Category Archives: Vineyard

Wine review — Brindabella Hills & Hewitson

22 July 2007Vineyard, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Brindabella Hills Canberra District Shiraz 2005 $25
Perhaps it’s the sandy, gravely soils, wonders winemaker Roger Harris, that makes shiraz from comparatively low-altitude, warm Hall so amazingly cool-climate-fragrant in style. It’s seductively floral with a matching delicate, juicy flavour and elegant, supple structure – a sensational wine. And I suspect that it’ll grow in interest for several more years. Roger sources it principally from his own vines (planted as pinot noir, originally, then grafted to shiraz) with some from neighbouring vineyards on the Murrumbidgee Valley side of Hall. It’s a great favour for drinkers that it’s been allowed a year’s bottle age following cask ageing. See www.brindabellahills.com.au

Brindabella Hills Canberra District Sauvignon Blanc 2007 $18
Brindabella Hill Canberra District Chardonnay Viognier 2006 $25
Sauvignon Blanc and blends of it with semillon became the sweet spot in Aussie white consumption patterns some years back. They’re not the star varieties in the Canberra district but Roger and Faye Harris have made their straight sauvignon a regional benchmark – the 2007 appealing for its passionfruit-like varietal character, zingy freshness and delicious, fleshy palate. Roger’s adventurous addition of viognier to chardonnay might have gone over the top – viognier having such powerful aromas and flavours. But, in this barrel-fermented-and-matured version it works as the viognier adds richness without dominating.

Hewitson The Mad Hatter McLaren Vale Shiraz 2005 $50
Hewitson Old Garden Barossa Valley Mourvedre 2005 $50
The international language of top-quality wine focuses on vineyard location. It’s a concept inherent in every estate-grown wine and, increasingly, in offerings like these highly distinctive Dean-Hewitson-made reds. These are the antithesis of the delicate Brindabella Hills shiraz described above – and that variability contributes to the beauty and appeal of wine. The mourvedre, a solid, firm, concentrated and spicy red comes from a 154-year-old vineyard at Rowland Flat in the southern Barossa. It’s cellar mate, from the confluence of McLaren Vale’s Seaview Ridge and Blewitt Springs subregions, shows a comparable power and concentration but with the savoury softness of shiraz. These are a delight to savour. See www.hewitson.com.au

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Coonawarra origins — not long above sea level

18 July 2007Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

Coonawarra is, of course, Australia’s most-famous patch of cabernet growing dirt and a recent Chateau Shanahan tasting, though far from definitive, gave the region a healthy score card. But it wasn’t thumbs up for all of the wines tasted and, as well, several otherwise appealing drops suffered from over-oaking — a scourge that won’t quite die in Australia.

But before we look at the wines, let’s look at the region. Coonawarra lies about 400 kilometres south of Adelaide on what is now called the Limestone Coast – for good reason – though most South Australians still know it as the ‘south east’.

They’re lucky to have the Limestone Coast in South Australia at all. It could well be Victoria’s ‘far west’, as a glance at the map (or Google earth) shows.

This fertile strip of land is physically separated from South Australia as it lies entirely south of the Murray (if we include Lake Alexandrina as part of the Murray) and is separated from Victoria by nothing more than a line drawn on the map – the western boundary being the sea.

Coonawarra can only be understood in the context of this vast and comparatively recent limestone formation – Coonawarra, for example, having been above the sea for only about seven hundred thousand years.

A series of fossilised sand dunes between Coonawarra and the coast mark former shorelines as the sea retreated in glacial periods and advanced as the climate warmed. But as the land continued to rise, the shorelines shifted steadily to the west.

It seems that what we know as Coonawarra today was once an inter-dunal lagoon, perhaps similar to today’s Coorong, just an hour’s drive northwest.

These recent marine origins explain the presence of limestone beneath the generally shallow topsoils of the region. And these topsoils appear to be derived largely from that limestone bedrock.

Driving through Coonawarra you might say that it’s flat and featureless. But with the water table so close to the surface, variations of only a few metres in elevation make significant differences to land usage – especially to suitability for grape growing.

This would have been quickly apparent to Coonawarra’s early settlers before today’s drainage canals had been excavated or large-scale irrigation had affected the water table.

When John Riddoch established the Coonawarra Fruit Colony in the late nineteenth century – and this was the forerunner of the wine industry – the lower lying parts would’ve been inundated in winter and the main north-south road, around which today’s vineyards are concentrated, almost certainly marked the highest, driest tract of land.

Long before Europeans carved the road, this perennial elevated strip of land would’ve been dry and exposed to the air far more than the seasonally inundated land around it.

Over time this exposure led to the oxidation of the iron content from black ferric oxide to red ferrous oxide – giving Coonawarra’s central strip it’s famous russet colour, known as terra rossa – quite literally ‘red earth’. The surrounding soils remained black and are still subject to flooding.

The early fruit growers discovered that the comparatively well-drained red soils proved more productive than the black soils. As winemaking became the mainstay towards the latter half of the twentieth century, these red soils remained the favoured sites for grape growing, too.

Then, in the early nineties, Australia negotiated a treaty with Europe in which we recognised each other’s wine regions. The problem for Australia was that we had no formal boundaries that could be recognised.

From this grew our Geographic Indications (GI) system under which we defined and recognised in law our wine zones and regions. Thus, the Coonawarra Region became one of several regions within the Limestone Coast Zone.

The at times bitter wrangling over what was and wasn’t in Coonawarra led to the declaration of an area far larger than the popular notion of Coonawarra’s long red strip of terra rossa.

The original twenty-kilometre long cigar-shaped strip might now constitute perhaps five per cent of the declared area.

