The countryside surrounding Coonawarra seems unusually lush and green for January. Cold, wet conditions throughout spring and early summer explain the pretty greening that’s proved troublesome and expensive for grape growers across all of south-eastern Australia.

Persistent rain brought with it outbreaks of downy mildew, a vine disease showing up as discolouration on leaves that, if unchecked, quickly destroys foliage and renders vines inoperative for the season. In other words, no spray, no crop.

The solution is frequent spraying. Naturally this is an expensive business and vignerons across southern Victoria and South Australia tell me vineyard management costs are dramatically up because of the mildew problem. And spraying costs have been edged up by shortages of chemicals caused by the unprecedented demand. Some components have had to be air freighted in from the United States.

Spraying for mildew brings other difficulties. There are only so many tractors and so many hours in the day. Hence, at a time like this, other vineyard chores tend to languish as the more serious problem takes priority.

In Coonawarra, weed growth normally well in check at this time of year, is rampant in many of the big vineyards. Exuberant weed growth seems matched by bursts of vine foliage so wild that parallel rows of vines appear to be almost shouldering each other aside. Given a spell of hot, dry weather, the vines will hopefully be hedged and weeds eliminated before the month is through.

Someone must have been cracking the whip at Petaluma’s ‘Evans’ vineyard in Northern Coonawarra. It’s hard to imagine a more immaculately kept vineyard: not a weed in sight; vines tightly trimmed; and a neat two bunches of grapes for every shoot, carefully trellised, and getting just the right sun exposure.

(Remembering a stunningly concentrated cask sample of 1990 ‘Evans’ vineyard Cabernet tasted about this time last year, I get a glimpse of how important vineyard management is to wine quality. If vineyard looks are important, then the 1993 Petaluma Coonawarra will be another beauty.)

The unusually cloudy and cool conditions means grapes are about one or two weeks behind their normal development. But none of the half dozen or so growers I spoke to seemed particuarly worried. They all believed a burst of sunny, warm weather would arrive to speed things up (that now seems to have materialised).

Whatever materialises this vintage, there’s no doubting the unique qualities of Coonawarra’s red wines.

Ian and Wendy Hollick planted their 24 hectares of vines in 1975 when Ian worked as a viticulturalist with Mildara, one the area’s biggest growers. The Hollicks sold their grapes to Mildara until they established their own brand in 1983.

They knew what they were doing and since then the wines have been consistently good and getting better. To my taste, Hollicks Cabernet Merlot 1990 is the epitome of Coonawarra with its lush berry flavours and silky smoothness. It’s a smart wine because the maker allows Coonawarra’s distinctive flavours to dominate, with oak a background element adding firmness and complexity without intruding.

Hollicks ‘Wilgha’ Shiraz 1990 is another gem. It’s lighter-bodied than the Cabernet Merlot, with the delicate and supple ‘cherry’ flavours I love in Coonawarra Shiraz. Adherents of, say, Rutherglen’s thundering big reds won’t like it. But if you like a red that’s lighter and still jam-packed with flavour, this one’s a good bet.

Perhaps with both of these wines we’re seeing, too, just what a great vintage 1990 was for Coonawarra. The remarkable richness of flavour showed through in other 1990 reds. By far the most impressive was Lindemans St George Vineyard Cabernet 1990 tasted in the Rouge Homme Winery with winemaker, Greg Clayfield.

Greg kindly trotted out three vintages of St George: 1989 and 1990 from bottle and a cask sample of 1991. The 1989’s a most attractive wine, a little softer than normal and, I suspect, one to drink in three or four years rather than ten or fifteen. The 1991 seemed very much in the classic mould: elegant, with sweet fruit, and a fine, firm finish. The 1990, though, is far more powerful, concentrated and tannic. It’s atypical of the St George style, but there’ll be a few bottles hidden in the cellar at Chateau Shanahan when it’s released later this year.

The highlight of my brief visit, though, was a 1980 Leconfield Cabernet Sauvignon ordered from the wine list at Chardonnnay Lodge, the motel-restaurant located smack amongst the vines of the great ‘terra rossa’. It proved the glorious cellaring potential of the area’s cabernet. And it was a sentimental return to a wine I remember buying in the early 1980’s from its then eighty-year-old maker, the late Sid Hamilton on one of his high-speed motoring trips across the Hay Plain to Canberra. Was it Sid who’d penned the words on the back label: ‘hand picked by experienced girls’?

