An old wine-drinking mate, Mike Bond, recently told me about a stash of glorious old rieslings on sale at Richmond Grove. The Barossa winery makes some of Australia’s finest rieslings – much loved at Chateau Shanahan as they’re comparatively cheap and drink beautifully for many years. We’re currently enjoying Richmond Grove Watervale rieslings 1999 and 2002, purchased at less than $10 a bottle on release.

Richmond Grove’s website currently offers Watervale rieslings from1996 to 2011 (only the 2001 is missing), Barossa riesling 2000 and Eden Valley riesling 2002. It’s a distinguished line up and a rare opportunity to buy perfectly cellared white direct from the maker.

Though Richmond Grove made its first rieslings only in 1994, their pedigree stretches back to the earliest days of fine riesling production in Australia. The rieslings flow from the distinct winemaking traditions of Orlando and Leo Buring – represented by winemakers John Vickery, Phil Laffer and Bernard Hickin.

But the story goes back even further to Ray Kidd, former head of Lindemans, Leo Buring (1876–1961), Buring’s Chateau Leonay winery, on the outskirts of Tanunda in the Barossa Valley, and the Florita vineyard, located at Watervale in the southern Clare Valley.

In the 1940s wine merchant Leo Buring purchased the Florita site at Watervale, towards the southern end of South Australia’s Clare Valley. He planted the sherry varieties, pedro ximenez and palomino, and, believes winemaker John Vickery, a little crouchen (known then as Clare riesling), trebbiano and shiraz – but not riesling.

After graduating from Roseworthy wine college, Vickery joined the ageing Leo Buring as winemaker at Chateau Leonay. He made both table and fortified wines and recalls “a terrific flor sherry solera” Buring had established using flor yeast cultures pirated from Spain’s Xerez region.

Buring sold the wine, grown on the Florita vineyard, under the Leo Buring Florita Fino label – probably the first wine to bear the vineyard name.

Buring died in 1961 and in 1962 Lindemans purchased the Buring business, retaining John Vickery as winemaker.

By now table wine consumption in Australia was on the move, sparked by a string of so-called “pearl” style light, sparkling table wines, including Orlando Barossa Pearl and Leo Buring Rhinegold, and the arrival of crisp, fruity whites, also pioneered by Colin Gramp at Orlando in the fifties.

To take on Orlando in the booming riesling market, Lindeman head, Ray Kidd, replanted the 32-hectare Florita vineyard almost entirely to riesling – leaving about one hectare of crouchen as the only other variety.

By the 1963 vintage, with new protective winemaking equipment in place at Leonay, Vickery was poised to make the great Leo Buring rieslings – many from the Florita vineyard – that earned 50 trophies and 400 gold medals by 1997. Under Kidd, Lindemans re-released many of these as magnificent aged wines in the late seventies and early eighties.

In 1986, Philip Morris trimmed Lindemans down for sale, selling the prized Florita vineyard to the Barry family. Vickery and winemaking boss, Phil Laffer, later parted with Lindemans following its acquisition by Southcorp.

Laffer joined Orlando as head winemaker. Orlando purchased Chateau Leonay, made it the headquarters of Richmond Grove (formerly of the Hunter Valley) and installed Vickery as winemaker.

From 1994 Vickery returned to riesling making, sourcing fruit for Richmond Grove Watervale from his much-loved Florita vineyard. The wheel had turned full circle. He also produced a Barossa riesling, a blend of material from the Eden Valley (part of the Barossa zone) and Jacob’s Creek, on the southern Barossa Valley floor.

Vickery’s early work with Lindemans and Leo Buring shaped modern Australian riesling making. But he had more to give. In 1997 he hosted riesling tastings that hastened the biggest revolution ever in Australian winemaking – the adoption of screw caps.

In separate events for the trade and wine media, Vickery presented decades of glorious old rieslings he’d created. But cork had taken its toll, Vickery noted, tainting wine with the musty flavours of trichloroanisole or failing as a barrier against air. Vickery told us he’d opened up to six bottles of some older wines to find one good one. He urged the industry to return to the screw cap.

Following the tastings, Richmond Grove agreed to supply Coles-owned Vintage Cellars 1,000 dozen each of Watervale and Barossa riesling from the coming 1998 vintage under screw caps.  The two companies shared the risk of re-introducing a time-proven seal that had, however, been completely rejected by consumers twenty years earlier. (At the time, I headed Coles Myer Liquor Group’s tasting panel and marketing communications and creative department).