Admittedly, only a small portion of that is planted to vines. But modern Coonawarra unquestionably has unproven broad acres of land well beyond the original strip. Some of this may prove to be outstanding. But much of it may also be quite ordinary – especially if an end to the long dry floods some of the new plantings.

The recent tasting at Chateau Shanahan is just one of several planned for the next few months – including a look a the much-hyped 1998s – in an attempt to see who and what’s in form in Coonawarra.

We’ll be following this up with a field trip next January to see what’s really happening on the ground and which wines are really worthy of carrying the Coonawarra name.

How Sue Hodder’s history lesson improved Wynns’ Coonawarra reds

4 July 2007People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

The old adage that the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn anything from history is bunk. At Wynns Coonawarra Estate, a close study of historic wines taught Sue Hodder and her winemaking team plenty about Coonawarra wines.

A decade on from two retrospective Wynns shiraz and cabernet tastings — stretching back to the 1950s — Sue’s new-release reds demonstrate that the past can influence current winemaker thinking.

In the tastings – featuring Wynns’ shiraz back to vintage 1953 in 1997 and cabernet sauvignon back to 1954 in 2004 – some of the very old comparatively low-alcohol, low-tannin, low-oak wines surpassed more recent wines, and completely eclipsed those of the late seventies.

The tasting proved the great longevity of Coonawarra reds – like the 1955 Michael Hermitage (shiraz) and 1954 cabernet sauvignon. And it revealed several distinct style eras in the estate’s history.

In simple terms we might see the early fifties to the seventies as straightforward – pick the grapes not too ripe, crush, ferment, press to tank, let the malo-lactic fermentation rip, and then mature the wine in older oak for a while before bottling.

In the late seventies – and we might call this the bean-counter era – fruit ripeness and consequent wine flavour declined as vineyard yields rose. This was in part a company thing (the high yields) and, in part, historical, as several other makers sought to produce ‘elegant’ wines by harvesting unripe grapes. Older drinkers still view the word ‘elegant’ as euphemism for thin and green.

The economic imperative took a different shape in the eighties as minimal pruning and mechanical harvesting reduced costs without sacrificing ripeness. Minimal pruning, in particular, created problems of its own to be addressed more than a decade later.

Although the eighties was a period of growth and rising demand for premium reds, margins were often squeezed in a mainly domestically focused industry. In this period Coonawarra reds tended to become riper and more influenced by maturation in new oak – with mixed success as winemakers learned the ropes.

It was, overall for Coonawarra, a period of great quality improvement. And for Wynns, this included the introduction of a new flagship red in 1982, named after pioneer John Riddoch. Made by John Wade, John Riddoch 1982 is to my taste one of the greatest cabernets yet made in this country.

Meanwhile good old Wynns Black Label cabernet carried on, perhaps a tad riper and a little oakier than in the old days, but, as the retrospective tasting showed, always purely varietal and almost invariably with the stuffing to age for decades.

In the late eighties and nineties the flagship John Riddoch cabernet was always denser, more powerful and oaky than the cheaper Black Label, but not always more revered by consumers.

Similarly, a powerful reserve shiraz resurrected the ‘Michael’ name in 1990, there having been only one vintage – 1955 – in the past. This, too, showed intense fruit and assertive oak.

By the late nineties the Wynns cabernets in particular were showing silkier tannins, without losing varietal flavour and intensity – and Sue and the team had begun rethinking how things ought to be done.
The re-think led to a rejuvenation of the older vines, including the removal of dense clusters of dead wood – a result of twenty years’ minimal pruning.

Launching this year’s releases last week, Sue said that what the tasting of older wines had taught her was that Coonawarra reds don’t have to be big tannic monsters to age well. It was clear that elegant, refined styles, without any new oak, still delivered great drinking pleasure after half a century.

Sue said that she’d also learned that a bit of ‘pepper’ in Coonawarra shiraz was nothing to be afraid of. This simply recognises that Coonawarra is a cool growing region, that cool-grown shiraz has a peppery note and it loses this when over ripe.

During the vineyard renovation and re-thing of winemaking styles, Sue’s team stopped making John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon and Michael Shiraz altogether for a couple of vintages. Declining sales surely played a part in the decision, but it was a much need breathing space.

While the by-now older John Riddochs and Michaels were ageing well – and some are just glorious – Sue has now demonstrated in the new-release 2004s that the style could be bettered.

The new wines still have exceptional fruit intensity, but oak intrudes less and the true elegance that was apparent in many of the old wines in the retrospective tasting is apparent.

The glory of the old styles, it seems, gave Sue the confidence to make changes for the better.

The 2004 Michael Shiraz, in particular, shows the benefit of the softer touch and rejuvenated vineyards. This wine captures the fragrance, unique berry and pepper character and elegant structure that Coonawarra can deliver – as it did in the original Michael in 1955.

The changes are there but more subtle in recent vintages of the White label Shiraz and Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon and the re-introduced John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon.

Indeed, the estate that made Coonawarra famous is quietly, through quality and value, reasserting its status. See this website on July 16 for reviews of the new releases.

Lake George renaissance

27 June 2007Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

Lake George’s two oldest wine estates – Lake George Vineyard and Madew Wines – seem to have fallen off the radar in recent years, leaving relative newcomer, Lerida Estate, to keep the flame burning.

But there’s a renaissance in the making. Madew is on the market. And Lake George owner, Theo Karelas, recently engaged former Kamberra winemaker, Alex McKay, to reinvigorate the vineyard and winemaking – with help from Dr Edgar Riek, the vineyard’s founder.

