Category Archives: Wine

Book review — Halliday wine companion and autobiography

8 August 2012Book review, People, WineChris Shanahan

James Halliday: Australian wine companion 2013 edition
Hardie Grant Books. RRP $34.95 (paperback)

James Halliday: A life in wine
Hardie Grant Books. RRP $45 (hardcover)

This year’s review copy of Australian wine companion 2013 arrived with a bonus – James Halliday’s easy-reading autobiography, A life in wine.

The companion’s just as the name suggests – a well-thumbed, much-loved reference that can’t really be reviewed every year, given its predictable content.

Over time it’s become the equivalent, if unofficial, of a Michelin guide to Australian wineries and wine – and as much a marketing tool for successful vignerons as it is a solid, consistent guide for wine drinkers.

Such is the companion’s reach and value that each year a flood of winemaker press releases alerts me to the coming release. Indeed, vignerons value Halliday’s endorsement so much that it appears in marketing material of all kinds, including roadside signs in our wine regions.

Among Canberra wineries, Ken Helm set the pace this year, as always, emailing just days before the book arrived, “I look forward to a chat about wine in general – even Halliday’s wine companion 2013 – Canberra wineries did very well again”.

We haven’t chatted yet, but Halliday puts Helm towards the top of his quality pyramid with eight other Canberra makers – Capital Wines, Clonakilla, Collector Wines, Eden Road Wines, Lark Hill, Lerida Estate, Mount Majura and Nick O’Leary.

Each of these received a five-star rating. But there’s a hierarchy even at this level in Halliday’s system.

He awards five black stars to wineries offering good wines in the current review, with at least two of those rating 94 or more out 100. Wineries consistently making exemplary wines (with two or more currently rating 94 or more) earn five red stars. Wineries at the very tip of the pyramid – with a long, acknowledged record of excellence – have their name printed in red.

Clonakilla remains our only wine on that tip. But Alex McKay’s Collector Wines knocks on the door, with five red stars. The others mentioned above rate five black stars (Helm demoted from red last year). Closely following on four black stars and one white (that is, almost five stars) are Brindabella Hills, Four Winds Vineyard, Gallagher Wines, Lake George Winery, McKellar Ridge Wines and Shaw Vineyard Estate.

A surprise casualty this year, after last year’s rating of four black stars plus white star, is Bryan and Jocelyn Martin’s Ravensworth Wines. Ravensworth received heaps of accolades this year, mine included, making me wonder whether the wines were tasted. Martin says he sent samples. We’ll know when the online Wine companion 2013 goes live.

I wondered, too, about the absence of Long Rail Gully from the Canberra list. Richard Parker makes bloody good wines – worthy of a five-star rating in my view. When I phoned the winery, Garry Parker, Richard’s father, replied, “We’ve never given him [Halliday] our wines”.

Halliday requested samples last year, explained Parker, but at the time he didn’t have enough wine to send. However, he anticipated having a full complement shortly, once they’ve finished bottling recent vintages. Vintages due for release (and destined for Halliday’s review next year) include 2011 cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir, 2009 shiraz and 2012 riesling and pinot gris.

Wine companion 2013 gives profiles on 1,381 wineries, detailed tasting notes on 3,722 wines and ratings on another 3,053 wines. Many of the tasting notes come from Ben Edwards, Halliday’s collaborator and heir apparent.

Several Canberra wines make it to Halliday’s best-of-the-best list: Clonakilla and Gallagher 2011 rieslings, Clonakilla Riesling Auslese 2011, Clonakilla Murrumbateman Syrah 2010 and Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier 2011.

Halliday’s autobiography makes a pleasant afternoon’s read (and a lot of laughs), packing an exceptionally busy life in wine into about 250 pages.

I’ve known Halliday since 1979, selling wine to him, sometimes at mates’ rates, when I was with Farmer Bros, sponsoring his top 100 in The Australian during my time at Vintage Cellars, as a fellow reviewer at countless industry tastings and well-lubricated events and as a judge at various wine shows – including the first five years of the Limestone Coast show at Coonawarra.

Everyone in the industry, including me, always felt in awe of Halliday’s productivity. For me working full time, running a family, judging at wine and beer shows and filing a gradually increasing number of weekly columns for the Canberra Times seemed more than enough work.