But this time drinkers believed the winemakers. Vintage Cellars sold its stock quickly. And Richmond Grove found itself overwhelmed with demand from other retailers. Two vintages later, a group of Clare riesling makers, including Richmond Grove, launched a screw-cap campaign. And now more than 80 per cent of wine sold in Australia wears the cap.

Some of the older rieslings offered by Richmond Grove predate the screw cap. But winemaker Bernard Hickin says they eliminate low-fill cork stock. And, in any event, there’s plenty of screw-cap sealed stock to chose from, including those magnificent 1999 and 2002 Watervales. Hickin says they cellar the wine in excellent conditions, always under 18 degrees, but generally around 15 to 16 degrees. This is a unique buying opportunity.

Sequel
John Vickery retired and still lives in the Barossa Valley. Phil Laffer, now in his early seventies, plays an international winemaking role for Pernod Ricard, Richmond Grove’s parent company. Bernard Hickin took over from Laffer, heading Pernod Richard’s Australian winemaking (Jacob’s Creek and Richmond Grove included). Rebecca Richardson replaced Hickin as group white wine maker. And Don “Mr Aromatics” Young took charge of the group’s aromatic white wines, including Richmond Grove riesling.

Richmond Grove sourced riesling grapes from the Barry family’s Florita Vineyard from 1994 to 1998 inclusive, then moved onto to other contract growers in this prime Clare Valley sub-region. Barossa Riesling proved difficult to sell. Richmond Grove discontinued its production after the 2000 vintage – this magnificent wine was still available at cellar door when I wrote this article.

Why drink old riesling
We drink aged riesling for the same reason we drink young riesling – it’s delicious, and interesting. Over time the colour changes from a pale lemon colour through pale and then deep gold – often green tinted. As young wines they offer pure, shimmering lemon or lime-like fruitiness and racy acidity, in some cases quite austere. As the colour deepens slowly with age, the aroma takes on a honeyed or toasty character, adding complexity to the still-intact varietal fruit. The palate becomes more mellow and richer, reflecting the aroma. It’s a thrilling combination of age with freshness, reliably captured under screw cap, less reliably with cork.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2012
First published 27 June 2012 in The Canberra Times

President of the NSW Wine Industry Association and vice president of the Winemakers Federation of Australia, David Lowe, sees a well-funded anti-alcohol lobby shifting its focus from beer and spirits to wine. The wine industry needs to respond, he believes. And one response should be to produce wines with less alcohol.

He says, “The push for low alcohol wine is consuming me at present”. And he’s covering the mission personally on two fronts: in a collaborative, so-called ‘Chablis’ project, working with other Mudgee producers on lower alcohol, leaner chardonnay styles; and in his Tinja red and white, which are also preservative-free.

Lowe’s contribution to the Chablis project is a chardonnay from his Nullo Mountain vineyard, located 1,100 metres above sea level at nearby Rylstone. The very cool conditions here favour the accumulation of flavour at comparatively low sugar (and hence alcohol) levels. Sold under Lowe’s Louee Nullo Mount label, the 2011 (a particularly cold year) pushes the concept to the limit – and perhaps beyond the threshold of many drinkers. The searing acidity of the 11 per cent alcohol wine accentuates the intense grapefruit varietal flavour – but also marks it as a wine for future drinking, most likely an outstanding one.

But in warmer regions like Mudgee, unripe flavours present perhaps an even bigger challenge to would-be makers of low alcohol wine. In warm areas ripeness tends to lag well behind sugar levels. And the winemaking challenges compound when, like Lowe’s, the wines are also preservative-free.

Lowe launched his first preservative-free wine, a merlot, five years ago under the Tinja label – named for his Mudgee vineyard, some 700 metres lower than the Nullo Mountain site.

The push into lower alcohol, preservative-free wine puts Lowe’s wines in a tiny, developing niche market.

Increasingly sensitive to sulphur himself, Lowe says sulphur-free wines appeal to people with a sulphur allergy, people with bronchial problems, some people recovering from surgery and to a new breed of younger people “who think they’re being poisoned by preservatives”.

He believes these young people appreciate “innovation and new things. They’re fascinated that a wine can be preservative-free, low in alcohol and still taste decent”.

But he cautions us to note the difference between “no added preservatives” and “preservative free” messages on labels. The difference is that sulphur occurs naturally and can be present even if a winemaker adds none. “Preservative-free” wine means literally no sulphur – and that requires fine attention to detail, like selecting fermentation yeasts that doesn’t produce sulphur.

Happily, picking grapes earlier to produce less alcohol provides some of the extra protection a no-sulphur wine requires. “A low pH means less microbial problems”, say Lowe. “But picking early also introduces green-spectrum flavours”.

