Category Archives: Vineyard

Trophy Collector — how a Canberra shiraz stole the Sydney show

24 February 2010People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HOW COLLECTOR STOLE THE SHOW

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Near and yet so different

3 February 2010Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

We’re all familiar with the idea of regional wine specialities, like Coonawarra cabernet, Barossa shiraz, Marlborough sauvignon blanc and Mornington Peninsula pinot noir. And with a growing focus on regions, we’ll enjoy increasing numbers of intra regional specialties – like Andrew Seppelt’s wonderful shiraz-grenache-mourvedre reds of the western Barossa reviewed here two weeks back.

As we move into sub-regional wines – including those from individual vineyards within a sub-region, and even wines from a few rows of vines within a vineyard – we begin to hear the French word terroir. It evokes a sense of place and attributes distinctive wine flavours to geography – all the physical and human factors contributing to its production

While the notion seems far-fetched to some, there’s no denying just how different two wines can be, even when they’re made by the one vigneron from one grape variety grown in neighbouring vineyards. How can vineyards in such close proximity produce such varied flavours?

Terroir lies at the heart of the French wine naming system, based on regions, varieties suited to those regions and, in the case of Burgundy, a complex subdivision that finally draws a line around sometimes-tiny individual vineyards.

It’s easier to grasp the bigger picture behind that system than to perceive the finer, individual vineyard differences. Northeastern France, for example, is the domain of pinot noir and chardonnay in a big sweep from Reims in the north almost to Lyon in the south.

In the north, around Reims and Epernay, sparkling Champagne eventually triumphed as the regional specialty, principally because it’s too cold to make still table wine reliably.

While Champagne is a single appellation, the wines are not all equal. Behind the best wines lie the best vineyards – and these are officially graded, even if the vineyard names seldom appear on labels (though this is changing).

The best Champagnes from the best vineyards are unique. No other sparkling wine has the same combination of flavour intensity and finesse. Unfortunately there’s a lot of ordinary material parading under the name, so it’s a matter of caveat emptor.

A little to the south, at Chablis (the northernmost part of Burgundy), pinot noir drops out of the equation altogether, leaving chardonnay to make a white like no other in the world. Drinking Chablis has been described as like “sucking pebbles” – an evocative, if desperate, way of conveying its unique, lean, delicious, mouth watering, bone-dry character.

To me it’s the best value, most distinctive chardonnay on earth. And mere ‘Chablis’ does the job. You don’t have to move up the scale to ‘Premiere Cru’ or ‘Grand Cru’ (all based on defined individual vineyards) to enjoy the regional flavour. But the increments in quality are there when you buy wines from leading producers.

Further south, in Burgundy proper, chardonnay and pinot co-exist along the slopes stretching from Dijon to Macon, south of which the gamay grape takes over in the plump and juicy wines of Beaujolais.

Burgundy’s awe inspiring pinot noirs and chardonnays, like Le Chambertin and Le Montrachet respectively, make up only a small portion of total production. These vineyards are good enough to have individual appellations under French law. But even lesser Burgundies bear a general resemblance to these wines, albeit across a comparatively wide spectrum of styles. What’s notable is that there’s a general regional style and, within that, a range of distinctive sub-regional style, and within those sub-regions individual vineyards that produce superior wines over time.

Like Champagne, though, there’s a lot of dross trading under the Burgundy name, so it’s an expensive area to explore without expert guidance.

In Australia, too, chardonnay and pinot noir make a natural pair in our cooler regions. They’re the dominant varieties, for example, in Tasmania, the cooler parts of the Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula, Macedon and even in our neighbouring Tumbarumba region.

Unlike their French counterparts, however, our winemakers are not constrained by rigid laws specifying what they can and can’t grow. Over time regional specialties emerge, often after decades of trial and error. But even where regional specialties emerge, unlikely varieties thrive on particular sites and winemakers continue to experiment, with both traditional and new-to-Australia varieties, typically Spanish or Italian.

On the Mornington Peninsula, for example, pinot noir has emerged over the last forty years as the dominant specialty, followed closely by chardonnay. Pinot now makes up about forty per cent of Mornington’s annual grape crush and the best rate, to my taste, among the purest and finest in Australia.

The Mornington producers have already noted sub-regional flavour differences in their pinots based on variations in latitude and altitude. But what’s more intriguing, and harder to explain, are the flavour difference in wines from neighbouring vineyards.

Over the Christmas break we enjoyed two sub-regional tastings – the Western Barossa, and three individual vineyard 2007 vintage pinot noirs from Mornington producer, Ten Minutes by Tractor.

The Wallis, McCutcheon and Judd vineyards are all, literally, ten minutes by tractor from the winery at the cool, elevated, southern end of the Peninsula. Each was planted in the mid nineties and each has had some underperforming clones replaced by better ones between 2003 and 2007.

There are minor altitude differences between the vineyards and variations in soil and aspect; but one vigneron makes all three wines using the same techniques and same oak barrels – suggesting that the flavour variations may be attributable to a complex of factors (yes, this is where terroir becomes a possibility).

Shortly after opening the wines, the two older male tasters preferred the Judd Vineyard wine for its exuberant fruit and power over the delicate, understated McCutcheon and the firmer more savoury Wallis. On the other hand, a younger female taster found the Judd wine overwhelming. She was an inexperienced wine taster but perceived quite big difference among the wines.