But Halliday has an ability, it seems, to work non stop. How else to explain how as a partner in Clayton Utz, a notoriously demanding employer, he established not just one but two vineyards and wineries – Brokenwood, in the Hunter Valley, and Coldstream Hills in the Yarra Valley, at the same time judging at Australian and overseas wine shows and writing numerous books and columns for newspapers and magazine.

At age 50 in 1988, he retired from Clayton Utz, but continued a prodigious work output as viticulturist, winemaker, author, judge and key player in the reform of wine shows and promoting the Australian wine industry.

All this, and he found time, too, to drink deeply and well. The great wine experiences literally slosh through the book in mouth watering detail. Halliday shared the passion generously across the years with a growing circle of friends and industry acquaintances. But the book focuses more on the inner circle and especially on his much-loved friend, Len Evans. Evans rollicks life-like through the book, which Halliday wrote largely before Evans’ death in August 2006.

“On 16 August 2006 my world changed forever” writes Halliday in the preface, giving an account of a joyous, wine-filled night at Evans’ house, Loggerheads, in the Hunter on 15 August, only to arrive in New Zealand the next day to learn of the death.

The sense of loss lingers through Halliday’s personal, frank and at times very funny account of his life in wine. The more you love wine, the more you’ll love the book.

Apera and topaque no less silly for the recognition

26 July 2012People, WineChris Shanahan

Macquarie Dictionary’s recent acceptance of the coined words “apera” and “topaque” as replacements for “sherry” and “tokay” doesn’t make them sound any less silly. Nor does it change the fact they ignore the global language of fine wine – the origin, or terroir behind the products.

Rivers of management speak, marketing clichés and a $1 million budget (half from the Australian Government), delivered these two gems – after Australia agreed with Europe in 2008 on how and when to drop the remaining European place names and “traditional expressions” from our wine labels.

In reality, we’d phased out most European names (for example, chablis, claret, white burgundy and champagne) long before the signing in Brussels on 1 December 2008. The name “Sherry” alone posed a unique dilemma as the agreement also banned the associated style names, fino, amontillado, manzanilla and oloroso.

Our “port” producers adapted seamlessly to the new regime, simply retaining the words “tawny” and “vintage”, terms long associated with port. Drinkers would barely notice the change. Muscat was not affected at all, as it’s a varietal name and not banned, much to the relief of winemakers in its heartland, Rutherglen, Victoria

But Rutherglen producers balked at adopting muscadelle, the varietal name behind its other great fortified specialty, tokay. Muscadelle, they argued, sounded too similar to muscat. So it joined “sherry” in a quest for new names.

But it’s a quest muscadelle arguably didn’t need. Drinkers adapt readily to new or unfamiliar varietal names, evidenced by the success of savagnin blanc – a savoury dry white with a name scarily close, for those who scare easily, to the ubiquitous and unrelated sauvignon blanc.

Tokay could easily have been relabelled as muscadelle, in association with the Rutherglen’s trademarked quality and age descriptors – Rutherglen, classic, grand and rare. Not too hard to understand, I reckon – especially given the limited number of producers, long-established labels and distinct flavour differences between muscat and muscadelle.

This approach would have been consistent, too, with the varietal naming of Rutherglen’s other great fortified wine, muscat.

English wine writer, Jancis Robinson, an ardent admirer of these unique wines, commented scathingly, “The word Topaque is a very much more recent invention, as it looks, the creation of massed marketeers and focus groups. Is it a car? Is it an aftershave?”

Later, she elaborated, “The name Tokay was outlawed in 2005 and the Australians were given 10 years to phase in an alternative. A competition yielded nothing they considered usable but Campbell [Colin Campbell, Campbells Wines] cunningly squeezed half a million dollars out of the federal government on the basis that Rutherglen’s eight stickie producers had nobly made a significant concession so that all other Australian producers could benefit from those made by the EU in the bilateral trading agreement. This was spent on hiring an agency to survey the fortified wine market and come up with new names for the wines”.

But by the time of tokay’s and sherry’s banning, some in the industry likened the search for new names to the push, ultimately futile, by some in the eighties and nineties to come up with an Australian term for “Champagne”. Most makers didn’t give a toss. Rightly, they saw the discussion as irrelevant.

