have learned a lot in two decades. Yesterday’s overhead sprinkler systems are being replaced by drip irrigation.

This dramatically reduces water use and allows greater control over vine health and, finally, successful ripening of grapes to desired sugar levels. As Wingara Wine Group Chief Executive, David Yunghanns, told me, “We get only eight inches of rain a year. Ideally we’d have none, then we’d have complete control of the vines.”

The ideal, he says, is to work towards even ripening of bunches. One past viticultural practice, minimal pruning (essentially trimming combined vine canopy like a bush rather than pruning individual vines) led to uneven ripening with both green and ripe berries in the one bunch.

Retrellising and opening up the canopies seems to be achieving substantial lifts in grape quality. The viticulturists are also playing close attention to sections of the vineyard that have traditionally yielded the best fruit.

They believe they can lift quality across the vineyard through an understanding of conditions that produced the best fruit in the past.

And because the winery sits amongst the vineyards, grapes can be moved into the winery within half and hour of harvesting — a tremendous boon to quality as it reduces the risk of oxidation or other spoilage.

In the winery, Mark Zeppel moved away from the old practice of mass fermentations and bulk blending. Fermenting and then storing smaller parcels according to quality gives him the best blending options for the Deakin Estate range.

The wines are highly polished expressions of the region’s ripe, fruity early-drinking styles. They don’t pretend to be anything other than that — tasty, fresh wines at a very affordable $7 to $8.50 a bottle.

The range, a Chardonnay 1995, Colombard 1995, Sauvignon Blanc 1995 and Cabernet Sauvignon 1994 is to be released nationally on September 1. The chardonnay offers full, ripe flavours; the colombard is lighter, crisper and drier; the sauvignon blanc is full and gentle but without the strong varietal flavour we see in cooler areas; and the cabernet is packed with sweet, ripe-berry flavours.

The range squarely challenges the big wineries. And that’ s a great thing for wine drinkers faced with increasing wine prices. Until recently, only the major wineries had a big showing in the affordable $7 -$9 price segment. The arrival on the scene of DeBortolis, Miranda, the Alambie Wine Company and now the Wingara Wine Group’s Deakin Estate with nationally distributed brands gives poor wine drinkers greater choice and some bargaining power.

That deadly stretch of the Federal highway, starting at Brooks creek, has two bright points. One is the spectacular view of Lake George as you drop off the escarpment through Geary’s Gap. The other is the little cluster of vineyards on the left just as the road heads away from the lake.

Driving that way last Monday afternoon at about 3.30 the lakeside road was already in the shadow of the escarpment. Then the hills dropped back from the roadside and there were Dr Edgar Riek’s and David Madew’s vineyards, on gentler slopes between the road and escarpment, enjoying a dose of rare winter sunshine.

Edgar Riek was out pruning. Good reason, I thought, to break the journey and pay my respects to one of Canberra’s wine pioneers and hopefully taste the 1995 wines.

Edgar, a CSIRO scientist, planted Lake George in 1971 the same year that Dr John Kirk, a colleague at the CSIRO, established vines at Murrumbateman. Both men have made major contributions to the Canberra wine scene and to the broader Australian wine industry.

Edgar Riek’s passion for wine started long before table wine was widely consumed in Australia. He was a founding member of the Canberra Wine and Food Society, still operating out of the Forrest clubhouse that Edgar and other enthusiasts built several decades ago.

Riek, an etymologist, was bitten deeply enough by the wine bug to purchase the sun-drenched Lake George site and try his hand as vigneron. As there was little information at the time as to which table wine varieties might grow best, Edgar planted forty grape types including several native American and Chinese varieties.

3.25 hectares of vines now share the 7.25 hectare site with a Bay tree, commercial prickly pear, sundry nut and fruit trees, and the odd peacock — a bird that goes down particularly well with Edgar’s pinot noir, especially when it is cooked by Josephine Farmer.

As the vineyard took root in the 1970s, Edgar became a driving force behind the Canberra Wine Show, building it from nothing to being what many in the industry regard as the most important wine show in Australia. Thanks to Edgar’s efforts, the wine industry views Canberra with a rare fondness.

Edgar acknowledges very strong support in the formative years from Murray Tyrrell (who these days buys part of Edgar’s crop) and Ray Kidd. Kidd was head of Lindemans at the time and supported Edgar’s introduction of museum classes into the show by trotting out a wide range of old wines from the Lindeman/Leo Buring cellars.