After sipping away for a while both of the male tasters preferred the perfume, elegance and purity of the McCutcheon wine, elevated the solid, savoury Wallis to number two position and relegated Judd to third place – a lovely wine, but a bit bigger and more obvious than the other two (we finally saw what our your female companion had perceived at first sniff).

We were getting picky, as all three are outstanding by any measure — pure, varietal, complex and silky smooth. Chris Hamilton from Ten Minutes by Tractor tells me they offer this three vineyard tasting at cellar door and there’s no clear winner. People are fascinated by the flavour difference, but each wine has its followers.

The wines are available at cellar door (see www.tenminutesbytractor.com.au) and at fine wine outlets.

Tasmania rolls Burgundy and Champagne into one

25 November 2009Travel, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

In the nineties as Australian wine regions agonised over their boundaries, Tasmania got smart. Its winemakers saw that as small, comparatively homogenous producers, their interests would be best served by promoting the island as a whole. In opting for ‘Tasmania’ as their only entry in the register of protected names they neatly avoided the distraction of formally defining the state’s widely spread wine producing areas.

In the ensuing decade, as other states with vastly more varied wine styles defined zones, regions within zones and even sub-regions within regions, Tasmania stuck to its guns and still has ‘Tasmania’ as its only official appellation. But this hasn’t hindered the emergence of regional identities within the state.

Indeed, as soon as you set foot in a Tassie winery you’ll be given a copy of the excellent Tasmania’s wine routes 2009–10 and see on the map four regions: North-West, Tamar Valley, East Coast and Southern. And if you happen to be Hobart based, you’ll see the Southern region further sub-divided into the Derwent Valley, Coal River Valley and Huon Valley/d’Entrecasteaux.

But the location of Bream Creek Vineyard in the East Coast region, for example, demonstrates the difficulty of formally defining boundaries. It’s just a spit from Coal River Valley or Hobart but more than two hours’ drive from the northern end of the East Coast.

With vineyards located between 41 and 43 degrees south, and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, Tasmania enjoys a moderate climate with an extended, cool ripening period. This suits the production of delicate wine styles, dominated by pinot noir and chardonnay, used in both sparkling and table wine making The two varieties accounted for 71 per cent of production in 2008.

While the split between sparkling and table wine production is anybody’s guess, it could be as high as fifty-fifty given increased Tasmanian sourcing from mainland sparkling-wine producers and a growing number of home-grown brands.

Talking to grape growers across Tasmania it becomes clear that Constellation Wines (formerly BRL Hardy) is a major buyer of grapes for both still and sparkling wine. And Foster’s, Australia’s largest winemaker, is on the scout, too, snapping up top quality fruit for its Heemskerk brand and multi-regional icon blends, including Penfolds Yattarna Chardonnay.

In the latter, Foster’s has simply discovered, as Hardy’s did a decade earlier, that some of our greatest chardonnay grapes come from Tasmania. For example, Eileen Hardy Chardonnay, Constellation’s flagship white wine, has been predominantly Tasmanian for around ten years.

While the big producers, especially Constellation, exert a profound and positive impact on the Tasmanian wine scene, the view from the ground is of tens of small and medium sized independent makers sprinkled around the island.

The Australian Wine Industry Database lists 84 Tasmanian vignerons. But I suspect the number might have grown since it was compiled a year ago.

Tasmanian makers, focused at the top end of the bottled wine market, account for half a per cent of Australia’s wine grape output, contributing just 9,628 tonnes of the 1,827,647 tonnes crushed in 2008.

Pinot noir, at 4,355 tonnes, is the state’s most widely grown variety, accounting for 45 per cent of the crush in 2008 – highlighting the vast difference between this cool little Island and the mainland, where pinot accounts for only about two per cent of the harvest.

In 2008 Tasmanians harvested 2,501 tonnes of chardonnay, its second most important variety; 992 tonnes of sauvignon blanc; 732 tonnes of riesling; 452 tonnes of pinot gris and tiny quantities of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, gewürztraminer, shiraz and other niche varieties.

In effect, given the dominance of pinot noir and chardonnay, Tasmania is the equivalent of France’s Champagne and Burgundy regions rolled into one, albeit on a far smaller scale.

Tasmania’s first modern vineyards appeared near Launceston in 1956 (Jean Miguet’s La Provence, now Providence and owned by Stuart Bryce) and on the Derwent in 1958 (Claudio Alcorso’s Moorilla Estate, now owned by David Walsh and partners).

But growth was slow. Thirty years after Miguet planted his first vines, Tasmania had only 47 hectares of bearing vines, producing 154 tonnes of grapes – equivalent to about 11 thousand dozen bottles.

By 1999 the area under vine had grown almost tenfold to 463 hectares, producing 3,199 tonnes (224 thousand dozen bottles). And by 2008 vines covered 1,315 hectares, yielding 9,628 tonnes (674 thousand dozen bottles).

As we’ve seen, this accounts for only half a per cent of Australia’s wine production. But it’s all pitched at the top end of the market. While some of it may disappear anonymously into mainstream sparkling wine blends, the majority come to market under Tasmanian labels.

It’s far more than the Tasmanians themselves can drink, so producers look to the mainland, tourists and exports for sales in an increasingly competitive market.

