‘Although alcohol does not have a taste’, writes Professor A. Dinsmoor Webb (Oenologist, UC Davis, retired), ‘it has an effect, not just on the human nervous system, but on how a wine tastes. The alcohol content in a perfectly balanced wine should be unfathomable, but wines that are slightly too high in alcohol can have a hot aftertaste. As a general rule, wines described as ‘full bodied’ are high in alcohol, while those described as ‘light’ are low in alcohol.’

Professor Webb’s words imply that there’s an optimum alcohol content for each wine. Indeed, over the last few years, many Australian wines, reds in particular, have copped criticism for going over the top.
And last week at the Australian Wine Industry Outlook Conference, Dan Jago, director of beer, wine and spirits for giant UK retailer, Tesco, warned Aussie makers of a swing towards lighter red styles.

It’s a topic widely discussed amongst winemakers, partly in response to perceived consumer resistance to reds weighing in at fifteen per cent or more alcohol by volume. The alcohol is quite often accompanied by masses of sweet fruit, mountains of tannin and enough oak to rebuild the ark.

The issue is not limited to reds, nor solely to Aussie wines. I once tasted, for instance, a sherry-like Californian chardonnay bottled at a breathalyser blowing 16.5 per cent alcohol. It was awful.

And it’s not only consumers driving the alcohol discussion. Many winemakers and wine show judges question the drinkability of excessively big wines. A couple of years back, for example, Jim Brayne, McWilliams chief winemaker told me, ‘The wheel seems to be turning. High quality shiraz and chardonnay seems to be coming down in alcohol as winemakers seek finesse and palate structure rather than just volume’. ‘Wine judges are rewarding the finer wines, too’, he added.

To understand the relationship between flavour and sugar (and, hence, alcohol), it’s worth looking at wine grapes through a vigneron’s eyes. The vigneron approaches grapes with a wine style in mind. Two of the key parameters in deciding when to harvest grapes to achieve the desired style are sugar ripeness and flavour ripeness. These are related but not in a linear way.

Now, sugar ripeness determines the alcohol content of a dry wine and in most Australian growing regions achieving sufficient sugar levels is not a problem. However, as winemakers tend to harvest for a particular flavour profile, it’s not uncommon, especially in warmer areas, for sugar levels (and therefore alcohol potential) to climb very high before flavour ripeness is achieved.

So, let’s look at the Hunter examples. Jim Brayne says that semillon in the lower Hunter develops ripe fruit flavours when the alcohol potential is around ten to eleven per cent. Indeed, the better Hunter semillons today continue to be made at about this level. In contrast, says Jim, semillon grown in the much warmer Griffith area, develops ripe fruit flavours at much higher sugar levels and therefore the wines are more alcoholic

Now, with Hunter shiraz, things have changed. Jim says that in the old days the Hunter’s lousy vintage weather often left shiraz stranded on about 11 per cent alcohol. These wines were light, thin and green. Improved viticulture, says Jim, means that even in poor seasons today’s Hunter shiraz reaches respectable sugar and flavour ripeness levels.

Some makers, however, boost alcohol in poor seasons by running off juice, concentrating it by removing water, then adding the concentrated juice back for fermentation.

Interestingly, in good seasons, sugar levels achieved in the Hunter shiraz today are similar to those achieved in good seasons in the old days.

While there is evidence that some modern yeasts extract more alcohol than older strains, it seems the ultimate alcohol content of any given wine is dependent on the grape variety, the region, the season and winemaker decisions about time of harvest.

If, indeed, we experience a wider swing to elegance and finesse, we’ll see subtle declines in alcohol content because winemaker in any given region still have to harvest within the fairly narrow flavour ripeness spectrum. I don’t think we’ll see again, for example, the thin, green 11 per cent alcohol Coonawarras peddled about in the early eighties.

For those seeking elegant, comparatively low alcohol wines, the answer may be found in cool areas, or in regions where through some peculiarity or another, a particular variety (like Hunter semillon or Clare riesling) achieve flavour ripeness before the sugar level explodes.

That said, wines of comparatively high alcohol content are not unique to Australia and can be just as easily found in France, Italy, Spain or pretty well anywhere you look. Whether nature provides or humans add the sugar that ultimately becomes alcohol matters less than the impact that the alcohol has on a wine’s flavour.

As the good professor said above ‘the alcohol content in a perfectly balanced wine should be unfathomable.’ I’ve had beautifully balanced, elegant, Aussie reds weighing in at 15 per cent alcohol and hot, hollow ones of only 13 to 14 per cent.

What that means, of course, is that alcohol content on its own tells you little about the overall quality of a wine. And given our growing export success it suggests that in working towards lower alcohol content, we shouldn’t sacrifice the ripe, fruity flavours that people love.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2007

The wine regions that stick in our minds are those with a specialty. Think of the Barossa and shiraz, Clare Valley and riesling, Coonawarra and cabernet sauvignon, Marlborough and sauvignon blanc, Burgundy and pinot noir and chardonnay or Champagne with its incomparable pinot-chardonnay bubbly blends. The list is long.

But when I judged at the Mudgee regional show a few years back, and again on a recent visit to the region, I found a diversity of styles but not one that I’d identify with the region. So, what is Mudgee wine? Does it have a specialty?

You sometimes still hear of ‘Mudgee mud’, a tag coined for a local beer during post world war two rationing. Somehow, undeservedly, the name attached itself to the area’s distinctly un-mud-like wines.