To mask the green flavours in the white wines, Lowe says he “squeezes pretty hard on the skins, and includes the pressings”. This lifts the pH slightly, softening the palate, but it boosts colour and flavour, adds texture to the wine and the phenolics are a natural anti-oxidant.

For both reds and whites, oxygen is the enemy. Handling then requires vigilance at every stage. Lowe sees high quality fruit as the first line of defence – small, thick-skinned berries, hand picked and transported intact to the winery – resistant to breakage and invasion by microbes and air.

From fermentation until 24 hours before bottling, the wines must remain saturated with carbon dioxide, with zero exposure to air. “Bottling is the hardest bit”, says Lowe, calculating the ultimate bottling temperature and what pressure the screw cap can stand. “It’s tricky physics”, he explains, wandering off into Henry’s law (William Henry, 1803), dealing with pressure, gas and solubility of gas in liquid.

The subject’s too arcane even for a modern wine back label. But Henry’s law helped Lowe solve a tricky conundrum in a production chain that had to remain oxygen free.

And after five vintages, we see a really appealing 12.5 per cent alcohol Lowe Tinja Organic Preservative-free Merlot 2012. The first preservative-free white also appeals. It’s a blend of verdelho and chardonnay, from a Rylstone vineyard at 650 metres, weighing in at just 10 per cent alcohol.

The protective winemaking technique, says Lowe, means they can never be complex wines. But by they’re vibrant, fresh, clean and a pleasure to drink. And he’s promised himself to bring the alcohol levels down by about one percentage point each year – aiming to get the white down to seven or eight per cent.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2012
First published 13 June 2012 in The Canberra Times and in the online editions of The Melbourne Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, WA Today and Brisbane Times

The Shoalhaven Coast wine region website lists 15 wineries. They stretch about 130 kilometres by road, from Yarrawa Estate, Kangaroo Valley, in the north, to Bawley Estate, at Bawley Point, to the south.

That’s a reasonably big stretch of coastal land, covering almost a degree of latitude (34˚37’ to 35˚31 south, says Google Earth). But as winemaking regions go, it’s small, totalling, by my estimate, around 70–80 hectares of vines.

With temperature the main driving force behind the physical development of vines and grape ripening, the local climate, aided at the margins by human intervention, decides what varieties succeed and fail.

At first glance, Shoalhaven’s latitude (about three degrees north of Coonawarra, for example) might suggest a home for reds like cabernet sauvignon and shiraz. But in fact, the region’s significantly cooler than Coonawarra during the ripening season. As a result whites, in general, fare better than reds, which struggle in most seasons.

Coolangatta Estate’s Greg Bishop sees parallels between Shoalhaven and the lower Hunter Valley, to the north. Shoalhaven’s grapes ripen about three weeks later than the Hunter’s, but humidity and summer rainfall present almost identical challenges in the vineyard.

“It’s a hard place to grow grapes”, says Bishop. But constant vineyard work generally overcomes the disease pressure created by moisture. “In the early days, Dr Richard Smart helped us, especially with canopy management”, he says. Open canopies maximise air circulation, helping the vines and fruit to dry out – aided by daily sea breezes. They also help sprays penetrate the vines.

The right spray regime, says Bishop, protects against mildew and botrytis cinerea. And tilling v-shape furrows between vine rows diverts water quickly away from the vineyard, further reducing disease pressures.

Bishop’s vigilance makes Coolangatta Estate the region’s dominant producer in quality and quantity – and the only one to date to stand up in any company, among those I’ve tasted. It’s also a consistent winner of trophies (130 to date) and medals at Australia’s top wine shows.

At the 2011 Canberra Regional Wine Show, for example, Coolangatta entered 13 wines and won nine medals, including golds for its 2009 tempranillo (reviewed today) and 2006 semillon.

Bishop rates semillon as best of the estate’s varieties by a wide margin. And given its outstanding show success, he wonders why it’s not more widely grown in the region.

I’ve tasted many vintages of these semillons over the last decade in wine shows and at the dinner table. They’re lovely, low in alcohol, capable of prolonged ageing and very similar in style to those from the Hunter – that is, austere and lemony when young and developing mellow, honeyed flavours with age.

To some extent, the style’s driven by the Hunter connection – as Tyrrell’s, Australia’s semillon masters, makes all of the Coolangatta wines. But Tyrrell’s are merely custodians of the fruit – the source of the wine flavour. Clearly, what Coolangatta grows is very good.