Fortunately for them, they have something unique and delightful to offer, as we’ll see over the next few weeks.

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

19 August 2009People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Florita Vineyard timeline

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

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

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

1961
Leo Buring dies at 85 years.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big makers must deliver the regional message

29 July 2009People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

‘Terroir’, or a sense of place, is the vocabulary of the fine-wine world. It’s the language of regions, their climates and soils and the grapes that work best in particular circumstances. The wine drinker’s fascination with origin progresses to the peculiarities of individual vineyards sites and the subtle differences of wines from various locations within a region.

Australia’s has ‘terroirs’ galore, manifested by the tremendous spread of our more than two thousand small vignerons and legion of independent grape growers. But in our conquest of world markets we’ve limited our vocabulary largely to a generic sunshine-in-a-bottle, multi-region-blend message.

This promises a base for our next round of expansion as we take our regional stories to the world. To achieve this, however, our big winemakers – those leading the current, but faltering, export success – must embrace the ‘terroir’ concept – not just mouth it, but comprehend it and take it to the world.

They don’t need to use the French term ‘terroir’ – and perhaps may better off without it even though we don’t have a comparable English word. But what it sums up for Australia is our tremendously varied regional and intra-regional wine stories, some just a few decades in the making, others stretching back to the mid nineteenth century.

The concept underpins all of our successful small makers and many of our locally successful big company upmarket brands – for example, the Foster’s-owned Wynns of Coonawarra. Indeed, for Australian wine drinkers the name Wynns, Coonawarra and cabernet sauvignon are indistinguishable – making Wynns a model of a wine brand, intimately linked to its region and the region’s varietal specialty.

The link exists not through slick marketing but through the Wynns wines enjoyed by Australians for almost sixty years ¬– what’s in the glass tells the Coonawarra story.

But after Australia’s decade of export success, the story of this fifty-eight-year-old brand remains little known outside Australia, even in our biggest export markets, the UK and USA. In the latter, said winemaker Sue Hodder in Canberra last week, the trade accepts Wynns shiraz because shiraz is seen as Australia’s special variety, but rejects Wynns cabernet, partly because it upstages American cabernets in Foster’s portfolio.

Meanwhile back in Australia the Wynns regional story moved on to individual vineyards earlier this decade – reflecting the fact that even in a flat, apparently homogenous region like Coonawarra, quality and shades of flavour vary widely, even over short distances.

The focus began in earnest after the disastrous 2002 vintage says Hodder. A vineyard rejuvenation project, already being led by Allen Jenkins, gathered pace across Wynns vast holdings, spread across Coonawarra.

Allen worked closely with Sue, monitoring grape quality, and ultimately wine style and quality, across scores of blocks and even rows of vines within blocks.

The first individual vineyard wine that I recall from the project was Wynns ‘Harold’ Cabernet Sauvignon 2001, sourced from a nine-hectare block purchased by Wynns from Harold Childs in 1966 and replanted to cabernet in 1971. The block sits about half way between Coonawarra village and Penola on the northwestern corner of the Riddoch Highway (dissecting Coonawarra north to south) and Stony Road. You can see the vineyard by searching ‘Stony Road Coonawarra’ on Google Earth.

Eight years on Harold 2001 looks young, with a beautiful floral lift to the varietal aroma and a fresh, supple, elegant ripe-berry palate. It’s a delight to drink and quite distinctive in the Wynns line-up, albeit in the Coonawarra family mould.

What a contrast Harold presents to Wynns ‘Messenger’ Cabernet Sauvignon 2005. This is a fuller, riper, earthier style (still very much Coonawarra cabernet) from a 3.3-hectare vineyard planted in 1975 on what would’ve then been Coonawarra’s southwestern fringe. Apparently the block performs well in warm years like 2005.

In another different vein Wynns ‘Johnson’s’ Shiraz Cabernet 2003 presents a round, soft palate (thanks to the shiraz) with bright, fresh, red-berry flavours. Sue says the block always delivers these distinctive flavours in both cabernet and shiraz. The block’s cultivated history stretches back to the 1890s. Wynns acquired it in 1951 as part of their original purchase. Today it has 32 hectares of shiraz, planted in 1925, and 19 hectares of cabernet sauvignon, planted in 1954.

And from the ‘Alex’ block, located one kilometre north of the Wynns winery, comes a new cabernet from the 2006 vintage. It’s very deep and ripe with rich, supple, clearly varietal palate – an open, appealing style and a pleasure to drink now. It’s from a block acquired by James Alexander in 1892, bought by Wynns in 1982 and planted to grapes in 1988.

These single vineyard wines present some of the colour and shade of Coonawarra, variations based partly on quantifiable climate differences (Coonawarra’s flat but grapes ripen almost two weeks later in southern Coonawarra than they do just 15–20 kilometres north) and partly to less quantifiable factors like variation in soil types. And that’s overimplifying what’s behind the fascinating flavour difference.

The single site wines add spice to the core range which has also benefited from a decade of vineyard rejuvenation. The just released shiraz 2008 presents a beautifully fragrant, vibrant, elegant face of Coonawarra shiraz – medium bodied, spicy, supple and with cellaring potential, despite its drink-now appeal.

Good old black label cabernet 2007, made in tiny volumes thanks to frost and drought, is elegant, refined and pure in its varietal character. Its bigger brother, John Riddoch 2006, is all power and grace – a beautifully aromatic cabernet of great intensity and harmony.