As Edgar’s vision of Canberra as the peak Australian wine show developed, he was further helped in his thinking by David Farmer during regular Friday afternoon think tanks, and received strong support from Len Evans, enthusiastic chairman of judges at Canberra.

Under Riek, Canberra introduced foreign judges, a qualification that wines have a medal from another show to qualify, and an auditing system to ensure that what the judges saw was also what the consumer was offered. This was a radical step at the time as it formally recognised the commercial importance of wine show awards.

This Canberra initiative provided consumer protection and went beyond the old notion of seeing wine judging merely as a means to ‘improve the breed’ within the context of an agricultural exhibition. Improving the breed still is an important element of wine shows. But Edgar and his colleagues, including current Chairman of the Show Committee, Bill Moore, understood the consumer connection and acted on it.

Edgar stepped down from the wine show committed several years back and now, at age 75, tends his vines and makes small batches of very good, highly distinctive wine in a couple of sheds in the vineyard.

The vineyards are impeccably groomed, all neatly hand pruned by Edgar (300 hours work between May and August), weed free, and with neatly mowed green stubble between the rows.

Over the years, Edgar has made virtually every wine style possible out of pure curiosity and to see what the vineyard does best. Unlike most wine makers, he has the capacity to stand back and see shortcoming in his own wines and the vision to make further improvements.

He makes each year about two buckets full of a delightful pinot grigio (also known as pinot gris); a wonderful and powerful ‘sauternes’ style semillon that needs 10 years cellaring; various cabernet blends; a richly-perfumed, silky, lush merlot; and increasingly Burgundy-like chardonnay and pinot noir.

These last two are what Edgar now sees as both a challenge and a strength of his vineyard, It has taken more than twenty years, but the chardonnays and pinot noirs of recent years have gone leaping and bounding ahead. They are wonderful, idiosyncratic wines and a joy to drink. Edgar’s wines are hard to find, but both Georges and Lloyds carry some stock.

The market may not yet flooded with wines named after individual vineyards, but the trend is there. An increasing number of our top reds and whites now acknowledge the fact that where the grapes grow is what gives the wine its character. And even when it’s not acknowledged, a particular vineyard is often at the heart of consistently outstanding wine.

Penfold’s Kalimna vineyard in the northern Barossa Valley, for example, provides the ‘mother’ wine for Grange but the source is not trumpeted on the label. It is, after all, just one of several components. But Grange wouldn’t be Grange without Kalimna shiraz at the heart of the blend.

Some of Penfolds Barossa neighbours, though, find the use of individual vineyard names a great plus in marketing their best wines. Australians relate easily to the simple honesty of a place name. And foreign wine drinkers grasp the idea of geography as a guide to wine quality through long exposure to the French appellation system.

A few years back Bob McLean of St Hallett began making a wine using shiraz from his ‘Old Block’ vineyard. Why throw the best into the blending vat, he thought, when there are drinkers ready to pay a premium for better quality. The result is an annual few thimbles full of a distinctive Barossa red that sells out instantly here and in the very fussy U.K. market.

McLean’s marketing success springs not from glossy ads or hype but from one simple fact: ‘Old Block’ vineyard consistently produced outstanding grapes long before its name appeared on the bottle. Performance led to recognition.

On the other side of Tanunda from St Hallett, brother and sister wine-making team, Rolf and Christa Binder make a small, exciting range of wines from vineyards in the Western Barossa. The reds, in particular, bear a rich Barossa thumbprint and sell quickly to appreciative wine drinkers in Australia and the U.K. They particularly love the Binder’s ‘Hanisch Vineyard’ shiraz.

Which is not surprising. It not only tastes good, but lack of widespread recognition keeps the price well below the going price for wines of similar quality. Given the tiny fixed output and individual character of ‘Hanisch’, there seems only one future direction for the price.

Down in Coonawarra, a quick visit to Nibs cook-it-yourself restaurant led to the Lynn family’s Majella vineyard. By chance, as we drooled over Majella 1991, old Mrs Lynn introduced herself and spun the family story — and there was a Canberra connection.

During the 1940s she’d worked in the Supply Minister’s office, under the Curtin and Chifley Governments, “as minutes secretary to the Minister’s Secretary”. She later married George Lynn, a farmer, and settled in Coonawarra, raising fat lambs and children.

In 1968, the fat lambs were turfed off the ‘Majella’ block to make way for the childrens’ ambitions. That was the year Brian Lynn, encouraged by Bill Redman, persuaded his father to plant vines.