Large-scale commercial brands like Minchinbury, Carrington and Great Western simply dispensed with the “Champagne” name. The strength of the brands and packaging said all that needed to be said.

And upmarket producers took individual approaches. Why, they reasoned, would a big country like Australia, with its diverse sparkling-making regions and winemaker approaches, need a single name for upmarket bubbly styles? France’s Champagne was the distinctive product of a single region – hence, the regional name.

Our top makers gave us Croser, Pirie, Arras, Salinger, Chandon, Hanging Rock – and many more individual brands – packaged clearly as high-quality sparklers, often with varietal and regional information on the label. Quite simply, we didn’t need a single name. And our winemakers figured this out without government funding.

Unlike tokay-muscadelle, “sherry” isn’t so easy a name to replace, at the top end of the market anyway as it’s not made from a single variety. But at least the large scale (but declining) brands enjoy strong label recognition and can still be described as dry, medium dry, semi sweet and cream. They don’t need a replacement name any more than Minchinbury, Carrington and Great Western did.

Alas, though, some producers use the Spike Milliaganesque “apera”; and the Rutherglen makers seem solidly behind the equally frivolous “topaque”.

That the names remain largely in the minds of producers, not consumers, is apparent from comments surrounding the decision to include them in the Macquarie Dictionary from 2013. The accompanying press release declares, “Macquarie Dictionary Publisher and Editor Susan Butler said sometimes the English language changed of its own accord, seemingly undirected by anyone, but at other times it was given a clear nudge in a particular direction as is the case with apera and topaque.

“These new names have yet to acquire a patina of associations and customary usage, but no doubt they will as we settle down to having an apera before dinner and a topaque with dessert,” Susan said.

Somehow these names seem more wink than nudge, with a touch of farce and a splash of public money.

Penfolds message to the world — seal wine with glass

18 July 2012People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

On June 29 in Moscow, Penfolds told the world the best seal for wine is glass. They didn’t say it in so many words. But that’s the message dramatically delivered in twelve $168,000 glass ampoules of Penfolds Kalimna Block 42 Cabernet Sauvignon 2004. Yes, just 12 for the whole world. And the problem for Penfolds will be allocating them, not selling them.

The price tag, quality of product, originality of the idea and launch at Moscow’s Pushkin Restaurant (with a run of legendary old Penfolds reds lavished on the guests) ignited huge global publicity.

Behind the cleverly executed campaign, lies years of thinking by winemaker Peter Gago about the best way to seal wine intended for decades or even centuries of cellaring.

By the 2004 vintage Penfolds had adopted screw caps for all its reds except Grange. And in a 2007 interview, Gago told me why not, “‘With Grange we’re talking about people cellaring it for thirty to fifty years. We’ve had trials for ten years, but we’ve got our fingers crossed that these wines will still be good in four or five decades. It’s the integrity of the seal, not ageing that’s of concern”.

He explained that while we knew screw cap seals kept white wines perfectly for thirty years, the chemistry of red wine is different and we simply don’t know for certain whether the seal will last.

He recalled working with well-known sparkling-wine maker, Ed Carr, at the company’s sparkling cellars. They observed how crown seals on sparkling red wines often deteriorated where those for sparkling whites didn’t.

Gago believed a glass-to-glass seal presented the best solution as there’d be nothing to corrode – no perishable material like cork, the tin or polymer coated material in screw caps or the silicon o-ring of the glass Vino-Lok.

Indeed, Penfolds had already engaged an engineer to develop a prototype – a glass disc held in place with a spring-loaded clamp.

Two years later Gago told me they’d developed a second prototype, “a pseudo screw cap” holding a glass disc in place, and had tested both on the 2006 vintage Grange. He said he’d like to take it to the next level, but that would require money – an unlikely outcome at the time as parent company Foster’s struggled with its wine division.

During both the 2007 and 2009 interviews, Gago discussed the concept of a “time capsule” – a wine sealed in a continuum of glass, capable of cellaring for centuries. That’s the dream that became a reality in the recently released ampoule.

Gago calls the ampoule project and the earlier glass-to-glass trials “parallel pursuits” – separate but interrelated. He hopes that success of the radical new ampoule might spark enthusiasm for glass seals within in the company. All it needs now is money, and imagination.