A revitalised Lake George Vineyard and Madews, operating alongside Lerida, could make this little strip the most-visited part of Canberra’s scattered wine scene. Being at a peaceful remove from the busy Federal Highway is no disadvantage – as the success of nearby Lynwood Café demonstrates.

This really is a very charming location. Search ‘Lake George, Australia’ on Google Earth for a bird’s-eye view of what travellers see when travelling by road between Canberra and Sydney. Heading north from Canberra, the Federal Highway climbs then traverses the Lake George Escarpment before plunging down to the lake at Geary’s Gap.

Continuing north along the western shore of the lake, the escarpment literally crumbles steeply downwards, occasionally spewing rock debris onto the road.

Approaching the northern end of the lake, the slope from the escarpment eases before opening out onto the plains around the village of Collector.

The Lerida, Lake George and Madew vineyards form a contiguous line along these comparatively gentle slopes of the Lake George escarpment and are accessed from the old Federal Highway, now a quiet backwater next to the freeway.

The vineyards lie between the escarpment to the west and Lake George to the east. For those not familiar with the area, ‘Lake’ might be seen as an ironic term. As locals know the lake, vast as it is, comes and goes over time.

After a run of wet seasons it laps the side of the road, mystifying new visitors with its fence posts jutting above the water. In prolonged dry spells, sheep graze the grassy landscape and visitors might glimpse a puddle in the far south towards Bungendore.

When Edgar Riek established Lake George Vineyard in 1971 the lake was there and filling. It has come and gone several time since. And it makes me wonder what influence the presence or absence of such a large body of water – or land – makes on the grape-growing environment along the foreshore. The changes must have an impact.

The Lake George vineyards share other unique grape-growing conditions, too: soil that includes both rubble from erosion of the escarpment as well as deep gravels from old shorelines; the late afternoon shade provided by the escarpment towering above; an elevation of around 700 metres above sea level; and considerable variation in ripening times over short distances – Jim Lumbers, for example, cites a three week gap within Lerida Estate’s 7.5 hectares.

Two years after Riek established ‘Cullarin’ – the original name of Lake George Vineyard – naval captain Geoff Hood planted Westering Vineyard immediately to the north. David and Romily Madew acquired Westering in 1994, expanding the vineyard and building a winery, restaurant (grapefoodwine), cellar door complex.

In 1997 Jim Lumbers and Anne Caine, inspired by Edgar Riek’s pinot noirs, established Lerida on Riek’s southern boundary.

About a year later, Edgar Riek, by now in his seventies and concerned about succession, sold Lake George Vineyard to the Karelas family but stayed on as consultant for the 1999 and 2000 vintages.

Throughout his time at Lake George Edgar had been deeply engaged with the wine industry – partly through the role he played in establishing the National Wine Show – and his wines, despite the tiny volumes, enjoyed a high profile. These faded from view after his departure.

David Madew, on the other hand, showed flair for publicity, establishing Madew’s opera amongst the vines and the ambitious grapefoodwine complex – an enduring piece of infrastructure for the Lake George area. What becomes of Madew under new ownership remains to be seen. But the foundation is there to build on.

As Lake George Winery faded and Madew focused on events, Jim Lumbers and Anne Caine invested heavily in Lerida Estate.

From 1997 they established 7.5 hectares of vines with a strong skew toward pinot noir. This remains their passion, but they also have in the vineyard pinot gris (a white mutant of pinot noir), chardonnay, shiraz, merlot, cabernet franc, shiraz and viognier.

After a fairly rustic start to winemaking – I recall tasting wine outdoors from barrels stored in a shipping container in the early days – they built a beautiful winery, cellar door, café complex designed by Glenn Murcutt.

They’ve been moving up the grape-growing, winemaking learning curve rapidly. And now with Malcolm Burdett and skilled French ‘stagiers’ assisting at each vintage, the wines show increasing polish.

Maturing vines, careful vine management, rigorous fruit selection and competent winemaking have all contributed to a major lift in quality for Lerida. The latest offerings at cellar door (overlooking the lake and within the café) represent real value, with high points for me being the 2005 Reserve Shiraz and 2006 Pinot Noir.

Jim has some wonderful 2007 reds maturing in barrel, including shiraz, merlot and pinot. Again my favourite was the shiraz – already showing strong cool-climate peppery varietal character plus mid-palate richness – followed by a very promising merlot.

This is a winery to watch. It seems well resourced and driven by Jim and Anne’s passion – shared by Malcolm Burdett. However, it’s a little early in the journey yet to say what Lerida’s greatest wines will be. It takes many decades to see what varieties work where, especially in a climate as variable as Canberra’s.

Niche white that viognier

20 June 2007Vineyard, Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Viognier’s a niche variety and likely to stay that way. Why? Well, for one it has too much flavour and individuality.

How can a wine have too much flavour? Well, look, for example, at gewürztraminer. Its heady, lychee-like aroma and viscous texture might be unforgettable, and a joy to drink on occasion. But that’s the problem: a little goes a long way. It’s simply too much to drink regularly.

If viognier (a native of France’s Rhône valley) falls into that category it has, in Australia, the considerable advantage of being relatively unknown.

While gewürztraminer – of which there are some very fine examples, like Hanging Rock from Macedon, Victoria – suffers from its use in bland, sweet blends with riesling, viognier walked straight into the premium end of the market sans popular pre-conception.

Viognier’s short history in Australia, as outlined here a few weeks back, parallels its resurgence in France.

Winemaker interest in the variety seems to have begun in the late seventies. According to Yalumba, Heathcote winery, central Victoria, probably trialled viognier prior to Yalumba’s acquisition of cuttings from Montpellier, France, in 1979. Yalumba propagated these cuttings and planted 1.2 hectares on the Vaughan vineyard, Eden Valley, in 1980, and claims this as Australia’s first commercial planting.