However, the more widely adopted verdelho “comes in every year”, says Bishop. Indeed, Coolangatta Estate 2011 ($22) and Cambewarra Estate’s 2010 ($23), tasted for this article, offer pleasant drinking – with Coolangatta comfortably ahead.

Chardonnay also performs well and a couple in our tasting looked OK – Silos Estate Wild Ferment 2010, reviewed today, and Cambewarra Estate Unwooded Chardonnay 2010 ($24).  Neither of these, however, matches the ones I’ve tried from Coolangatta Estate.

Coolangatta recently planted what it believed to be the Spanish white variety, albarino. But the variety (misidentified across Australia and, in fact, savagnin) performed consistently well in its first four vintages, 2009 to 2012. Bishop sees a good future for the variety in Shoalhaven.

Judges at the 2010 Canberra regional show, support Bishop’s view. They wrote that Coolangatta Estate Savagnin 2010, “had lovely bright fruit with depth of flavour and should be received with some excitement in the region”.

While reds in general struggle to ripen, a few varieties get there and newcomer tempranillo looks exciting. The Coolangatta 2009 reviewed today drinks beautifully – and deserves the gold medals and trophies won in the Canberra and Kiama regional wine shows. Bishop said he planted it because as an early ripener it stood a chance in the cool region.

Coolangatta and other producers in the area grow another early ripening red, chambourcin. This French-American hybrid has the advantage of being resistant to fungal disease; and the disadvantage of making plain wine, in my experience. However, consumers love it both as a red and rosé, says Bishop, partly perhaps because of its novelty.

Bishop also favours tannat, a tannic red variety, for its ability to ripen quickly and fully and, because of its loose bunches and thick skins, resistance to fungal disease. He says, “it has a lot of potential, and Tyrrell’s love it”. The current release Coolangatta 2009 has three gold, eight silver and seven bronze medals to its credit.

Although Coolangatta Estate planted vines in 1988 and Silos Estate three years before that, the Shoalhaven Coast lacks the maturity of a region like Canberra. Canberra’s maturity arrived over the last decade as all the threads spun over forty years finally came together – throwing up shiraz and riesling as regional specialties and achieving a critical mass of high quality vignerons.

Shoalhaven straddles the important Princes Highway tourist route and, at the moment, its tiny, fledgling wine industry seems more plugged into tourism than wine, per se. That’s a good start. But it’ll only be taken seriously as a wine region as the number of really high quality producers, like Coolangatta Estate, grows.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2012
First published 30 May 2012 in The Canberra Times

Canberra’s vintage from hell, or vintage of a lifetime, turned out to be both, and bit in between as well. Canberra vignerons wrote off swathes of diseased fruit, adding to shiraz crop losses caused by poor fruit set early in the season. But by carefully handpicking healthy fruit, and in some cases weeding out diseased berries in the winery, the district now has its generally sound, albeit much reduced, 2012 vintage in the vat.

Riesling specialist Ken Helm, hopeful but apprehensive during February’s pre-vintage rain, emailed triumphantly on 16 March, “We are finishing our Riesling today. The fruit is outstanding and it is the vintage of my lifetime.”

A month later, the voice at the other end of the phone says, “It’s still the vintage of a lifetime. The wines are finished [fermenting] and they’re incredible. We will have a reserve riesling this year, but the crop’s down 50 per cent”.

Helm attributes the crop losses to berry splitting, caused by rain, followed by outbreaks of the mould, botrytis cinerea. However, the cool season, recording just four days over 30 degrees, encouraged steady flavour development and good acid retention in riesling grapes.

Helm says riesling achieved flavour ripeness at low sugar levels and exceptionally high acidity of 10.5 to 11 grams per litre. During fermentation and subsequent cold stabilisation, however, acidity dropped to a more palate friendly 7.5 to eight grams a litre – ideal numbers in dry wines of 10.3 to 10.5 per cent alcohol.

Helm expects to release his 2012 Classic Dry and Premium rieslings in August or September. And for only the second time in 40 years, he made a botrytis-infected sweet riesling. He says the 3.5 tonnes of fruit yielded just 800 luscious litres.

Helm’s other specialty, cabernet sauvignon, suffered less than shiraz in the adverse conditions. Nevertheless, he anticipated a 30 per cent drop in the coming crop from neighbour Al Lustenburger’s vineyard.

Clonakilla’s Tim Kirk says he’s “astonished at how it’s turned out. The fortunes of Clonakilla, and Canberra in general, hang on shiraz. We were worried botrytis would explode and lead to big crop losses. We saw this in some vineyards, which were unpickable. Not so in Clonakilla vineyard”.