These are all wines that tell their own regional story. They’re graceful, delicious and varied but have a regional stamp. There’s no marketing artifice, just an honest story of the land, the vines and the people tending the vines and making the wines. The evolving story is best told directly by winemaker Sue Hodder and viticulturist Allen Jenkinson. The role of the marketers is to understand this story and help Sue and Allen pass it on to wine drinkers. It isn’t like marketing fast moving consumer goods or even like marketing big beer brands. They’re different worlds and we live in hope that Foster’s might grasp it and take some of our greatest wine names to the world.

A yummy Hunter shiraz tasting

20 May 2009Vineyard, Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Ask any retailer and they’ll tell you Hunter shiraz is a hard sell. In the past it’s been described as tasting of sweaty saddles, old boots and even a gypsy’s nether regions. Like its white cellar mate, semillon, Hunter shiraz remains an intensely loved, niche wine style with tremendous ageing ability. The best are profound and – surprisingly when you look at the northerly latitude and hot climate of the Hunter – medium bodied and refined.

For a period in the eighties and nineties some Hunter shirazes caught the oak craze. But rather than push the region’s shiraz into the full-bodied mainstream, strong oak flavour and tannin simply swamped the delicate fruit – prompting one veteran Hunter maker, Phil Laffer, to say he’d shoot any winemaker using new oak.

But for every action there’s a reaction, and from the nineties we’ve seen a resurgence of Hunter shiraz making. Vignerons with a great respect for the old, long-lived styles and the patches of old vines in the Valley now produce a great diversity of top shiraz within the distinctive, medium-bodied, earthy mould.

Probably all of the best makers hold in awe the extraordinary Maurice O’Shea reds of the forties and early fifties – sourced largely from vines that still exist on McWilliams Mount Pleasant property, in the lee of the Brokenback Range.

And thanks to the Lindemans maturation cellar, established by Ray Kidd in the sixties, the same makers, and many wine drinkers of my generation, will have tasted classics from Lindemans Ben Ean vineyard, Pokolbin. Rare bottles of the 1965 Hunter River Burgundy Bin 3110 and Bin 3100 (one with a dash of pinot with the shiraz) still drink well. And has there ever been a better Hunter red (or, indeed, Australian red) than the beautiful 1959 Hunter River Burgundy Bin 1590?

Lindemans rationed small quantities of it into the market during the seventies and eighties from its air-conditioned, humidified cellars. I remember the final release (not sure if it was late eighties or early nineties). I worked for Farmer Bros at the time and we placed a dozen bottles in the cellar under the Manuka store (now Vintage Cellars) – kept at a constant 12 degrees.

We aimed to share the occasional bottle, hopefully over the next several decades as treasures like this should never be rushed. But, alas, Farmers went belly up in the last recession and Liquorland (owned at the time by Coles Myer) ended up with the stores and the stock.

Several months later, in mid 1995 and now working for Liquorland, I was there when the precious case appeared at a suppliers’ dinner in the Hunter. What an impressive stunt – every last trophy bottle slipped down the hatch in one evening. But I had the good fortune to sit with Len Evans, and shared the bottle he’d so carefully slipped under the table. There it was, 36 years old, gloriously, ethereally delicious and good for many more years.

While the precious old O’Shea and Lindemans wines inspired winemakers, Tyrrell’s and McWilliams, thanks to winemaker Phil Ryan, had kept working on the regional style without a break. And from the eighties, Brokenwood’s ‘Graveyard Vineyard’ shiraz took on a legendary status. This, perhaps more than any other single wine, restored respect to Hunter shiraz.

It’s at the full-bodied end of the Hunter spectrum – but far lighter, say, than Barossa or McLaren Vale shirazes. The just-released 2007 fetches $140 a bottle and back vintages are always in strong demand at auction.

Its release, alongside several other wonderful top-end Hunter shirazes, prompted this column. These are wonderful wines with proven cellaring ability and all from great old vineyards. Anyone who’s kept a cellar knows that it’s not always rewarding. From my experience well-chose Hunter shiraz usually comes up trumps. Recent examples include maturing but youthful Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz 1994, McWilliams Maurice O’Shea Shiraz 2000, McWilliams Rosehill Vineyard Shiraz 1998, Vintage Cellars Somerset Vineyard Shiraz 1997.

Brokenwood Graveyard Vineyard Hunter Valley Shiraz 2007 $140
The deepest coloured of the five wines in the tasting, Graveyard is still limpid and crimson rimmed. It’s ripe and earthy with noticeable, sympathetic oak. The fruit’s deep, concentrated and layered and the oak gives a spicy bite – but the tannins are soft. This one will age for decades. Vine age 39 years’; Graveyard vineyard. Screw cap.

Tulloch Private Bin Pokolbin Dry Red Shiraz 2007 $35
This is the third vintage of the reborn Tulloch Private Bin Red, a once legendary, long-cellaring wine that was as much an icon to the red drinkers of the fifties as Grange is today. This is pure, beautifully made Hunter shiraz – intensely flavoured, finely structured, silk smooth and elegant. There’s not a rough edge to it – tribute to superb fruit and sympathetic wine making. It should drink beautifully for decades if well cellared. The Tulloch label returned to the Tulloch family in 2001 after 32 years under corporate ownership. Vine age 100 years plus; Tallawanta Vineyard. Screw cap.

Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea Hunter Valley Shiraz 2005 $65
This is another comparatively big Hunter wine at 15 per cent alcohol. It’s ripe and earthy with just the first notes of maturity showing. There’s quite a bite to this one, both from tannin and oak, but the flavour depth and firm structure suggest long-term cellaring. Vine age over 125 years; Old Hill Vineyard. Screw cap.

Mount Pleasant OP&OH Hunter Valley Shiraz 2004 $39.99
While this is still big in alcohol at 14.5 per cent, it’s notably lighter bodied than the Maurice O’Shea wine. There’s spiciness to the aroma, nicely seasoning the warm, earthy Hunter aroma. The spiciness comes through, too, on the warm, supple, earthy palate giving a pleasing twist in the otherwise, soft, gentle finish. Another classy wine needing time, if only the cork survives – wine had already penetrated two-thirds of the one in the sample bottle. Vine age: from 1921 on the Old Paddock (OP) vineyard and from 1880 on the adjacent Old Hill vineyard (OH). Cork.

Mount Pleasant Rosehill Vineyard Hunter Valley Shiraz 2004 $33.99
Maurice O’Shea planted the Rosehill vineyard in 1946 near what is now Lake’s Folly vineyard, several kilometres from the Mount Pleasant property. This is the lightest bodied of the three Mount Pleasant reds and probably the least adorned with winemaker artefacts. It’s warm, mellow and earthy on the nose with a delicious, medium-bodied, earthy palate, finishing soft, with a little spicy twist. Long cellaring if the cork holds (had already travelled one centimetre in the sample bottle. Vine age: 58 years; Rosehill Vineyard.

Albarino mix-up spreads to Spain

29 April 2009People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

Until recently Australia’s vignerons had – or thought they had – about 150 hectares of albarino in the ground. But DNA testing initiated by the CSIRO in January found that our albarino was, in fact, savagnin blanc (not related to the popular variety sauvignon blanc, and also known as traminer).

The discovery opens a can of worms for every one in the supply chain from vine nurseries, to growers, makers, distributors, retailers and scientific and regulatory bodies around the world.

In Australia, the first and most immediately affected are successful albarino makers with stock labelled and ready for market or under production from the 2009 vintage. These include the Barossa’s Damien Tscharke (our largest producer, with 4,000 cases of the 2009 vintage in the making), Brown Brothers, Crittenden Wines and Bermagui’s tiny Rusty Fig vineyard, owned by Garry Potts and Frances Perkins.

Following the CSIRO discovery, the Australian Wine and Brand Corporation – the federal body responsible for administering wine law – issued a blunt press release. It told winemakers that it was an offence to sell wine with a false description and that “if you have ‘albarino’ vines that were sourced from the CSIRO collection, then the wine produced from those vines cannot be described using that name”. It also urged growers with vines from other sources to have their material DNA tested.

On the surface that sound fair enough. Indeed, all of the albarino makers I’ve spoken to are preparing for the change. But the black letter of the law doesn’t take into account the peculiar circumstances of this error. It appears to have originated in Spain, affects many wine producing countries (including Spain, Portugal and Australia) and its origins may go as far back as 1100AD.

In a paper to be published in the May edition of Grape Grower & Winemaker, Chris Bourke (owner of Sons & Brother vineyard, Orange) traces the history of savagnin and discusses its confusion with albarino. He told me that savagnin probably found its way from France’s Jura region to Galicia, northwestern Spain, around 1100AD.

There it would have grown side-by-side with albarino, the region’s current signature variety, ever since. He says there is good evidence that modern Spanish and Portuguese ‘albarino’ vineyards contain a mix of three varieties – albarino, savagnin and caino blanco – and, therefore, that much of what Spain sells as ‘albarino’ is probably a blend of the three varieties.

This may explain why experts see so much similarity between Australian ‘albarino’, made from savagnin, and Spanish albarino

Just as a visiting French vine expert precipitated Australia’s recent ‘albarino’ testing, another Frenchman, Paul Truel, questioned the identity of Spain’s albarino as far back as 1983, Chris Bourke claims.

Ultimately the Spanish established that ‘true’ albarino had a distinctive DNA, identified savagnin as a ‘false’ albarino and removed it from the national collection – but not before the damage was done.

The Spanish, says Bourke, claim that a single mis-identified vine is responsible for the false albarino that spread around the world.

For Australia, the problem began unknowingly when the CSIRO sourced ‘albarino’ from Galicia, Spain, in 1989. This is thought to be the ultimate source of all the ‘albarino’ now planted here. In a letter to his albarino customers last week, Mornington Peninsula vigneron Garry Crittenden wrote, “The problem seems to be generic in that the only known source of planting material in the whole of Australia is CSIRO so every producer, Australia wide, is caught up in the issue. Somehow there has been a stuff up along the line”. Indeed.

Garry said that he sources albarino from two blocks on the Mornington Peninsula and Sam Miranda’s vineyard in the King Valley and that he’s tracked all three back to the CSIRO.

So if what we’ve been drinking as albarino is actually savagnin (an unfamiliar variety to most of us) and savagnin is just another name for traminer (a familiar old friend to Australians), why doesn’t it taste musky and grapey like the traminer we’re used to?