It presents a golden opportunity for Penfolds new managing director, Gary Burnand, to make his mark on the company and, indeed, on the entire wine world. The ampoule gave us the first ever perfectly-sealed wine. By supporting Gago’s glass-to-glass concept he could usher in the most radical technological change since the invention of the glass bottle.

Kalimna vineyard, Block 42

Penfolds Kalimna Block 42 cab sauv — 1880s cabernet sauvignon vines, Block 42, Kalimna Vineyard, Barossa Valley

In the nineteenth century, this northern Barossa site provided firewood for D.J. Fowler and company. In the 1880s, precise date unknown, George Fowler planted and named the Kalimna vineyard. Penfolds bought it in 1945 and its fruit subsequently starred in many of the company’s greatest reds – including blended wines like Grange and several notable cabernets sourced only from Block 42. These include Kalimna Cabernet Sauvignon 1948, Grange Cabernet Sauvignon 1953 and the first Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon (1964).

Winemaker Peter Gago rates Grange cabernet 1953 slightly ahead of Grange Hermitage 1953, in his view the best Grange ever made.

Gago says the low-yielding Block 42 produces extraordinary wine in some vintages. In the most recent outstanding vintages, 1996 and 2004, Penfolds released cabernet under the Kalimna Block 42 name. The wines tend to fetch $500–$600. The ampoules contain the 2004 vintage. Penfolds believes the venerable old vines on Block 42 to be the oldest continuously producing cabernet sauvignon in the world.

What you get for $168,000

750ml of Penfolds Kalimna Block 42 Cabernet 2004 in a glass ampoule, designed and hand-blown by glass artist Nick Mount.
A grey and ruby coloured glass plumb-bob, designed and hand-blown by Nick Mount. The plumb-bob suspends the ampoule in its Jarrah cabinet.
Jarrah cabinet designed and made by furniture craftsman, Hendrik Foster.
Precious metal details designed and made by Hendrik Forster.
A Penfolds winemaker will travel anywhere in the world to open the wine using one of two purpose made tungsten tipped devices to cut and snap the glass tip of the ampoule.

Penfolds produced 12 sets of ampoules for the world market. One remains in the company’s museum cellar at Magill, Adelaide. One is to appear at an event in Singapore next year, but exactly how isn’t clear. The remaining ten are up for grabs as I write. Penfolds also produced and is retaining in its Magill cellar an additional stand-alone ampoule of Kalimna Block 42 2004, without the plumb-bob, precious metal trappings or timber case.

Penfolds Managing Director, Gary Burnand, says retailers and private collectors around the world want the ampoules. Allocating them could take all the diplomacy in the world.

Staying independent in Ainslie

11 July 2012People, WineChris Shanahan

When IGA Ainslie’s Manuel Xyrakis moved his liquor section out of the supermarket to a separate store nearby, industry colleagues told him he was mad. Every supermarket in Canberra sells liquor, they said. You will lose sales.

But he didn’t. Sales increased by 10 per cent. He knew the risks – mainly of losing impulse sales and convenience – and “would’ve been happy to be even at first”, says Xyrakis. But the advantage to customers of a bigger range, more space and not queuing up at the checkout seem to outweigh the inconvenience of making separate grocery and liquor transactions.

Shifting the liquor to the separate Ainslie Cellars, though, is part of Xyrakis’s broader response to increasing competition. It’s a terrific example of an independent operator exploiting a great location and unique merchandising proposition to head off the increasingly powerful supermarket chains.

Coles and Woolworths achieved their dominance of the Australian grocery market largely at the expense of the independent sector. According to research company Planet Retail (cited on www.lifehacker.com.au), the two giants increased their combined market share from 34 per cent in 1975, to 46 per cent in 1985, 58 per cent in 1995, 74 per cent in 2005 and 78 per cent in 2009. Their share of the liquor market followed a similar trajectory – and some in the industry believe they now control around 80 per cent of Australia’s wine market.

With the majors continuing to expand – and Aldi and Costco joining the fight, each in its own limited way – the outlook for independent liquor retailers overall looks shaky. But as Manuel Xyrakis demonstrates, the smartest and best located can continue to thrive.