Kirk recalls in the comparably cool, wet 2011 season leaving half his shiraz on the vine. The fruit had set with thin skins, making it vulnerable to disease. In 2012, however, the vines produced a small crop of disease resistant, thick-skinned berries – all successfully harvested.

Kirk believes the shiraz “may prove to be extraordinary, but we’ll wait and see”. Pressing the wine after three weeks post-ferment maceration on skins, Kirk observed, “very dark colour and fantastic flavours”. It’s high in acid, he says, but malolactic fermentation (a secondary fermentation that reduces total acidity) is yet to occur. Kirk believes cool seasons like 2012, where fruit struggles to ripeness but gets there, are potentially the greatest.

Kirk picked riesling early, ahead of the rain, looks to be “a very fine, bony style along the lines of 2011 – acid driven, fresh and appley, but delicious”. He held back unfermented juice which can be added back after ferment should the wine need rounding out.

Cabernet and merlot ripened fully but nevertheless show the herbaceous character of the cool year. Viognier developed good flavours at low sugar levels. There’s not much of it, says Kirk, and it’s definitely suited to Clonakilla’s elegant style – far removed from the syrupy versions made in warmer climates.

Sauvignon blanc and semillon, picked early to avoid disease, look a little on the green side, says Kirk, but a tiny pinot noir crop produced good looking wine, driven buy its tannin structure.

At Lerida Estate, Lake George, Jim Lumbers reports big drops in quantity. Merlot yielded better than last year and despite botrytis infections, “we have some very good fruit”, he says. “The whites are great, especially pinot grigio”.

“Pinot noir looks glorious. We’re pressing it, it looks fantastic, and so does the 2011. But we never would’ve dreamt it”. Lumbers say he picked pinot very early, hoping to beat diseases, but feared green, unripe flavours in the wine.

His team used sorting tables to eliminate diseased berries. The juice appeared very pale at first, but after fermentation the wines show good, if not deep colours, delicate violet-like aromas and amazing ripe fruit flavours.

The much-reduced shiraz crop, says Lumbers, looks very good and should make the cut for Lerida’s flagship shiraz viognier blend.

Up on the Lake George escarpment, Lark Hill’s Chris Carpenter reports a reduced but healthy crop with no losses to disease. The family’s Murrumbateman vineyard, however, suffered extensive hail damage. The Carpenter’s lost all of the shiraz from the vineyard, but harvested sangiovese and small amounts of the Rhone Valley white varieties marsanne, roussanne and viognier.

From the slopes of Mount Majura, Frank van der Loo reports that after a long wait for reds to ripen, they did, showing “fantastic deep colours but very low quantities”. Crop losses resulted from a combination of disease and weather-related poor fruit set.

The whites, says van der Loo are “good to excellent, showing the vintage raciness – long, steely acid, even in pinot grigio [a notably low-acid variety]”. He says the reds will be lighter bodied but deeper coloured than usual.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2012
First published 2 May 2012 in The Canberra Times

As I write in the opening days of autumn, a potentially great Canberra vintage hangs in the balance – threatened by a massive band of rain moving across southeastern Australia. If it hangs around too long, mildew and botrytis could threaten the crop; if too much rain falls, berries might split, increasing disease risks and reducing yields. Should mild, clear weather follow the big wet, however, the district may yet produce some of its best wines ever, say several producers. By the time you read this, we’ll have some idea of the outcome.

Never short of enthusiasm, Murrumbateman’s Ken Helm sees beyond the steady rain and drenched vineyards. “It’s a once in a lifetime season”, he declares, “and we still have a chance. I’ve seen nothing like in 40 years. We’ve had only four days over 30 degrees”.

Mild conditions leading up to the rain favoured flavour development at low sugar levels, report growers across the district. Helm says, “riesling in particular is outstanding. Even at nine Baume [a measure of sugar content] it tasted ripe. Normally your face would be like a chook’s bum. There’s a green tinge about riesling berries, like they have in Germany, and no sign of sunburn.”

Helm’s other specialty, cabernet sauvignon, still appears disease free and set for a normal crop. Helm says because it buds late, cabernet missed the poor weather that disrupted flowering in many shiraz vineyards around Murrumbateman.

Fellow Murrumbateman vigneron, Greg Gallagher, said rain and windstorms around flowering time resulted in “loose” shiraz benches ­– meaning less grapes to the bunch and lower yields overall. Perversely, laughs Gallagher, those loose bunches make the weather-hardy shiraz even more disease resistant.