This vineyard remains a source of Yalumba’s ‘The Virgilius’, its flagship viognier that inspired many of the outstanding wines to have emerged from eastern Australia in the past decade.

These come, broadly speaking, in two main styles: those that feature the unadorned, plump, viscous, opulent, apricot-like flavour of the variety; and those attempting to incorporate that flavour into a matrix with others derived from fermentation and maturation on yeast lees in oak barrels.

The latter, modelled on the best of Condrieu, a village in France’s Rhône Valley, can achieve a high level of complexity. But even with this high level of winemaker artifice, ultimate quality is driven by the quality of fruit – just as it is with oak fermented chardonnay.

The divergence of the two styles is reflected in price, too. The opulent, simple, fruity wines generally come from higher cropping vineyards and don’t bear the purchasing or winemaking costs of oak. Wines like Canberra’s Meeting Place, Stepping Stone Padthaway and Yalumba Eden Valley, for example, generally deliver the variety’s plush flavour and leave change out of $20.

But as you move up to the hand crafted versions (with the high costs of lower yields, hand-picking and sorting and oak fermentation) prices step up accordingly – to $45 a bottle and more.

Regardless of which style you go for, viognier delivers a unique spectrum of flavours, whether overtly or subtly. That’s what the winemaker quest is all about – capturing the varietal character and, at the same time, expressing regional, clonal and winemaker inputs.

A tasting of eight Aussie viogniers this week showed the common and divergent traits of the variety. I describe them very briefly below in the order in which they were tasted, along with my score out 20 points.

I use the Australian wine-show scoring system in which 12 points or lower is a faulty, unpleasant wine; 13-15 is sound but unexciting; 15.5-16.5 wins a bronze medal – meaning a faultless wine that fits the class description; 17-18 point wins a silver medal – meaning an exciting drop, but not quite in the first league; and 18.5 to 20 points wins a gold medal – these are outstanding wines.

Ravensworth Canberra District Viognier 2006 17.5 points
Another classy barrel-ferment viognier from Bryan Martin. Not far behind the best.

Tahbilk Nagambie Lakes Viognier 2006 15/20
A vibrant and pleasant wine with a strong, estery/passionfruit like aroma and flavour that was a little over the top for me – and not quite ‘viognier’ enough.

Grant Burge Chaff Mill Adelaide Hills Barossa Valley Viognier 2005 17 points
Shows considerable complexity from the barrel input, quite fresh and varietal. Very easy to savour a few glasses.

d’Arenberg The Last Ditch McLaren Vale Adelaide Hills Viognier 2006 16 points
An outstanding example of the ‘let-it-rip’ varietal style – apricot-like, opulent and very fresh, but simply upstaged by the more complex company.

Fox-Gordon Barossa Valley Viognier 2006 15.5 points
From the southern Barossa, this one’s big, fat and juicy – definitely viognier but will probably fatten up quickly, so drink now.

Petaluma Adelaide Hills Viognier 2005 19.0
A simply stunning wine – seductively aromatic, tingly fresh, finely textured for viognier, yet unmistakably of that variety and with a lingering, delicious flavour.

Clonakilla Canberra District Viognier 2006 18.5 points
Not long bottled and very complex, soft and layered, with a wonderful texture. Only just pipped by the Petaluma in this tasting but it could be a different result after another six months in bottle.

Yarra Burn Yarra Valley Viognier 2004 16.0 points
This was surprisingly fresh and fine for viognier – as the variety normally fattens and fades quickly. The focus seemed to be more on texture and structure and less on overt varietal flavour, although it was definitely there.

Conclusion? Our best viogniers, like our best chardonnays, are whites to savour; the cheaper ones are more in-your-face, fade young and tend to heaviness. The flavours, however, are unique and pleasant. Be adventurous and try the best. But, like me, you might find that one or two bottles a year are enough.

Coonawarra — almost a sheep paddock

6 June 2007Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

Coonawarra reds fetch a premium today. But behind their reputation lies a twisting, sometimes profitless and often frustrating struggle that stretches back to the 1890s. Indeed, had it not been for the foresight of Samuel and David Wynn in 1951, our most famous cabernet region might be a sheep paddock today.

The ‘estate that made Coonawarra famous’ remained largely unknown, under various guises, for sixty years before the inspired marketing of the Wynns gave an identity and, ultimately, fame, to the area’s unique, elegant table wines – building on a potential that had been recognised half a century earlier.

In 1899, W. Catton Grasby, editor of ‘Garden and Field’ wrote ‘As long as grapes mature properly, the more gradual the process the better, so that the conditions are as favourable, if not more so, at Coonawarra than anywhere else in Australia for making very high-class, light, dry wine. The results are bearing out the theoretical statement of what should be, and Coonawarra claret promises to have a very high and wide reputation—indeed, there is no doubt but that it will be a beautiful wine of good body, fine colour, delicate bouquet, and low alcoholic strength”.

Grasby’s words followed a visit to John Riddoch’s Coonawarra fruit colony and, presumably, a tasting of the first few vintages made in Riddoch’s imposing, triple-gabled, Coonawarra Wine Cellars – the icon that still appears on Wynns labels today.

Grasby notes the first vine plantings in 1891 and an expansion of the area under vine by 1899 to about 140 hectares — 89 owned by ‘blockers’ on the fruit colony and 51 hectares belonging to Riddoch — consisting principally of shiraz and cabernet sauvignon with smaller plantings of malbec and pinot noir, the latter not faring well.

According to James Halliday (‘Wine Compendium’ 1985), production from these vineyards exceeded 300 thousand litres per annum from 1903 until 1909 with John Riddoch actively seeking markets for the wine in Australia and in Great Britain.