Over time, wine-grape sales became increasingly important. And the inclusion of grapes from the block in some of Coonawarra’s most expensive wines, encouraged Mrs Lynn and her son Brian Lynn, from 1991, to turn their best shiraz into wine they could sell themselves. Hence, the birth of Majella, one of the best (and scarcest) Coonawarra Shirazes you’ll ever taste.

If you want some, you’ll have to ring Brian in Coonawarra. He has a special feeling for Canberrans, and even flies a Raiders flag in his living room.

At Padthaway, an hour’s drive north of Coonawarra, Orlando bought ‘Lawson’s Vineyard’ in 1980. Orlando’s wine makers were staggered by the quality of shiraz coming off the vineyard, especially as the area’s reputation, at the time, had been built on its whites. Again, the sheer quality of the vineyard’s grapes gave birth to Lawsons Padthaway Shiraz. The just-released 1991 has already won a trophy and four gold medals.

Lawsons sells for around $30 a bottle — the going price for top-shelf reds. Which makes Stonyfell ‘Metala’, another great single-vineyard a great bargain at $11-$15 a bottle.

‘Metala’ vineyard, at Langhorne Creek (near Lake Alexandrina), was planted in 1891 and many of these original vines survive today. The reputation of the vineyard grew largely through the wonderful reds made by Jack Kilgour during the thirties, forties and fifties. The wine acquired the vineyard name in the 1960s under wine maker Brian Dolan, whose son Nigel makes the spectacular modern version under the ownership of Rothbury Estate.

The Australian wine industry dispenses endless diplomas, trophies, medals and awards (gongs, for short) to its wines. Adding a little twist, in 1990 McWilliams came up with the idea of awarding one, annually, to a person or group for making an historically significant contribution to the Australian Wine Industry.

The Award, named after the extraordinary Maurice O’Shea, founder of Mount Pleasant Winery and wine maker there from 1921 until his death in 1956, has been won in the past by the late Max Schubert (Grange and red-wine making techniques); Len Evans (everything); Ron Potter (wine-industry engineering innovations); the late David Wynn (Coonawarra, Adelaide Hills, flagons, the wine cask); and Jacobs Creek (Australia’s first large-scale global wine brand).

Last Friday, in front of 450 guests at Sydney’s Regent Hotel, James Halliday, (former lawyer, founder of Brokenwood and Coldstream Hills Wineries, wine maker, international wine-show judge, columnist and prolific author) accepted the 1995 Maurice O’Shea Award from Don McWilliam, Chairman of McWilliams Wines.

Halliday’s contribution speaks for itself, and the standing ovation he received with the award dismisses the need for further comment. What intrigues me, though, is how awarding the award highlights enormous changes at McWilliams over the last few years.

Only a few years back, the public face of McWilliams was an anachronism. In an era of burgeoning table-wine consumption, McWilliams continued to underpin its profitability selling ‘sherry’ and ‘port’ in a rapidly declining fortified-wine market. As late as 1990, McWilliams projected the values of the 1950s and 1960s. As James Halliday put it, everyone wondered when McWilliams chubby little Friar Tuck might kick off his sandals and strap on the Reeboks.

For what the trade knew, but consumers at large did not, was the great depth of winemaking talent within McWilliams, not to mention the tremendous wealth of top-quality table-wine grapes at its disposal.

By 1990, the inaugural year of the Maurice O’Shea Award, McWilliams vigorous table wine making culture within, aided by a thirsty market, appeared on the brink of sweeping aside the old order.

Five years on, under Chief Executive, Kevin McKlintock, the old fortified customers are being serviced quietly in the background, but the public push is where the market is: with table wines.

The wine makers walk around as if they can hardly believe their own good luck. Like anyone, they enjoy recognition.

Wine makers Jim Brayne and Phil Ryan presided over a tasting on the morning after the O’Shea Award, presenting a phenomenally good, diverse range of wines from the company’s vineyard holdings in the Yarra Valley, Young, the Hunter Valley, the Riverina, and Coonawarra.

Such geographical diversity ensures a wide spectrum of wine flavours, especially as the wine makers seem determined not to impose a house style across all districts. Tasting the wines confirmed Jim Brayne’ s view that not only is quality improving thanks to improved vineyard-management and wine-making practice, but that flavours inherent in grapes from different areas lead the makers to appropriate wine-making methods. This, in turn, tends to heighten regional characteristics in the wines.