He relishes the battle and, indeed, says he simply has to expand in smart ways to head off increasing competition, the latest from the nearby Dickson shopping centre.

In February, ACT Deputy Chief Minister, Andrew Barr, announced that two new supermarkets were to be built there – Aldi and another operator, to be selected following expressions of interest.

Faced with that sort of competition, says Xyrakis, “we can’t just be another supermarket”. For some time he’d wanted to expand the liquor section and the range of fresh produce, including meat and deli items.

He says that about 16 years ago his sister, Irene Mihailakis, led the business into specialty food items after her son’s diagnosis with diabetes. The interest expanded to other special diets and Ainslie IGA became an early stockist of gluten-free food. It later moved into organically grown food and high quality produce in general – giving the store an appeal beyond mere convenience.

Xyrakis’s expansion plans remained on hold, however, until the nearby pharmacy relocated. As his family owned the vacated store – separated from the supermarket by a walkway to the rear car park – he seized the opportunity, gutting the building and fitting it out beautifully to a design by Frank Arnold of Quantum Ideas.

The design features some pretty smart local joinery, 127-year-old floor timbers from a Goulburn tannery, a tasting bar as a feature near the window and custom-built Italian lighting – with plenty of floor space for shoppers to move comfortably around the display shelves. It’s a very pleasant space for a pretty good range of liquor – especially in the beer, cider and wine areas.

At the official opening, Dr Edgar Riek, founder of Lake George Winery, recalled the early days of the original store. Back then, Chris Mihailakis, Xyrakis’s brother in law, looked after liquor and “he’d bug me for my wine”, said Riek.

Xyrakis said his parents, Nick and Alice, established the store in 1963. Around 1975 they bought the adjoining Goodways shop from Coles, expanded their store and in 1976 got their liquor licence. Chris Mihailakis focused on wine from the start.

Many years later Xyrakis and other Canberra supermarket owners formed Local Liquor, a buying group. The group now services all of NSW and southern Queensland and with over 300 liquor stores has the buying power independents like Xyrakis need to compete with Coles and Woolworths.

The group uses Metcash’s liquor distribution arm, ALM, for warehousing and logistics – enabling 24-hour turnaround from ordering to delivery via ALM’s Fyshwick warehouse.

Ainslie Cellars also maintains direct accounts with many wineries, including Canberra’s leading makers. The locals enjoy a solid representation on the shelves – and a dedicated tasting for a featured maker every week.

Xyrakis’s nephew, Keith Mihailakis, managed the Ainslie liquor section from 2006. He now runs the new store with Kate O’Leary, formerly of The Grape (Brisbane), Vintage Cellar and Negociants – the import and distribution arm of Robert Hill-Smith’s wine group.

Savour the Bins, but don’t bank on them

4 July 2012People, Vineyard, Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

The once modestly priced Penfolds bin wines remain the foundation of many Australian cellars. Collectively, they underpin Australia’s wine auction system. And though the wines appear out of favour with many critics, the ripe, bold, multi-layered, oak-influenced style developed by Max Schubert in the 1950s continues to appeal to many drinkers.

But though they sell well and in volume at auction, the gap between retail and auction prices should alarm anyone viewing the wines as investments. I’ve raised this point several times in past columns, but if you’re after mature Penfolds reds, then you’re likely to find them at auction at substantially lower prices than the current releases.

That’s partly because sellers bought the wines at lower prices in the past, meaning that even if they’re at an apparent discount, the seller might still be in front. But the gap between current auction prices of recent vintages and retail pricing of this year’s releases, raises serious doubts the wine could ever give a return to buyers.

The wines are distinctive, brilliant and, with the exception of the drink-now Bin 23 Pinot Noir, built for long-term cellaring. But to illustrate the price risk, I’ve included Langton’s Auction’s most recent price for each style. The price is my estimated net cost to the buyer after adding buyer’s premium and GST to the hammer price.