A couple of days before the rain, Gallagher’s chardonnay, destined for sparkling wine, looked in beautiful condition. But he now waits anxiously for the rain to end. He says pinot noir for bubbly, harvested from Pankhurst vineyard, Hall, before the rain was spectacular.

At Long Rail Gully, Murrumbateman, Garry Parker, described a wait-and-see, edgy situation. Until the rain, everything appeared perfect, with good yields expected for all varieties – except shiraz, because of its small bunches. “Richard [Garry’s son and winemaker] said pinot gris and riesling will be the first we pick. He looked at them in fear and trepidation, but so far they’re unaffected by the rain”, says Garry.

With both white varieties close to ripening, a seven-day withholding period means no more spraying, even if disease appears, says Parker

At Jeir Creek, Murrumbateman, Rob Howell reports a savage hailstorm two weeks before the rain arrived ripping through several vineyards. It wiped out a quarter of Jeir Creek’s grapes and damaged the neighbouring Ravensworth (Bryan and Jocelyn Martin), Dark Horse (Carpenter family, Lark Hill) and Nanima (Wayne and Jennie Fischer) vineyards.

After the hail, Howell “went into drying-out damaged berry mode. But the rain’s not helping now”, says Howell. He expects to harvest chardonnay and pinot noir for sparkling wine immediately after the rain and says overall fruit quality appears very high. “Viogner looks superb, shiraz is down and cabernet’s looking good, because of its thick skin”, Howell says.

Winemaker Alex McKay (Collector and Bourke Street brands), owns no vineyards but sources grapes from growers across the district. He’s distinctly upbeat about the vintage, despite some similarities with last year’s cool, wet conditions.

He recalls lots of nervousness about the outcome this time last year. But despite some disease-related crop losses, Canberra enjoyed a fantastic vintage. McKay reports, “better disease control this year, with very little botrytis [botrytis cinerea, a destructive fungus] and vineyards still looking very clean”. He attributes lower expected yields across the district in 2012 to the lasting effect of last year’s wet conditions.

To date he sees, “Excellent vine health and berry size, very good flavour building, still natural acids and attractive tannins developing in the reds”. He expects to harvest Rhone Valley white varieties (the viognier looking very good) late in the first week of March and shiraz from mid March. He says Nick O’Leary’s began picking very good riesling in mid to late February.

McKay believes the healthy vines should resist disease pressures from the present rain. He believes mildew presents a greater risk earlier in the season as new foliage emerges and that botrytis outbreaks are more likely.

Heavy rain followed by warm weather also presents a risk of berry split as vines suck up water and grapes swell. But McKay believes the risk to be lower this year thanks to previously well-watered vines.

Jennie Mooney, an owner of Capital Wines and its Kyeema Vineyard, Murrumbateman also sees berry split as less likely this year. She says, “In 2010 we came out of drought into a massive downpour, followed by hot sun. The vines transpired heavily, took up water and the berries split”.

But as insurance this year, says Mooney, husband Mark encouraged weed growth under the vines. When the rain stops they expect the weeds to compete with the vines, limiting water uptake and risk of berry split.

Mooney says, “The fruit’s a bit like 2011 – flavours arriving at low Baumes [sugar content] with high acidity. Merlot’s the best Mark’s ever tasted. Merlot likes having its feet wet”.

Despite the rain and risk it poses, Mooney remains, “Nervously hopeful”. She says it’s a difficult year and in the end success will get down to good vineyard management. At Kyeema, she says, “we’ve done lots of canopy work, with disease management ongoing, all season”.

At Brindabella Hills, Hall (Canberra’s lowest vineyards), winemaker Brian Sinclair reports normal crops, even of shiraz, and “incredibly good” quality across the varieties. He says, “I haven’t seen sauvignon blanc or riesling looking as good as it is. It’s ideal. The riesling has no disease, a terrific canopy and no sunburn”. Sinclair believes, “things should progress well” despite the rain.

Up on the northern slopes of Mount Majura, Frank van de Loo reports 9.5 tonnes of a projected 52-tonne harvest safely in tanks. Mainly chardonnay and pinot noir for sparkling, van de Loo describes it as, “the best yet after five years’ experience [with sparkling material]”.

He says the cool season is producing light crops with exciting flavours and aromatics, arriving at low sugar levels. He rated one batch of chardonnay, pickable at a low 10.5–11 Baume – very rare in Canberra’s climate – and ripe-tasting riesling at 10 Baume. The red varieties, however, remain some weeks off.

Van de Loo rates berry split as the main risk, saying, “I’m worried about the duration rather the quantity [of rain]. If the vines are too wet for too long the berries could split”.