Lillydale Vineyards wines (Yarra Valley), for example, deliver flavours akin to summer berries grown in cooler areas — strong but exquisite and delicate at the same time. Watch for the 1995 Sauvignon Blanc, a wine of dazzling freshness and wonderful fleshy vibrance.

The warm but overcast lower Hunter makes wines like nowhere else on earth. Semillon-based whites from the area need no introduction, but watch in future years for McWilliams Lovedale Semillon 1995, sourced from a vineyard, near Cessnock airport, planted by Maurice O’Shea in 1946. Low in alcohol, concentrated but steely-austere at the same time, it is wonderful. So is the Maurice O’Shea Shiraz 1994, a few years from release yet. And I also recommend Mount Pleasant Rose Hill Shiraz 1991 as a fine example of a great regional specialty.

Hilltops Cabernet Sauvignon 1993 and Shiraz 1993 from the Barwang vineyard at Young show a rich and fleshy charm not unlike the area’s cherries.

But when it comes to red wine, McWilliams biggest winners in the future are bound to come from Coonawarra. Given McWilliams recent move to full ownership of the Brand family vineyards and winery, and substantial vineyard expansion, we can expect easier access to these most attractive, reasonably-priced wines, The current-release 1993 Brands Coonawarra reds share a lush, irresistible richness that seems to be a hallmark of the vintage.

This sprint through only a few highlights of the tasting doesn’t’ do justice to McWilliams. But as a consumer as well as a commentator, it is all good news seeing one of the few remaining independent wine makers making such exemplary wines. Let’s hope they, too, don’t get gobbled up by the giants.

A little over a year ago I reported on an American tasting that rated an Australian shiraz as the best cabernet in the world and promised a re-enactment of the tasting here in Canberra in conjunction with Alby Sedaitis of Barocca Cafe and Cafe Chaos fame.

On a smaller and more intimate scale we re-assessed some of the top 1982 wines tasted by the Americans and drew somewhat different conclusions.

Results of the original tasting, conducted by international wine society, Les Amis du Vin dispelled, in my mind, any lingering belief in the sanctity of wine-show results or the infallibility of wine-guru palates.

They provided palpable evidence of the subjective, unreliable, and often meaningless nature of wine judging. As well, the automatic supremacy of cabernet amongst red grape varieties came under challenge.

The masked tasting, conducted by the Chicago chapter of Les Amis in February 1994, lined up many of the finest French and American cabernet sauvignons from the 1982 vintage.

After the wrappers came off fifty judges wondered how a ring-in won the day. As Chapter Director Paul H. Ernst reported, a shiraz was “the hands-down, consensus favorite of the entire tasting.”

How could grubby-old, workhorse shiraz lick the glitziest names in the glitziest of all red grape varieties, cabernet sauvignon? What was it doing there in the first place?

Ernst wrote, “… this year’s ringer was the 1982 Penfold’s Grange Hermitage… no one overtly identified the wine, the combination of cassis-like fruit and green olive character contributed by the oak, sufficed to stump the majority of attendees. Its relative maturity and round, elegant fruit were certainly some of the elements that resulted in it being… the favorite.”

Why the ringer was included, I don’t know. But anyone who attends masked tastings appreciates just how difficult it is to spot the unexpected. When we’re told there are twenty-four cabernets to assess, we assume that’s what’s in front of us. Trickery’s the last thing we expect. So, it’s not surprising that no one identified one big, rich shiraz amongst twenty-three big, rich cabernets.

Still, assessing the 1982 reds, not spotting the odd one out, was the theme of the tasting. And because the press release focused on scores, presumably the organisers believed the results had some significance beyond being simply a tally of preferences on the day. Were they telling us it was a valid and definitive ranking of the wines tasted when they couldn’t tell cabernet from shiraz?

For the Canberra tasting, we reduced the field from 24 wines to just 6, all with impeccable reputations. And instead of fifty judges, there were 6 who first tasted and discussed the wines seriously, then over a long Sunday lunch cooked by Alby, laughed and talked the bottles through one by one.

Perhaps the most striking feature when you taste wines of this quality, is the strong individuality of each wine. This was the case even with three of the Bordeaux wines, Chateaux Mouton Rothschild, Margaux and Latour, produced in close proximity to each other.

The second striking feature was the extraordinary difference between the French wines and the Australian ones — and not just because Grange 1982 is a shiraz. It and Penfolds Bin 820 Coonawarra Cabernet Barossa Shiraz 1982 stood apart from the comparatively austere French wines for their sheer opulence and rich fruitiness.