However, after Riddoch’s death at about this time, Coonawarra’s famous estate turned to distilling its ever-accumulating wine stocks — a practice that continued through two changes of ownership until Woodleys purchased the triple-gabled winery and 58 hectares of vineyards in 1946.

Woodley’s owner, Tony Nelson, installed as winemakers, at what was now ‘Chateau Comaum’, Bill and Owen Redman – from whom he’d been buying Coonawarra wine for many years. Although the arrangement fell over a few years later, at least, after a break of 37 years, Coonawarra’s original winery was once again making table wine.

In 1951 Samuel Wynn and his son David bought the vineyards and Chateau Comaum, renamed it Wynns Coonawarra Estate, and installed 22-year-old Roseworthy graduate Ian Hickinbotham as manager. The Estate was set to make Coonawarra famous.

During a tasting of fifty years of Wynns cabernets a few years back, Ian recalled ‘the stink of failure’ that hung over the area’s tiny wine industry when he arrived in late 1951. And he recalled the disdain felt for it by a remote community riding the Korean war wool boom.

As the first qualified winemaker to arrive in Coonawarra since John Riddoch had hired Ewen Ferguson McBain in 1898, Ian confronted the challenges of isolation, labour shortages and the most rudimentary winemaking equipment. Roads and transport were poor, there was no electricity and the winery still relied on steam power to drive its pumps.

In that first year Ian brought to Coonawarra six Roseworthy students to help with the pruning. They ‘batched’ with him in a little shack near the winery.

A gifted Aussie rules player, Ian then called on 70 mates from the local footy club for the heavy work of pulling the cuttings from the vineyards.

During vintage, David Wynn fixed the labour problem by bringing in a group of Italian immigrants. A mixed lot – professionals, craftsmen, workers and even a chef – they proved themselves cheerful and skilled as grape pickers and cellar hands.

‘As soon as the manual press began turning, they bust into song’ Ian recalls. And that set the tone for the 1952 vintage.

Although the Wynns sold most of the 1952 vintage in bulk, it also marked the birth of the famous label depicting John Riddoch’s triple-gabled, limestone winery.

Indeed, Wynns labels were two generations ahead of their time and might teach today’s brand managers a lesson. They were boldly branded, declaring region of origin, wine style and vintage on the front label, and emphasises the region with a clear map on the back label. They spoke the international language of great wine.

Samuel and David put their judgement on the line in choosing little known, isolated Coonawarra back in 1951. That they were on the money shows in the string of superb, long-lived wines created from 1952 on.

It’s a fascinating story that’s remained intact for half a century, despite several ownership changes. And what the Wynns established still instructs winemaker Sue Hodder today – in turn, delivering benefits to drinkers.

Watch this space in early July and learn how Sue and her team boosted quality by peering into old Wynns wines for clues.

Florita — the story of a vineyard

18 April 2007Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

This is the story of the Florita vineyard and of how the competitive force of commerce, brilliant winemaking, the work of a great visionary, and blind luck made it one of Australia’s great riesling-growing sites.

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.

Although sherry was our favourite tipple in those days, Buring, a graduate of Roseworthy College and with wine studies at Geisenheim and Montpellier universities to his credit, had been a pioneer of the Australian table wine trade since the turn of the century.

He maintained a cellar in Sydney’s Redfern (now the home of Langton’s Auctioneers), provided winemaking advice to vignerons and bought table wine in bulk for blending and bottling at his Sydney cellars. John Vickery recalls that he also swapped much of the sherry he made for table wine.

Buring established, as well, a winery and cellars – Chateau Leonay (now Richmond Grove) – at Tanunda, in the Barossa Valley. Then, in the late fifties he closed the Redfern operation and shifted the bulk wine, stored in 350-500 gallon wooden casks, to Chateau Leonay.

In 1955 a young Roseworthy College graduate, John Vickery, became winemaker for the ageing Leo Buring at Chateau Leonay. John made both table and fortified wines and recalls ‘a terrific flor sherry solera’ that’d been established by Buring using flor yeast cultures that he’d pirated from Spain’s Xerez region.

The sherry in the solera, made from grapes grown on the Florita vineyard, was sold under Buring’s ‘Florita Fino’ label – probably the first wine to bear the vineyard name.

Six years after Vickery joined the firm, Buring died at the age of 85. A year later, in 1962, Lindemans purchased the Buring business and retained John Vickery as winemaker.

By now table wine consumption in Australia was on the move, having been sparked by Orlando’s Barossa Pearl in 1956, driven further by a string of similar ‘pearl’ styles (including Buring’s 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 only 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.

Many of those glorious wines might never have seen the show circuit, though, had it not been for the vision of Lindeman head, Ray Kidd. Ray established in Sydney an air condition, humidified cellar to allow large-scale re-releases of the company’s bests wines.

The cellar held tens of thousands of cases of wine. And though ultimately it failed commercially, it revealed spectacularly the tremendous keeping qualities of our best rieslings via the show circuit and re-release to consumers.

John Vickery’s sublime winemaking skills and Ray Kidd’s cellar, together, showed what the Florita vineyard could produce.

By the mid eighties, Lindemans, now owned by Philip Morris, began selling assets including the Florita vineyard. These were fairly tough times for the wine industry, but long-term Clare company, Jim Barry Wines, seized the opportunity, albeit at a stretch.

Recalls Peter Barry, “we sold five acres with some vines and a house. We had to. But we kept seventy-five acres”. That little slice of Florita now belongs to Noel Kelly and wine from it sells under his Clos Clare label.