Jim Lumbers of Lerida Estate, Lake George, said “It was picture perfect until today”, “and now it looks like a re-run of 2011 – a ground hog day vintage”. Nevertheless, expects the early varieties to be fine – pinot noir for rose, pinot gris and chardonnay, despite “massive acids”.

He still sees the possibility of the vintage turning out really well. But even if disease takes it toll, Lerida has sorting tables. This allows us to take the hit of lower quantity while keeping our quality”.

Vineyard high up on the Lake George escarpment, opposite Bungendore, live in a different climate than most of Canberra’s other vineyards – some 300 metres higher than Hall, 200 metres higher than Murrumbateman, and more than 100 metres above Mount Majura and Lake George.

At Lark Hill vintage is still six weeks away, with the whites just through veraison [where the berries begin to soften] and the only red, pinot noir, just half way through.

Winemaker Chris Carpenter says 2012 may end up as the coolest on record at Lark Hill, having dipped below 1989, the previous coldest – though unlikely to match 1989’s 1000mm rainfall for the growing season.

He foresees a late vintage with intense fruit flavours and high acidity across the district. He wonders aloud what makers will do with high levels of malic acid in chardonnay – as fashion, in recent years, moved away from the secondary fermentation (malo-lactic) that reduced it, to more austere, high-acid styles.

At present, he says, Lark Hill remains disease free with good crop levels. The Carpenter’s recently acquire Dark Horse vineyard at Murrumbateman, however, lost half its crop to the recent hailstorm.

“It smashed fruit on the vine and defoliated one side, impairing their ability to ripen the remaining fruit”, says Carpenter. To encourage new leaves, the Carpenters have added nutrition and intend to bunch-thin if necessary. Bunch thinning matches the fruit load to the ripening ability of the foliage.

Carpenter says Lark Hill began trialling biological control of botrytis this year – spraying vines with bacteria that compete with the fungus. In theory, supported by producer trials, says Carpenter, the bacteria become established, providing long-term protection.

While that offers hope for the future, Canberra vignerons keep an anxious eye on the weather and remain hopeful of healthy crops in the weeks ahead.

It seemed like forty days and nights, but after almost a week the deluge finally ceased on Sunday 4 March. On Monday 5 March, Canberra vignerons woke to a mild, mainly sunny day.

At Four Winds Vineyard, Murrumbateman, John Collingwood harvested riesling, anxious to beat an outbreak of botrytis. “It was just starting”, he said. But in the end he cut out only about five per cent, delivering 18 healthy tonnes (a normal-sized harvest) to winemaking brother-in-law, Bill Crowe.

Crowe says the riesling’s looking pretty good, with high acidity and even lower sugar than last year’s fruit.

While the rain slowed grape development down, Collingwood remains hopeful of a good red harvest in three to four weeks. He says there’s a little botrytis in the denser bunches, so success depends on the weather. Warm, dry weather should contain the fungus; but it could get running if it rains.

Sangiovese shows a little more fruit split than shiraz, says Collingwood. But the loose, open shiraz bunches are proving resilient. Tough-skinned cabernet looks in good condition, he says, and merlot’s travelling well.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2012
First published 14 March 2012 in The Canberra Times and The Sydney Morning Herald

At a regional shiraz dinner a few years back, Garry Parker told me he approached wine marketing as he did building a career as a barrister from 1963 – on the belief that good performance would attract a following.

And that’s exactly what he’s achieved at Long Rail Gully Wines – a deep respect among his winemaking peers and well-informed consumers, if not yet with the wider acclaim his wines deserve.

With wife Barbara and son Richard, Parker established Long Rail Gully at Murrumbateman in 1998 as a serious business investment, capable of standing in its own right.

Richard Parker managed the venture from the outset. As a science graduate from Sydney University, he’d helped manage the family’s wheat, sheep and canola interest out west. But he recalls resisting a move into vines – concerned about the instability of the market.

However, Hardy’s move into Canberra, with the promise of a fixed-term grape contract, settled the argument and underpinned the family’s new venture in the short term. At the time Richard was half way through an agricultural science degree at Charles Sturt University.

“I was able to flip this into wine science”, he says, recalling how his mates said he’d not have to worry about viticulture as he’d know more about vines than the lecturers by the time he’d finished planting.

The family established the bulk of the 22-hectare vineyard, one of Canberra’s largest, in 1998 and in recent years replaced some of the cabernet sauvignon with pinot gris.