Of the French, in brief, Chateau Mouton is the model cabernet: powerful and austere at the same time; Margaux is the model of elegance, finesse and complexity, an intriguing mix of perfume, power, and delicacy; Latour is model Claret, offering infinite complexity of aroma and flavour, with sweet fruit lurking beneath huge tannins that need years more to tame; and Cheval Blanc, more cabernet franc and merlot than cabernet sauvignon, offered an utterly beautiful range of fragrances and sweet, wonderfully supple flavours.

It’s hard to see now how the Americans missed Grange as a ring in. The 1982 is a great wine and, to my surprise, easily held its own in this company. I maintain my belief that it is an underrated vintage that’ll still be here when those who criticise its longevity are in nursing homes.

Penfolds Bin 820 remains a wonderful wine, a rich, silky blend of cabernet and shiraz. It, too, seems long from the early demise predicted for it by some critics five years ago.

Almost three years ago, Australia committed itself to kissing European geographical names goodbye. Some, like white Bordeaux, Beaujolais, Cava, and Frascati have already gone. They were all Johnnies-come-lately of little commercial value to our producers anyway. Others — Champagne, Moselle, and Port, for instance, although doomed, linger on.

Increased table wine consumption brought with it the widespread use of naming better quality wines according to grape variety/s. By the time we made our promise to the Europeans, we were ready to drop many European place names with nil or minimal consumer confusion or, in the case of better quality wines, had steered clear of them from scratch.

I don’t think many of us missed the word ‘Claret’ (a protected French name for the red wines of Bordeaux) when it was replaced by grape names on the country’s biggest selling red label, Jacobs Creek. And it’s easy to see popular ‘Champagne’ brands like Minchinbury, Carrington, and Great Western powering on, sans the froggy name, purely on reputation and packaging.

But what about the poor wine cask drinker? Somehow ‘Murray’ or ‘Murrumbidgee’ fails to evoke the same image as ‘Moselle’, our own misspelling of a German river, denoting a fruity, sweetish, light table wine. Or, to take another German river, how about riesling and Rhine riesling. Now there’s confusion!

There is a riesling grape variety. It originated in Germany where it makes sublime, delicate whites along the Rhine/Mosel/Saar River system. But, in Australia, we began using ‘riesling‘ promiscuously from last century. In South Australia, ‘Clare Riesling’ was a synonym for the very pedestrian crouchen grape. In New South Wales, ‘Hunter Riesling’ meant the totally unrelated semillon variety. And, in a generic sense, still used on wine casks today, ‘riesling’ denotes a light, fresh, dryish white, of no particular grape variety.

‘Hunter riesling’ and ‘Clare riesling’ died out with the rise of varietal labeling. But generic ‘riesling’ persists on wine casks largely because it is so difficult to find an alternative that means anything to the drinker.

Just to confuse things, the pure of heart and mind, wine makers Brian Croser and Geoff Weaver amongst others, removed the offending word ‘Rhine’ from their riesling labels before Simon Crean’s signature had dried on the EC agreement.

To the Europeans, riesling should denote just two things: the riesling grape variety and wine made from it. When Croser made the leap with his Petaluma label, it actually confused many followers, and it’s not hard to see why.

Because ‘riesling’ meant different things to different people, it had become standard practice to name wine made from the riesling grape as ‘Rhine Riesling’ to differentiate it from generic ‘riesling’. When Croser embraced the new order, I received numerous phone calls (and other retailers tell similar stories) from consumers worried that without the ‘Rhine’ Petaluma Riesling might be a mongrel.

Of course, there was nothing to worry about. It was and is the same 100 per cent riesling from Petaluma’s Hanlin Hill vineyard high up in the Clare Valley. But the incident shows that even sophisticated consumers place high value on names and can be suspicious of change.

On the other side of the coin, our phasing out of European place names paves the way for them to acknowledge Australian regions. But as the agreement highlighted, none of our wine regions, so well known by Australian wine drinkers, had any firm standing in law. True, under an industry-led label integrity programme from the early 1980s, there had been some attempt at regional definition. But at the time of our agreement with the EC, the only legally defined boundaries were Australia and, presumably, the States and Territories.

Thus, the Federal Government amended the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation Act empowering it to set boundaries. The process has been under way since 1992, guided by the AWBC’s Geographic Indications Committee (GIC), and as Zones, regions, and sub-regions are defined, they become recognised and protected under international trademarks law.