This is probably where the whole world is confused – and why experts like the Barossa’s Damien Tscharke and Mornington’s Garry Crittenden find it impossible to distinguish between savagnin and albarino vines or the wines made from them. The same might be said for all those Portuguese and Spanish growers, too.

It highlights the subtleties of the vine, the limitations of DNA testing and also the persistence of muscat, perhaps the oldest of our cultivated varieties. Muscat influences many varieties and accounts for the aroma and flavour difference between savagnin (traminer) and gewürztraminer.

Now, Australians and Germans use traminer, incorrectly, as a synonym for gewürztraminer. The difference between the two is easily discernible in the colour of the berries and the aroma and flavour of wine made from them. But, says Chris Bourke, the two have identical DNA.

He says the difference is probably made by a single enzyme that boosts production in the berries of monoterpenes – the compounds that give gewürztraminer its powerful, distinctive musky aroma, flavour and viscosity – traits absent in mere traminer (savagnin).

While the existence of the two strains (sometime called musque clones and non-musque clones) has long been known, Bourke believes that this is the first appearance in Australia of the non-musque strain since James Busby’s importation of it in 1832. But Bourke sees its presence as a positive.

However, Australian albarino makers now face a challenge in re-branding their product and selling the message to drinkers. But they have much on their side, including knowledgeable drinkers, strong trade support, especially among sommeliers, and a tasty product with a real flavour difference.

Garry Crittenden is hopeful that a coming stakeholder meeting with the AWBC can produce a practical result – perhaps giving producers a phasing-in period to sell existing stock in the domestic market as ‘albarino’.

However, other options could be available. Those with proprietary names, such as Tscharke ‘Girl Talk’ and Crittenden ‘Los Hermanos’ might remove the varietal tag from the front label altogether – and perhaps tell the savagnin story on the back label.

Tscharke, Crittenden, Brown and Potts all say that regardless of the outcome they intend to continue with the variety whatever it’s called. It’ll still taste the same.

With Australian winemakers preparing to rename their albarinos, what should we expect of Spanish producers? If, as seems likely, much of their albarino production is a blend of albarino, savagnin and caino blanco, shouldn’t it, too, be renamed to reflect the reality?

Mitchell — a great Clare Estate

1 April 2009People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

Mitchell’s of Clare have made extraordinarily good wines consistently since 1975, when Jane and Andrew Mitchell kicked off the venture. I first tasted the wines in the late seventies and have enjoyed them every year since – on the tasting bench, with meals and on all-too-rare visits to the winery. It’s a sustained and impressive performance.

The Mitchell’s drew inspiration from Andrew’s father, Peter McNicol Mitchell, who’d arrived in Clare to grow grapes in 1949. “His hard work”, writes Andrew on one of his back labels, “provided the ideal foundation for the vineyard, cellars and winemaking philosophy which Jane and I have spent most of our lives developing”.

From a small start in 1975, the Mitchell’s now crush 500–700 tonnes of grapes annually, equivalent to around 35–50 thousand dozen bottles. This makes them pretty big as small winemakers go. But they’ve stuck to their knitting and produce nothing but Clare Valley wines, principally from their own vineyards but with some material from local growers.

The Mitchell’s riesling and shiraz (Clare’s signature varieties) always rank with the best from the region. But they produce several other convincing styles, including semillon, cabernet sauvignon and a unique grenache, sangiovese, mourvedre blend.

The current releases include two rieslings, Watervale 2008 from the Mitchell’s Watervale vineyard in southern Clare, and McNicol 2005 from a cooler, higher site (500 metres versus 420 metres) to the north.

It’s the first release of the McNicol 2005 so for comparison we opened it alongside a bottle of the 2005 Watervale. They were both fresh and lively but the Watervale was half a shade deeper in colour than the McNicol and a little rounder, softer and more mature on the palate – a delicious wine, but notably different from the brisk, taut, very concentrated McNicol.

Given similar winemaking approaches, the subtle aroma and flavour differences express the two different sites. Presumably that’s driven largely by altitude and, hence, ripening temperature. But different soil types probably play a role, too – stony quartzite at the McNicol site and red loam over limestone at Watervale.

The McNicol represents excellent value at $42 for a beautiful five-year-old riesling. The 2005 Watervale is no longer available. But the 2008 is outstanding – in the Mitchell’s comparatively full, ripe and richly textured style. Like the 2005 it should continue to drink well as it matures over years – perhaps for a decade.

Semillon’s long and, at times, successful history in the Clare Valley probably had its heyday was when it was labelled ‘white burgundy’. It continues to make a delicious wine but for reasons unknown the word ‘semillon’ now seems to turn wine drinkers off.

It’s a pity because several Clare growers, including Mitchell and Mount Horrocks, make appealing, satisfying versions. The just-released Mitchell Watervale 2007 uses wild-yeast ferment and French oak to great effect. The technique captures the appealing lemon-like varietal character of the variety, builds a rich, smooth texture and inserts a sympathetic note of oak flavour. It’s vibrant and enjoyable now and ought to age well for many years. And showing semillon’s versatility, Mitchell Noble Semillon 2006 ($20 for 375ml) shows the variety’s sweet but dazzling face, overlaid with apricot and marmalade-like notes of botrytis cinerea (noble rot).