The vineyard now has seven hectares of shiraz, four of riesling, about three hectares each of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and pinot gris and one of pinot noir. These are rounded figures

While the grape contract with Hardy’s underpinned the early years, Long Rail Gully planned its own brand from the outset, making its first wine in 2001, just three years after establishing vines.

The business now has several strands – grape sales to other makers (including Clonakilla, Capital Wines, Eden Road and a couple of Hunter producers), contract winemaking for other grape growers and making the Long Rail Gully Range (current releases reviewed below).

Wine making demands considerable capital investment, so the Parkers now have on site a very large, insulated winery, all the right winemaking gear and even a bottling line (most Canberra producers use a mobile bottling contractor).

The Parkers are about to export to China. Exports will include purpose-made wines, now in barrel, as well as the Long Rail Gully range. Richard says the standard wines are to be cork sealed to meet market demands. But the premium wines will be screw-cap sealed – emphasising the quality benefits of the seal.

Long Rail Gully wines are available at selected outlets and cellar door. See www.longrailgully.com.au for details.

Long Rail Gully Riesling 2011 6-pack $17 ($92 for 6)
Pale straw to lemon colour; lime-like varietal aroma with a floral lift; intense lemon and lime varietal flavours on the palate, carried by the delicate, tart acidity of the cool vintage, with a touch of musk in the dry aftertaste. The wine continued to drink well for days after opening, suggesting a long cellaring life. It’s blended from the two clones in the vineyard: Geisenheim, contributing leaner lime and spicy notes; and McWilliams Eden Valley clone, lending lime and musk.

Long Rail Gully Pinot Gris 2011 $ 20 ($110 for 6)
Winemaker Richard Parker sees this as his stand-out white of the vintage – not surprising for a variety that thrives in cool ripening conditions. Although it’s only slightly more alcoholic than the riesling (12.1 versus 11.5 per cent) it’s considerably fuller bodied, with a rich, silky texture. This reflects the making technique: a component tank fermented to capture fruit flavour and aromatic high notes; another portion fermented and matured on yeast lees in old oak barrels, to build body and texture. The result is a vibrant, fresh wine, leading with a pear-like varietal aroma and flavour, with layers of succulent stone-fruit flavours adding further interest – all of this embedded in the rich, silky texture.

Long Rail Gully Pinot Noir 2010 $30  ($162 for 6)
A cellar door favourite and the priciest wine in the range, Long Rail Gully pinot noir challenges the notion that the variety doesn’t suit Canberra. This is a class act, certainly not reaching the heights of our best shirazes, but delivering the real pinot experience. The initial impacts are of fragrant, vibrant, varietal red berries with a stalky note – probably derived from whole bunches included in the ferment ­– and a smooth, velvety texture. With aeration, more savoury “umami” flavours arrive – layering the fruit with an earthy, beef-stock note. There’s drinking pleasure galore in this wine. A tasting of the 2005 vintage confirms its keeping ability.

Long Rail Gully Merlot 2005 and 2006 $22 ($119 for 6)
Is bottle age part of the marketing plan, we ask Garry and Richard Parker? Alas, no, they say. Merlot doesn’t sell; it seems to be giving way to pinot. But the almost-sold-out 2005, and 2006 that follows, offer delicious drinking – and a great opportunity to experience the extra flavour dimension that comes with bottle age. These are highly aromatic, plummy wines with the deep, sweet, earthy, chocolaty notes of age, a pleasant leafy edge and plush, juicy tannins.

Long Rail Gully Shiraz 2008 and 2009 $24 ($129 for 6)
These beautiful wines reveal the great strength of Canberra shiraz, albeit in contrasting styles. The almost-sold-out 2008 reveals a peppery side of shiraz not often seen in Canberra. In this instance we see both white and black pepper, the former normally associated with very cool conditions and sometimes with unripeness.

In Long Rail Gully it’s as if the grapes accumulated sugar (sugar ripeness), while flavour ripeness lagged behind – a common situation in warm Australia. However, ripeness, tinged with white pepper, seems to have just staggered over the line, giving a wine of 14.5 per cent alcohol and distinct, just-ripe white pepper flavour. This is a very pleasing flavour in one of our district’s better shirazes.

The 2009, however, moves another step up the quality ladder. Here, aromatic, floral red-berry varietal flavours stand at the centre – reminiscent of shiraz from France’s tiny Cote-Rotie region. The supple, sweet palate and savoury, spicy background flavours add to this impression. The wine’s delicious to drink now but should cellar well for many years. It’s phenomenally good – and undervalued. But don’t count on that lasting as it’s like to attract attention.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2012
First published 25 January 2012 in The Canberra Times