Penfolds Bin 23 Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir 2011 $32–$40
Last auction sale: $28.75, 2009 vintage, 2012
A satisfying pinot, albeit a little off the Penfolds beaten path. The teasing, stalky character reveals whole-bunch fermentation – mainstream for pinot makers. But the chewy, tough-edged tannins seemed a world away from the highly polished Penfolds style. The cloudiness, too, zigged away from the normal pristine purity. An email to winemaker Peter Gago drew the immediate response, “The P/Noirs made at Magill are all cold-soaked, naturally fermented, and spend their maturation in barrique on lees … almost always bottled unfiltered, never fined. The cost of this ‘hands-off’, flavour-retentive approach is occasional turbidity”. I would call it cloudy but fine – a delicious drinking experience.

Penfolds Bin 138 Barossa Valley Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre 2010 $29.45–38
Last auction sale: $25.30, 2008 vintage, 2012
Grenache reveals itself in the bright, fruity aroma and buoyant palate, shiraz in the flesh and richness, and mourvedre in the spiciness and assertive tannins. It’s a generous, earthy and graceful wine with good cellaring potential.

Penfolds Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiraz 2010 $29.45–$38
Last auction sale: $20.70, 2009 vintage, 2012
An exceptionally fragrant, silky and soft Bin 128, featuring, deep, concentrated, sweet berry flavours and layers of juicy fruit and oak tannins. The Coonawarra elegance will reveal itself increasingly as the wine ages. Classy.

Penfolds Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz 2009 $29.45–$38
Last auction sale: $24.15, 2008 vintage, 2012
A burlier shiraz than Bin 128, Bin 28 reveals rich, round ripe-cherry varietal flavours – a big mouthful of earthy shiraz supported by equally robust tannins. Should cellar well for a decade or two.

Penfolds Bin 150 Marananga Barossa Valley Shiraz 2009 $57–$75
Last auction sale: $90.85, 2008 vintage, 2012
Marananga, towards the western side of the Barossa, produces powerful shiraz, often making the grade for Grange. The quality of shiraz from the area prompted large-scale vineyard expansion there in the nineties, opening the way for Penfolds to produce a sub-regional wine, Bin 150, in 2008. The second vintage, matured in both French and American oak, is a powerful but graceful Barossa shiraz. The oak and fruit work beautifully together, the fruit always at the centre but enriched by the oak flavour and tannins. Note the healthy auction price for the only other vintage of Bin 150. Watch this wine.

Penfolds Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 $50.35–$65
Last auction sale: $36.80, 2009 vintage, 2012
Consistently since its introduction 1990, Bin 407 has represented the pure, ripe varietal flavour of cool-climate cabernet sauvignon – with the Penfolds stamp of firm structure, layers of fruit and tannin and a definite oak influence. It’s a multi-regional blend, usually based on material from South Australia’s Limestone Coast, particularly Coonawarra.

Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz 2009 $56.99–$75
Last auction price: $47.15, 2008 vintage, 2012
Cabernet reveals itself in the aroma, flavour and elegant, firm structure. But shiraz shows its face, too, adding generosity to the palate. Neither variety dominates the powerful blend, with its layers of fruit, tannin and oak – a unique, potentially very long-lived wine, revealing nature in its beautiful grape flavours, and human ingenuity in the complex assembly of so many flavour and structural elements.

Richmond Grove sells historic riesling

27 June 2012People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

John Vickery, joined Leo Buring as winemaker in 1955, then made Richmond Grove riesling in the former Buring winery, Chateau Leonay, from 1994

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Australian wine industry seeks lower alcohol wine

20 June 2012WineChris Shanahan

A growing push for lower alcohol wines comes from many directions: the anti-alcohol lobby; public health advocates; a desire to reduce costs in markets that tax wine on alcohol content; to avoid the heat and astringency of excessive alcohol; in response to certain wine critics, particularly in the United Kingdom; and to cater for some consumers favouring a less intoxicating beverage.

Australia’s peak industry body, Wine Australia, backs the move, saying on its website, “The wine industry is developing and evaluating strategies to reduce the alcohol/ethanol content of wine without compromising quality”.

It lists several ways for winemakers to bring down alcohol levels: picking grapes at lower sugar levels (lower sugar means less alcohol), removing sugar from grape juice, removing alcohol from finished wine and persuading yeasts to produce less alcohol from a given amount of sugar.

The Australian Wine Research Institute currently uses traditional breeding selection techniques to develop these yeasts. But it also genetically modifies yeasts to achieve the same results for research purposes, if not in commercial trials or production. This research, it believes, will help researchers understand what yeasts are capable of and aid traditional breeding approaches.