The Mitchell reds all come with a little bottle age. That’s rare and it adds a lot to their enjoyment. The modestly priced GSM, for example, comes from the excellent 2005 vintage. It’s an unoaked blend of grenache, sangiovese and mourvedre sourced from very old hand-pruned vines. Exuberant grenache forms the base but it’s restrained by small amounts of savoury, tannic sangiovese and mourvedre – resulting in a lively, fruity, maturing red with a fine-boned but assertive tannic bite. $22 is a small price to pay for a wine of this calibre.

The two shirazes in the release are from the 2006 and 2001 vintages. Mitchell Peppertree Shiraz 2006, from Watervale, is crimson-rimmed and fragrant with succulent varietal flavour reminiscent of ripe-black-cherry (with a little black-pepper in the background).

The screwcap sealed McNicol Shiraz 2001 ($45) reveals its extra five years bottle age in its colour (red, not crimson like the 2006) and that indescribable, satisfying shift from ‘grape-like to ‘red-wine-like’. A deep, sweet fruitiness remains (that’s the core of the wine) but there’s now a mellow edge that adds immensely to the drinking pleasure. But it’s only just entering that mellow phase, so it’s likely to give pleasure for another decade or more.

The Mitchell wines are well distributed, so they shouldn’t be too hard to find. They’re also available at cellar – a must-visit if you visit the Clare Valley. See www.mitchellwines.com

Redman — 100 years in Coonawarra

19 November 2008People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

Fourteen-year-old Bill Redman arrived in Coonawarra in 1901with his older brother, Dick. They’d heard that work was available at John Riddoch’s cellars, says Bill’s grandson, Bruce. ‘Bill was small and they put him to work in the cellar (he could fit into barrels’, adds Bruce, ‘but his brother was bigger and was put to work in the vineyards’.

Dick left Coonawarra, but Bill remained, buying land from John Riddoch’s executors in 1908 and ultimately becoming one of the significant wine figures of the area. ‘He learned by apprenticeship, not study’, Bruce comments, and made wines very similar in style to those made by Bruce and his brother Malcolm today as the family celebrates 100 years of Coonawarra winemaking.

Bill’s long life linked today’s winemaking with the earliest pioneering times of John Riddoch. As his vineyards planted in the early 1890s came on stream, John Riddoch appointed Ewen F McBain as winemaker in 1898. He was the first qualified winemaker in Coonawarra and became mentor to the young Bill Redman, promoting him to chief cellarman in 1907 or 1908.

Bruce says that Bill made his first wine in 1909 and continued to learn by trial and error. Presumably by the time his son Owen joined him in 1936, Bill’s approach to Coonawarra grape growing and winemaking was well established – though his most celebrated wines, the legendary, extraordinarily long-lived Woodleys Treasure Chest series, were made between 1946 and 1956.

By this time Owen had returned from World War II and the family’s Rouge Homme wines had been in production since 1950. Although we know Coonawarra today as mainly a cabernet sauvignon region, Bruce recalls that his grandfather considered the area’s ideal red was a blend of two-thirds cabernet and one-third shiraz.

In 1965 as large wine companies clamoured for red wine, the Redmans sold the Rouge Homme winery, vineyards and name to Lindemans. Immediately afterwards, though, Owen Redman purchased about nine hectares of old shiraz vines from another district pioneer, Arthur Hoffman, and in 1966 (the year that Bill stepped down), made the first wine for the Redman label.

A straight shiraz, it was released as ‘Redmans Claret’, following the generic labelling style of the day. Owen introduced a straight cabernet sauvignon in 1970 and it was not until 1990 that his sons, Bruce and Malcolm, introduced a cabernet sauvignon merlot blend to the range.

Bruce, the family’s first qualified winemaker, took over from his father in 1982 (Owen died in 1989, just ten years after Bill’s death) but maintained the winemaking style developed by his grandfather and father.
Bruce says that he still follows the principles drummed into him by the older generations: keep the winery spotlessly clean, pick grapes on flavour (neither green nor over ripe, but just right) and not the hydrometer; and let the wines make themselves, without a lot of manipulation.

This approach across the generations has given the Redmans an unusually consistent style in a region that’s passed through many winemaking phases. Having tasted a Bill Redman wines from 1919, several from the 1940s and early fifties; Owen’s wines of the sixties and seventies; Bruce’s wines from 1982 on; and all of the Wynns’ 1950s and 1960s, my feeling is that these were all of a style – medium bodied and elegant, with delightful berry fruit flavours, no obvious oak flavours and an ability to age.

Redmans stuck with this style, not deviating to the shocking green, unripe styles adopted by some makers in the late seventies and early eighties; nor to the sweet and sour styles that resulted from misguided pruning practices of the eighties; nor to the too-ripe, too-tannic, too-oaky styles that emerged in the late eighties and into the nineties.

Indeed, the Redman wines stand out as distinct, elegant examples of Coonawarra. There’s a deliberate philosophy behind their making; a clear understanding of what the alternative styles might be; and that century-long family familiarity with Coonawarra and its wines.

Bruce Redman intentionally makes the ‘elegant’ rather than the international style and says he approaches wine making much the way his father Owen — and before that Owen’s father — the legendary Bill Redman did.

The Redman’s 34 hectares of mature vines, towards the northern end of Coonawarra, are hand pruned and trellised to avoid the ‘hedging’ effect common with mechanical pruning.