The exhaustive process involves the GIC and the wine and grape growing industries initially, with avenues for public commentary, review and appeal.

To date no regional or sub-regional areas have been registered, but a compendium South Eastern Australian zone, embracing most of NSW, SA, and Victoria, was first off the rank and underpins much of our EC export push. Subsequently 8 New South Wales and 6 Victorian zones were registered, covering all producers in those states.

Defining broad zones along geographic and climatic guidelines has been complicated enough. Getting down to regions and sub-regions, the names most likely to be useful to medium and small makers and most useful to Australian consumers, is a story on its own and will be covered here as it unfolds.

July 30th, 1995

Ian Mackley, the ‘independent presiding member’ of the ‘Geographic Indications Committee’ (created by Parliament to steer the wine-area naming process) says that legally enforceable boundaries are “… the last link in consumer protection” and essential for the enforcement of truth on wine labels.

The naming process now underway, or at least the urgency to get it done quickly, was forced on us by bi-lateral agreements negotiated with the EC and U.S.A. The agreements, vital for continued export success, included recognition of each other’s ‘geographic indications ’. The only problem was that Australia did not have any.

So, parliament empowered the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation to draw the boundaries in conjunction with grape growers and wine makers. The definitions were not to be imposed from above, but to be drawn from the ground up, based on geographic and historical data.

Australia was the first boundary to be defined (although it cannot be used as a geographic indication in the EC or USA), followed by the States and Territories. The next step is to determine Zones — larger areas that might embrace several established wine growing regions. Once Zones have been established, regions within those zones may apply for recognition; and sub-regions within regions may follow.

The enormous South Eastern Australian zone, as mentioned last week, covers the major wine-growing areas of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia and was established to give exporters a Geographic Indication for multi-district export blends.

New South Wales has been carved up into eight zones: Big Rivers, Northern Rivers, Central Ranges, Western Plains, Hunter Valley, Southern New South Wales (includes Canberra District and Young), Northern Slopes, and South Coast.

Victoria, too has been finalised with six zones: Gippsland, North West Victoria, Central Victoria, Port Phillip, North East Victoria, and Western Victoria.

Queensland and Tasmanian grape growers and wine makers were happy, for the time being, with only a State boundary, but zones and regions will almost certainly emerge in the years ahead.

South Australia is still ironing out a few problems but zones will hopefully be set in the next few months.

Western Australia recently had its interim determination published, proposing five zones: Great Northern, Esperance, South West Australia, Central Western Australia, and West Coast. But these are subject to public commentary/objection before finalisation.

As it is a public process, interim determinations are published in newspapers and the Government Gazette; interested parties then have time to comment or object on a proposed boundary. If objections are received, then the GIC reconvenes and may stand firm or alter its determination. GIC decisions may be taken to the Administrative Appeals tribunal and from there to the Federal court.

To minimise spurious applications for regional geographic indications an area must have at least 5 independent grape growers each with a minimum of 5 hectares of vines and a minimal regional output of 500 tonnes of grapes a year (around 35,000 cases).

Applications should be based on a combination of soil types, temperatures, harvest dates, use of water, State and Local Government Planning Acts, history of grape growing, and proof that the region is known to the outside world.

If consumer protection is a benefit in the long run, there are also large commercial stakes and these are the most likely source of legal fights as the GIC moves down to regional and sub-regional determinations.

Hence, the considerable public speculation about where Coonawarra’s boundaries might lie. My belief is that this is the hottest spot of all because the stakes are big and, whatever the proposed boundary, aggrieved parties seem certain to come roaring out of the wood work.

It now seems certain that Coonawarra, along with Padthaway, Koppamurra and Mount Benson will be regions within a zone to be called the Limestone Coast.

Consumers know Coonawarra for its rich velvety reds, sourced from a narrow, fifteen-kilometre strip of vineyards. However, since 1984 Coonawarra has been defined by State survey boundaries embracing an area twenty times the size of the area actually under vine. As well there are well-established vineyards just outside even these absurdly large boundaries.

I’ve heard that the locals will be applying for a comparatively tight boundary more in line with the reality of viticultural Coonawarra. Such an outcome will not only lock in high land prices but possibly injure those with established vines inside the old boundaries as well as those perched on the wrong side of the old line.

Yes, Coonawarra is an interesting one to watch, not only because it may be the most controversial, but because the real Coonawarra provides such wonderful wines to we drinkers.