Wine Australia concludes, “The immediate challenge for the wine sector is to make ‘low-alcohol producing yeasts’ using traditional breeding and selection processes that are acceptable to the consumer and which can be adopted by winemakers. Considerable commercial advantage will benefit the category or country which delivers the successful outcome first”.

However, Mudgee winemaker David Lowe, an advocate of low alcohol wines, believes the industry “must have the debate now about genetically engineered yeast”. He says the AWRI’s extensive work in this area has already produced yeast capable of making 8.5 per cent alcohol wine. He believes if Australia adopts GM yeasts, “Europe may use it as a trade barrier. But Canada and the USA will most likely be OK with it”.

But winemaking consultant and former CEO of Domain Chandon Australia, Dr Tony Jordan counters with, “The day we allow genetically modified material into the winery is the day we might as well become Coca-Cola. That’s definitely the beginning of the end, it’s not terroir-based technology. I believe we need to be a bit a-technical here and wait for traditional selection techniques to come through. Some people say that if we don’t explore GM then the wine industry will be left behind – well, so be it”.

Jordan believes viticultural changes in the last twenty years account for increasing alcohol content in Australian wines. He says new canopy management techniques turned our vines into “sugar factories”. “Perhaps we should be looking for ways to reverse that and still get ripe tannins and fruit flavours”, he argues.

And that’s the conundrum for vignerons in Australia’s hot, dry climate – achieving flavour and tannin ripeness in grapes before sugar levels soar. Even so-called cool areas like Canberra struggle with this – or we did until grapes ripened at comparatively low sugar levels – meaning lower alcohol – in the cold 2011 and 2012 seasons.

Seasonal temperature variations aside, however, it should be possible, as Tony Jordan urges, to power down the sugar factories. In Margaret River, for example, Vanya Cullen’s biodynamic vineyards produced the profound Diana Madeline cabernet blend at just 12 and 13 per cent alcohol respectively in the 2009 and 2010 vintages. This is world class, fully ripe wine. But it’s significantly lower in alcohol than the 14.5 per cent or so of other top Australian cabernet sauvignons.

Whether or not all consumers can discern, or even care, about the difference is another matter. In Reducing alcohol levels in wine, an April 2012 fact sheet for winemakers and grape growers, the AWRI reported, “The link between alcohol and consumer preference varies across consumer groups. In recent studies, winemaker preference did not relate to alcohol concentration. While almost 40% of wine consumers in Australia and more than 50% of wine consumers in China reported lower levels of liking for higher alcohol wines, with reference to hotness and bitterness”.

In the same publication, the AWRI advises vignerons how to reduce alcohol – starting with viticulture, then drilling down through yeast selection, blending lower and higher alcohol components, enzyme additions, fermenter design, physical removal of sugar or alcohol and loss of alcohol by evaporation during fermentation and maturation.

While physical removal offers the biggest reductions in alcohol, it almost invariably means a significant loss of flavour. But big reductions probably appeal to a small minority of drinkers, not mainstream consumers.

I suspect the main game will be shifting wines down a couple of percentage points, say moving reds from 14 to 15 per cent to 12 or 13 per cent in cooler areas, a tad higher in hotter regions – levels that may be achievable largely in the vineyard. The caveat, as Canberra’s two recent cold vintages indicate, is that we can’t totally overcome seasonal variations.

Mudgee winemaker’s quest for good low-alcohol wine

13 June 2012People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Merlot confuses everyone, even Miles

6 June 2012People, WineChris Shanahan

A recent string of letters in The Canberra Times reveals mixed perceptions of merlot, Australia’s third most planted red wine variety.

Senator Humphries set the ferret running when he wrote, “In March, through the letters page of the Canberra Times, Ian de Landelles and I agreed on a wager: I bet that the next leadership speculation to hit the national headlines would be about the Labor Party; he, the Liberal Party. At stake is a nice bottle of red. I’m partial to a Merlot, please, Ian”.