Bruce says this gives his berries good sun exposure and hence a measure of protection against disease while developing ripe flavours a tad earlier than shaded grapes — an important factor in Coonawarra where autumn rain often threatens a late crop.

Timing of harvest is the key to the Redman wine style. Bruce says that in Coonawarra ripe flavours develop in grapes at comparatively low sugar (and hence potential alcohol) levels. Where some wine makers aim for grapes with an alcohol potential of 13.5 per cent or more, he picks on flavour backed up by chemical analysis.

Thus, the Redman wines tend to be lower in alcohol than most Coonawarra wines and deliver lovely, delicate, ripe-berry flavours. But, adds Bruce, in unusually hot years like 2005 and 2008, there’s little choice but to harvest at higher sugar (and hence alcohol) levels as the wines would otherwise have green tannins.

In the winery, ferments are conducted in small open vats and the cap of skins is hand plunged three times a day to aid colour and flavour extraction. This gentle technique, combined with a warm ferment (20-25 degrees Celsius) gives good flavour, colour and tannin extraction without harshness.

Oak maturation plays an important role in mellowing grape tannins and adding structure to the wine. ‘We use oak as a tool to enhance fruit flavour’, says Bruce. He adds that Redmans have always used oak, that what they have used over time has reflected what they could afford – but that even now new oak makes up only 10–15 per cent of the total, with the new French oak being used for the cabernet and the new American barrels for shiraz.

And in a salute to the heritage, in 2002 Bruce assembled a special blend for release in this, the centenary year. He says he started with Bill’s old two-thirds shiraz, one-third cabernet blend in mind, but arrived at a blend that’s half cabernet and one quarter each of shiraz and merlot – a variety not available to his father and grandfather.

Bruce reckons that too much good red is drunk when it’s too young, but winemakers can’t afford to hold onto it. Hence this blend, just 200 cases of it, arrives to market at good maturity. It’s a superb drop, in the intense, fine Redmans style. It’s available for $70 at the cellar door. And there’ll be follow up vintages.

A new force in Canberra winemaking

22 October 2008People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

Capital Wines, the new joint venture between Jennie and Mark Mooney of Grazing restaurant and Andrew and Marion McEwin’s Kyeema Wines, could quickly become a frontrunner among our local wineries.

It has a couple of advantages that new entrants to an industry known for its long lead times seldom enjoy. For one, Capital Wines gains immediate access to the McEwin’s long-established vineyard at Murrumbateman – one of the Canberra District’s most distinguished, albeit under-marketed.

It also has an established winery; established winemaking contracts with other growers; a core of goodwill towards the much-admired (if little known) Kyeema brand; and a dream cellar door site earmarked alongside Grazing in the Royal Hotel, Gundaroo.

Jenny says that high visitor numbers means it makes sense to locate the planned cellar door in Gundaroo and not near the winery or vineyard at Murrumbateman.

The 50:50 joint venture brings the Mooneys back into the industry that brought them to Canberra in the first place, adds Jennie. In the late nineties, after studying viticulture and ‘looking everywhere’ they established Tallagandra Vineyard. But in 2004 they sold it to Lamberts having been ‘distracted by a very busy restaurant’.

With Grazing restaurant now leased to chef Tom Moore, the Mooneys are concentrating on the new business – Mark tending the vines, Jennie heading up marketing. And freed of these chores Andrew McEwin can focus on winemaking.

Capital Wines plans to ‘focus on production of premium Canberra Region wine’. Presumably this means retaining more Kyeema vineyard fruit for its own labels, now being rolled out as the ‘Ministry series’.

The first of these, ‘The Ambassador’ Tempranillo 2007, from the Kyeema vineyard, is due for release at about the time this column is to be published. Others to follow include ‘The Frontbencher’, ‘The Backbencher’ and ‘Mr Speaker’, all bearing generic political caricatures.

These are attractive labels, notwithstanding caveats expressed in last week’s column, and could prove catchy in the nation’s political capital.

Pleasingly for Andrew McEwin, the fruit source gets a nod in the label blurb with ‘made from fruit grown in our renowned Kyeema Vineyard’. On past performance, both of the old Kyeema label and of other wines using fruit from the vineyard, the wines are likely to be very good.

The vineyard dates to the early eighties, barely a decade after Drs Edgar Riek and John Kirk planted Canberra’s first vines. Over a couple of seasons, Ron McKenzie established a number of grape varieties on his property, Mamre, at Murrumbateman.

From 1987 Andrew McEwin bought McKenzie’s fruit for his Kyeema label before buying the vineyard in1999, subsequently renaming it. The shiraz, planted in 1982 and known as the ‘Penfolds’ clone was always the star. It earned gold medals for the Kyeema label and was highly prized by Hardy’s during their time in Canberra. More recently it was the source of fruit for Alex McKay’s brilliant Collector Reserve Shiraz 2006.

In recent years McEwin revamped the vineyard, extending shiraz plantings from cuttings off the original vines, replacing cabernet with shiraz, adding tempranillo and retrellising it entirely. What was ‘grow and sprawl’, said Andrew in an interview last year, is now the more controlled, and quality orientated, vertical shoot positioning system’.

Now, at last, the vineyard may have a marketing focus to match the quality of its fruit and wines.