Peter says that they immediately grafted the one-hectare stand of crouchen to sauvignon blanc. But four years back they grubbed this out, planted riesling, and, for the first time, the entire 30-hectare Florita vineyard is planted to riesling.

Acquisition of Florita allowed the Barrys to introduce a Watervale riesling to their range and to sell surplus stock into the bulk market. But the Florita trademark remained with the seller.

Well, the wheel turned and in the nineties Orlando purchased Chateau Leonay, hired John Vickery as winemaker and began buying riesling from Florita for its Richmond Grove Watervale Riesling label, launched in 1994.

This relationship lasted until about 2000, by which time Orlando had widened its grape sourcing in the Watervale region and the Barrys had decided to keep their Florita fruit.

Then, in 2004 the Florita trademark lapsed and was taken up by the Barry family, enabling the launch of a Jim Barry wine under the Florita name.

Peter says that for years they’d been making multiple wine batches from the vineyard, mainly in nine thousand litre lots, but with outstanding parcels as small as one thousand eight hundred litres.

In 2004 the Barrys blended these finest parcels, totalling about five per cent of Florita’s production, to produce the first Jim Barry Florita Riesling 2004 – the $45 wine, consumed over the Easter break, that inspired this column.

It really was the epitome of Watervale riesling with its brilliant, green-tinted colour, shimmering lime-like aroma and delicious, very delicate flavour.

Peter Barry tells me that it was an instant success, particularly loved in Amsterdam and the UK, where it sells for about twenty pounds a bottle.

It’s been a long journey for Florita, now a distinguished flagship for Australian riesling in general and, hopefully, one of many single-vineyard specialties that might, over time, raise awareness of the things that we do best.

Curly Flat — Victoria’s emerging champ

11 February 2007Vineyard, Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

How are we to judge wines like Curly Flat that come out of the blue, grab the attention of critics around the world, clean up at wine shows and sell out quickly at $30 and $40 dollars a bottle?

Slowly, sustainedly and over many bottles over many years is my answer.

But first impressions count, too. And thinking back over more than thirty years in the trade, few new comers have hit the wow button as Curly Flat does.

That first impression came in June last year when Phillip and Jeni Moraghan, Curly Flat’s owners, showed their full sequence of chardonnays and pinot noirs from the first vintage, 1998, through to the then not-released 2005s.

Apart from a microbial blemish in one of the reds, it was a good to exciting line up with the best, to my palate, being the 2004 vintages of both the chardonnay and pinot noir (see Top Drops).

Even more importantly, the wines grew in interest over lunch prompting a resolve, fulfilled in January, to visit Curly Flat in Victoria’s Macedon region.

The name, says Phillip Moraghan, salutes Michael Leunig’s imaginary ‘Vineyard at Curly Flat’ where, ‘The locals have never bothered to describe the taste or construction of their wines but after drinking a couple of glasses they are inclined to become very eloquent in describing the way it makes them feel”.

Inspired by the wines of Burgundy – and how they made them feel — Phillip and Jeni decided in the late eighties to make their own pinot noir and chardonnay in Australia. After an eighteen-month search, they selected a very cool site, suited to the Burgundy varieties, in the Macedon Ranges, on the southern side of the Great Divide.

Between 1992 and 2000 they planted fourteen hectares of land to pinot noir (69 per cent), chardonnay (26 per cent) and pinot gris (5 per cent).

The Moraghans chose four different clones of chardonnay and five of pinot noir to encourage complexity in the wines. Now, as the vines mature, the fruit from each plot is handled, fermented and barrel-matured separately.

This gives Phillip a rich palette of flavours to work with in the winery and, over time, builds a history of how each plot and clone performs. As well, having so many small barrel components means a better final blend as barrels that don’t make flagship grade can go to the second label, Williams Crossing.

But the essence of Curly Flat’s wine flavours lies in the vineyards. These were purpose chosen for chardonnay and pinot noir; they’ve been trellised to best capture their flavours; and Phillip’s vineyard team pays fanatical attention to maintenance – especially in labour-intensive shoot thinning and green harvesting to reduce yields.

The combination of site selection, clonal selection, vineyard management, small-batch fermentation and maturation and an uncompromising approach to blending appear to be the elements that put Curly Flat chardonnay and pinot noir ahead of most.

Getting back to how we judge it, well, it’s judged every time someone takes a sip. And on that basis I’m prepared to pay the asking prices. Surely these are realistic considering the effort that goes into the making and the quality delivered.

But as to where Curly Flat sits in the world hierarchy of pinot and chardonnay, that’s a matter for many judgements, by many people over a lengthy period of time. And the verdict will ultimately be expressed in the price.

WINE REVIEWS

Curly Flat Pinot Noir 2004 $46 & Williams Crossing Pinot Noir 2004 $20
Curly Flat’s two pinot noirs come from five pinot clones spread over six distinct sections of the vineyard planted in 1992, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2000. Small batch making of the separate clones and separate blocks, followed by maturation of each component in French oak casks of varying provenance and age, produces a surprising diversity of styles. Those components considered not up to scratch go to the delicious, lean, dry and savoury Williams Crossing label (a great bargain), leaving the best barrels for Curly Flat – a succulent and serious red that deserves to be on every pinot lover’s radar. See www.curlyflat.com

Curly Flat Chardonnay 2004 $35 & Williams Crossing Chardonnay 2005 $15
Curly Flat’s chardonnays come from four clones planted on four vineyard sub-plots in 1993, 1996, 1997 and 2000. The various batches undergo a variety of winemaking approaches and, except for a small tank component, are matured – and for the most part fermented — as separate components in French oak barrels of varying ages and from different coopers. The best barrels go to the Curly Flat blend – a convincing top-shelf white in which high natural acid binds together intense fruit flavour and barrel-derived complexities. At less than half the price Williams Crossing delivers more up-front, drink-now fruit flavours, but still punches above its weight. See www.curlyflat.com