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 1992 & 2007

If you lived and died in Coonawarra, you could well believe the world was flat…an endless plain dotted with vines, gum trees, cows, windmills, wires, wineries, cars, and the odd jogger.

But, to a grape grower, the almost imperceptible undulations in the flat landscape – and where your vineyards lie on them – may mean the difference between making medium-grade champagne base or one of the best, most powerfully concentrated reds in the world. For in Coonawarra, some of the greatest vineyards lie alongside some of the least.

Growers worked out…are still working out…many of the complexities by results. Success with grape vines this century often came on sites where fruit trees prospered last century. But there are also previously untried plots turning out marvelous wines.

That odd jogger, painfully recalling last night’s 1954 and 55 Wynns Coonawarra Estate Clarets – not to mention the Cognacs – finds it hard to spot the differences in the lie of the land. Heading north for several kilometres on the main road out of Coonawarra, vineyards either side spring from a red soil (‘terra rossa’) liberally sprinkled with varying size chunks of white limestone, presumably dragged to the surface during cultivation.

Had the jogger continued a few more kilometres and not turned back to his motel room, he may have noticed that the cloud enveloping southern Coonawarra and the town of Penola was not to be seen in the north.

Vic Patrick, vineyard manager for Mildara and previously with Wynns – two of the biggest vineyard owners in the area – believes this cloud cover makes a big difference between Coonawarra’s northern and southern vineyards. In an interview during winter, 1990, he expressed the view that while cabernet seemed to do well north or south, shiraz did not. He believed that cloud cover in southern Coonawarra in the vicinity of Penola prevented shiraz from ripening properly.

Presumably the cabernet, an earlier ripening variety, reaches maturity before cloud cover becomes a problem.

Peter Douglas, Chief Winemaker at Wynns Coonawarra Estate, spends a great deal of time in the vineyard at this time of year walking up and down rows, tasting grapes. He believes in chemically analysing grapes to help determine the best picking times but his own palate is the final judge. And he, too, notes the big north-south differences identified by Patrick.

A few hours driving, walking, and tasting in Coonawarra’s vineyards with Douglas demonstrated what huge flavour differences exist from block to block. While we stuck only to shiraz and cabernet, I’m sure similar variety exists amongst any grape type grown in the area.

Douglas took us to the vineyards after a lunchtime question as to the source of grapes for Wynns top-of-the-line John Riddoch Cabernet – an amazingly powerful and concentrated red described in last week’s column. Douglas had been asked if John Riddoch was simply the cream of the cabernet grapes from Wynns quite vast Coonawarra holdings or whether it was derived from a particularly favoured spot.

His answer was yes to both questions. Yes, John Riddoch comes from the cream of the crop but, in fact, most of that comes from the same few plots each year. The chief one, he said, contained the oldest Cabernet vines in Coonawarra, having been planted by David Wynn after founding Wynns in 1951

That vineyard came as a surprise after passing others rampant with leaves and tendrils and drooping with huge, purple grape bunches. Vines on the original Wynn block appeared stunted and less vigorous. Grape bunches were sparser, the bunches smaller, and even the berries themselves quite tiny. But the flavours, although the grapes were yet several weeks from harvest, were of rich cassis.

Douglas explained there were many factors accounting for the unusual flavour intensity of these grapes. The soil was shallow and well drained and the vines so lacking in vigour that yields limit themselves to around half a tonne an acre…an accountants night mare unless the resulting wine can fetch $30 a bottle.

The site is in northern, sunny Coonawarra. And as Douglas points out it straddles the main limestone ridge which gives its name to the adjoining Lindeman Vineyard which makes another of the area’s top-notch reds.

Just seven kilometres south of the Wynns Coonawarra Estate vineyard we tasted cabernet from lusher looking vines. Douglas estimated these grapes at perhaps two degrees Baume less ripe than the ones we first tasted…and sure enough a green herbaceousness came through in the flavour. But to the eye we were in the same place…hard to believe seven kilometres could make so much difference.

Short as the distance was, Douglas said harvest would be two weeks later there than seven kilometres up the road.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 1992 & 2007