Former Running Shop owner, Brian Wenn, shot back, “So Gary Humphries (Letters, May 4) is partial to a merlot. Gary, merlot isn’t wine. It is a low quality anaesthetic substance which is sometimes blended in with real red wine like shiraz and cabernet to soften any sharper edges. No one expects you to drink the stuff by itself. I refer you to that great movie ‘Sideways’, in which the lead character, a wine connoisseur, profoundly states, ‘I’m not drinking merlot’. Quite right!”

Begging to differ, Ross McKay of Gungahlin, offered, “I have the greatest respect for Brian Wenn (Letters, 8 May) but he has fallen for getting Hollywood mixed up with reality. Some of the greatest wines in the world are merlot-based. Chateau Petrus comes to mind. I’m sure that Mr De Landelles is giving Senator Humphries a bottle of Petrus”.

Graciously conceding defeat to Humphries in another letter, Ian De Landelles added, “However, given our long-term friendship, I look forward to his invitation to share a glass of merlot with him as we discuss the nation’s political future”.

On one side of the debate Gary Humphries and Ian De Landelles – cheered on tongue in cheek by Petrus loving Ross McKay – seem happy drinking merlot, and perhaps even the prospect of sharing the same bottle.

That leaves Brian Wenn (he once called me a drinker with a running problem; so I gave up running) alone on the letters page sinking the boot into merlot. He calls on Miles from Sideways for support, summoning the unforgettable lines, “No, if anyone orders merlot, I’m leaving. I am not drinking any f…g merlot”. (But he did; and we’ll come back to that later).

Perhaps more than any other variety, merlot creates confusion (fanned in the early days when much of Australia’s “merlot” turned out to be the generally lighter cabernet franc). It’s perceived variously as bland and sweet, a light and easy drinker, a low quality anaesthetic for blending with real reds, an elegant and noble blending companion for cabernet sauvignon or full-bodied and voluptuous, as in Chateau Petrus of Bordeaux.

One thing’s for sure in Australia – it’s a very important variety, third in volume after shiraz and cabernet. In 2009 (our most recent “normal” vintage), Australian vignerons harvested 403,000 tonnes of shiraz, 247,000 tonnes of cabernet sauvignon and 126 thousand tonnes of merlot – a country mile ahead of fourth placed pinot noir on 28,000 tonnes.

With that volume, and spread across so many regions, it’s almost inevitable for merlot to assume a number of identities. The style of wine it makes can be determined by climate, vineyard management, grape yields, winemaker preferences or a combination of these factors. For example, wine made from an irrigated, warm-climate, high yielding vineyard might be light, fruity and soft – and the maker might even leave unfermented grape sugar in the wine to fill the mid palate.

At the other end of the spectrum a winemaker in a cooler area might restrict yields to produce more concentrated flavour, usually from small berries. We see this, for example, in Capital Wines’ Kyeema Vineyard, Murrumbateman – where the merlot wine begins life dark and tannic, needing years of bottle ageing. Other good examples of straight merlot are Coldstream Hills Yarra Valley and Parker Coonawarra Estate.

Chateau Petrus remains the model for this style. I’ve visited the vineyard a couple of times, tasting the impenetrably deep, fragrant, voluptuous young wine – after schlepping through the dense, wet clay of the vineyard. On one occasion Christian Moueix, whose family has a long association with Petrus, served the marvellous, maturing (still voluptuous) 1982 vintage.

He observed that the Pomerol district (home of Petrus) produced the greatest of all expressions of merlot from its wet clay soils; while the free-draining limestone soils of nearby St Emillion produced more austere wines. In both Pomerol and St Emillion, winemakers pair merlot with cabernet franc. The Petrus vineyard comprises 95 per cent merlot, the rest cabernet franc, Moueix said, but more often than not the wine comprised only merlot.

But in Australia, as in France, winemakers generally blend merlot with other varieties. We see this at its best in Margaret River, in particular, and Coonawarra, usually with cabernet sauvignon, but to a lesser extent with petit verdot, cabernet franc and malbec.

The truth is, merlot can make stunning wine. Even Miles loved it. But that’s the irony in Sideways. He finally quaffed a treasured, much mentioned Chateau Cheval Blanc 1961 (from the Bordeaux sub-region, St Emillion) from a paper cup. Did he recognise the blend of merlot and cabernet franc?

Coolangatta Estate leads the way on Shoalhaven Coast

30 May 2012People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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