Curly Flat Lacuna Chardonnay 2005 $24
Ferment all of your chardonnay in barrels and you risk missing a part — a lacuna — one high, pristine flavour note that ties all the others together. For winemaker Phillip Moraghan it’s the pure-fruit component used to tune up what’s in the blending vat. Hence the name and source of this zesty, fruity chardonnay fermented in stainless steel tanks. What isn’t used to spruce up the Curly Flat flagship goes to the Lacuna label – an unoaked chardonnay displaying distinctive, cool-climate, grape-fruit-like varietal character accompanied by the subtle flavours and texture derived from maturation on spent yeast cells. See www.curlyflat.com

Hanging Rock — bubbling along nicely

4 February 2007Vineyard, Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

There’s a fascinating wine pilgrimage you can make driving to or from Melbourne: heading south on the Hume Highway, take the Kilmore exit, at Kilmore turn right towards Lancefield and at Lancefield follow the Woodend Road through to Newham, and then the signs to Hanging Rock Winery.

Coming home from Melbourne, take the airport freeway — ignore the Tullamarine exit — and continue north on the Calder highway. Take the second Woodend exit, follow the signs to Newham and from there the signs to the winery.

Either way it’s a short detour with a huge payoff. But be prepared to linger in the tasting room as Hanging Rock offers one of Australia’s greatest cellar experiences.

Why here, you might ask, on a southerly, elevated site on the Great Divide where most grapes, even in the warmest vintage, simply don’t ripen sufficiently to make table wine?

It’s a description that also fits France’s Champagne region – a climatically marginal wine area producing annually about 300 million bottles of top-shelf bubbly.

The marginal climate at fifty degrees north means that chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier grapes struggle to the high-acid ripeness behind Champagne’s unique, delicate flavours.

Thirty years ago no Australian winemaker could even approximate these flavours for the simple reason that we didn’t have the right grapes growing in the right region. Yes, we’d long since replicated Champagne methods. But we’d applied them principally to neutral varieties, like ondenc.

By the early eighties several winemakers, including Dominique Landragin, Brian Croser and John Ellis, had been thinking of possible cold growing sites at high altitudes or low latitudes, including Tasmania.

For Ellis the search – based on a brief to a geologist to find the coldest site in Australia – led to Jim Jim hill in Victoria’s Macedon region. John and his wife Ann bought the site, established chardonnay and pinot noir on Jim Jim’s cold southern slope and established a winery.

While the site was chosen specifically to make world-class sparkling wine, commercial reality meant the production of table wines using sauvignon blanc, gewürztraminer and pinot gris from Jim Jim and other varieties from neighbouring regions.

For a visit to cellar door, the starting point – perhaps the highest point – are the sparkling wines reviewed in Top Drops. These are unique in Australia, not just for the extraordinary fruit flavour with its Champagne like intensity, but for the texture and complexity added by the making and maturation methods.

All top-end bubblies receive prolonged bottle maturation on yeast lees. But the Hanging Rock sparklers spend three years in old oak on lees prior to bottling. This is not so much about oak but about the oxidative environment, contact with lees and prolonged ageing – something that makes the flavour of this unique fruit flourish.

And if you love Bollinger, the French classic that’s also fermented and matured in old oak, you’ll appreciate the comparable nuances in Hanging Rock.

It’s worth the trip for the bubblies alone. But the a range of shirazes from Heathcote ($27 to $60), varietals from the Jim Jim vineyard ($24 to $27), regional varietals under the ‘Yellow Label’ ($16-$20), single vineyard specialties ($18 to $27) under the ‘Black Label’ and the delicious ‘Rock Range’ at $12 guarantees an exciting tasting experience.

And the journey seems set to continue as John and Anne Ellis’s children, Ruth and Robert, have joined the business as marketer and winemaker respectively.

WINE REVIEWS

Rock Riesling 2005, Rock Red 2004 $12
Hanging Rock Winery’s Rock range gives cellar door visitors a real alternative to the discounted big-company brands offered in retail stores. Riesling 2005 – a Strathbogie Ranges/Swan Hill blend – is a delicious, dry expression of the variety and offers outstanding value at $12. The most popular of the range, though, says Ann Ellis, is Rock Red 2004, a fresh, fruity, medium bodied style with vibrant acid and fine, soft tannins. It’s a blend of shiraz, pinot noir, malbec and grenache – strange but effective bed partners, in this instance. The range includes, as well, merlot, rosé, semillon sauvignon blanc and chardonnay. Available at www.hangingrock.com.au

Hanging Rock Rosé Brut $27, NV Brut Cuvée $49, Cuvée Six $110
Hanging Rock’s sparkling wines are unique and sit at the very tip of Australia’s quality pyramid. Quality begins in a now mature, south-facing vineyard rising from 650 metres above sea level near the winery to 700 metres on the slopes of Jim Jim hill. This extremely cool site (too cool to grow table wine) produces the intense-flavour, high-acid pinot noir and chardonnay essential in making top-notch bubblies. The wines from these superb grapes flourish in the long journey from vineyard to bottle (see main story) to emerge as bubblies of unique complexity. They possess great freshness and beautiful fruit flavour as well as a patina of characters derived from prolonged cask and bottle ageing.

Hanging Rock Heathcote: Shiraz $60, Cambrian Rise Shiraz 2003 $27
The Heathcote region — a little to the north of the Hanging Rock winery and vineyard at Macedon – provides shiraz for several Hanging Rock reds. The flagship Heathcote Shiraz 2003, an impressively powerful, balanced and potentially long-lived drop, comes principally from the Athol’s Paddock vineyard near the centre of this 110-kilometre long region. The delicious, soft, approachable-now Cambrian Rise Shiraz 2003 is a blend from seven vineyards sprinkled the entire length of the region. And Rowbottoms Shiraz 2003 ($33) expresses the striking ‘white pepper’ character of a single vineyard at the cooler southern end.

Victoria wine and beer walkabout

28 January 2007Vineyard, Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

For Melbourne-bound motorists the high-country around Beechworth and Bright and, on the return trip, in the vicinity of Macedon, offers rich food, wine and beer pickings.

On a recent jaunt the Chateau Shanahan team abandoned the disgraceful Hume Highway at Albury for the uncrowded back roads from Wodonga to Beechworth and Bright and then on to Dixon’s Creek in the Yarra before popping out in Melbourne, watching tennis and then loitering around Macedon, before the final sprint home.

Lovely Beechworth owes much of its wine reputation to the jaw-dropping prices achieved by Giaconda, Castagna and Savaterre. But that’s not the end of the area’s wine story. It’s not even the beginning.

In fact, the area’s modern history began with the establishment of Smiths Vineyard in 1978 – located just on the Wangaratta end of town next to Pennyweight, founded in 1982. And there are lots more, as well – about thirteen by my count.

While the high-priced legends remain must-try wines for the deadly serious, a random wander is probably more enjoyable for the casual drinker. And that means all the idiosyncrasies that are part and parcel of the boutiqus scene: from the earthy, more-ish sangiovese of Amulet, to the magnificent chardonnays of Sorrenberg and Smiths, to the sherry styles from Pennyweight’s quarter-century-old solera.

And for après-cellar door, there’s Bridge Road Brewery (confusingly in Ford Street, not Bridge Road) where winemaker-turned –brewer, Ben Kraus, makes and serves fresh from tap a range of outstanding and highly distinctive beers. These go beautifully with the fresh pretzels made by his Austrian partner Maria.

Less than an hour’s drive away in Bright, the new Bright Brewery, too, serves fresh brewed beer just three paces from the vats. It’s a refreshing stop before crossing the road to Simone’s Restaurant.

You’ll have to book to enjoy Patricia Simone’s Umbrian inspired magic. And allow at least three hours to relax, savour the food and be a little adventurous with George Simone’s wine list. He offers a select range of local and Italian wines by the glass and backs this with a more comprehensive selection by the bottle.

From Bright, it’s about a three hour scoot back down the Hume, via Benalla and Mansfield, or via Seymour, to either Healesville or Dixon’s Creek in the Yarra.

Our preferred route is Dixon’s Creek as the road passes De Bortolis Winery and Restaurant – another fine watering hole.

Leanne de Bortoli’s Italian heritage shapes the food but her husband Steve Webber’s French orientation influences the increasingly elegant wine styles from the property. The new sauvignon 2006, for example, is delicious, bordering on sensational.

The cellar door offering was recently expanded to include the Richard Thomas cheese room. Richard, a driving force in Australian boutique cheese production, founded Milawa cheese in the eighties.

In the new venture with De Bortoli Richard matures a range of classic cheeses under controlled temperature and humidity and offers these – along with styles made for him by small manufacturers – at the cellar door and in the restaurant.

Loaded with cheese, it’s a short but fragrant drive into broiling, mid-January Melbourne. There’ll be one more food adventure before the trip northwest to Macedon and Woodend for new craft beer and wine encounters – including perhaps the best sparkling wines in Australia and the new hotshots of the Aussie pinot and chardonnay scene. Stay tuned.

WINE REVIEWS

Arnaldo-Caprai Umbria Poggio Belvedere 2003 $21
Umbrian wine on an Aussie wine list is a rarity. But it’s appropriate at Simone’s of Bright, an institution more than a restaurant, where Umbrian born Patrizia Simone’s delicious food harmonises with husband George’s wine list. On a recent visit this sangiovese/ciliegiolo blend hit the spot with stuffed, boneless pigeon and slow braised goat. Assumedly it was the ciliegiolo grape – sometimes called the cherry grape – that gave the wine an extra lift and seemed to mollify the austere tannins of the more familiar sangiovese. Available direct from the importer, call Maurizio at Arquilla Wines 03 9387 1040.

Santa Barbara Le Vaglie Verdicchio di Castelli di Jesi 2005 $28
We plucked this bone dry Italian white from the wine list at Da Noi, the legendary Sardinian restaurant in South Yarra. Made from the indigenous verdicchio grape — grown on the coastal plain, near Jesi in the Marche region – it’s a full-flavoured, utterly dry style with a tart, bordering on bitter, edge that grew in appeal as successive portions of a sensational antipasto arrived. This is as good a Jesi verdicchio as I’ve seen, if not a match for the best from the more elevated Matelica region to the west. Available direct from the importer, call Maurizio at Arquilla Wines 03 9387 1040.

Ringer Reef Alpine Valleys Merlot 2002 & 2004 $28
Annie and Bruce Holm’s Ringer Reef vineyard sits on the high side of the Bright to Wangaratta road, at Porepunkah, Victoria. Rare – perhaps unique –- in Australia, all of the 3.2-hectare vineyard, bar 400 vines, is planted to merlot. Annie and Bruce established the vines in 1998, made the first wine in 2001 and currently offer the Merlot 2002, with the 2004 vintage due for release in a few months. The quality progression is notable, though all three vintages to date show exceptional fruit depth and ripe, fine tannin structure – commendable achievements with this difficult but potentially great variety. See www.ringerreef.com.au