One interpretation of the Mudgee name, ‘nest in the hills’, captures the feeling of this elevated, mountain-ringed area on the Cudgegong River. Its mild growing season tends to produce good grape yields and medium bodied wines.

From Craigmoor’s founding in 1858 until the late eighties, the regional reputation grew from the efforts of small to medium makers like Craigmoor, Hill of Gold, Huntington Estate, Miramar and Montrose.

But the benign climate, availability of water from the Cudgegong and proximity to the Hunter region attracted a new wave of investors during the nineties. Small maker numbers increased, but these were dwarfed by broad acre plantings driven by the mid to late nineties grape shortages.

In this period, Goree Park, famous for its Mudgee horse stud, the Paspaley pearling family, Hunter-based Rosemount Estate and others, established very large vineyards. With the exception of Rosemount, which had planted to meet demand for its own brand, much of the new production went to large companies, notably Southcorp and Orlando-Wyndham.

For a period, then, Mudgee performed much the same function, albeit on a smaller scale, as South Australia’s Langhorne Creek – as a source of significant volumes of grapes for middle priced wines.

Mudgee’s wine identity continued to be carved largely by small makers, with some exceptions – notably Orlando’s Montrose, Poet’s Corner and Craigmoor brands and Rosemount’s Mountain Blue, a top-shelf red made from very old vines.

But for all of the good wines made from the seventies onwards only a few seemed memorable. Bob Roberts made some terrific reds at Huntington Estate and Carlo Corino and then Robert Paul at Montrose showed that the Italian varieties, sangiovese and barbera, had potential.

Then judging at the 2003 Mudgee a regional show a couple of impressively fresh, older chardonnays, including Miramar 1984, sparked memories – of a delicious Carl Corino Montrose Chardonnay tasted on my first visit there in 1979, some lovely early eighties Craigmoor chardonnays and the superb Montrose Stony Creek Chardonnay. Could this, perhaps be Mudgee’s specialty?

I had the question in mind on a visit to Mudgee three weeks ago. Just as it had been back in 1979, Montrose was the first stop. In the late seventies it was shiny new and impressive – having been founded by two Italians, Carlo Salteri and Franco Belgiorno-Nettis in 1974.

About twenty years later, ownership passed to Orlando-Wyndham. Then, in December 2006, the Oatley family (founders of Rosemount Estate, by now a Foster’s brand) purchased Orlando’s Mudgee interests.

The purchase included the Poet’s Corner Winery (now back to its original name, Montrose), the historic Craigmoor cellars (founded 1858) and an impressive suite of vineyards, including a lovely plot of Italian varieties planted on Montrose’s Stony Creek Vineyard by Carlo Corino in the 1970s.

As well, the Oatley’s maintained ownership of the Mudgee vineyards originally planted for Rosemount – although the plum Mountain Blue Vineyard remains with Foster’s, presumably to feed Rosemount Mount Blue red.

The Oatleys recruited James Manners as winemaker and pretty smartly planned a roll out of its Wild Oats, Robert Oatley, Montrose and Craigmoor brands.

Like the Rosemount brand before it, the new venture will rely on driving volume with its multi-regional value range – in this case the Wild Oats label. These are already in the market and moving well.

But the Mudgee regional focus is going to be important, too, James Manners told me. All of the chardonnays have been from Mudgee from day one, most of the flagship Robert Oatley wines will come from Mudgee and all of the Montrose and Craigmoor wines be regional.

He’s not sure why chardonnay does so well in the region. Judged on climate alone – mild rather than cool or cold – you’d expect tasty, early maturing styles. Instead, and especially from the slightly higher, cooler Stony Creek vineyard, the chardonnays tend to be fine, complex and extraordinarily long lived – like the Miramar 1984 that won a trophy at the 2003 show.

The sangiovese and barbera planting at Stony Creek are to be extended – vindicating Carlo Corino’s judgment back in the seventies. The 2006s, now in tank, look terrific and will be released under the Montrose label next year.

But there’s work to be done on the cabernets and shirazes. Both grow well in the area but the flavours tend to fade quickly as very firm tannins take over on the palate. James believes that the solution lies partly in vineyard practice – modifying vine canopies to encourage equal ripening of tannins and fruit flavours – and partly in winemaking.

For Mudgee, the arrival of the Oatleys is nothing but good news. These guys are proven performers. They made Rosemount a household word in the US. And they have the drive, ability and resources to take Mudgee to the world. Finally, the word from Chris Hancock, Bob Oatley’s right hand man, is that the US market loves the name Mudgee and see it as pure Aussie.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2007

The sheer quality, value and long cellaring ability of Australia’s 2007 rieslings presents a great buying opportunity for drinkers. But before presenting several gems from recent tastings, it’s interesting to reflect on this noble variety’s undeserved niche status.

It’s a darling variety amongst winemakers and the converted. It attracts critical attention completely out of proportion to its overall popularity — and dramatically out of whack with its production figures.

Measured by hectares-in-the-ground against other varieties, riesling missed the boom that so dramatically changed Australia’s vinous landscape in the decade from the mid nineties.

And my, how that export-driven landscape changed in ten years. In 1996 sultana, the plainest of all wine grapes, was our most widely planted variety at 15,195 hectares. It left chardonnay and shiraz vying for second place on 13,713 hectares and 13,410 hectares respectively – with riesling well behind on 3,423 hectares.

By 2006 sultana was out of the race and shiraz had taken the crown as our most planted variety. The area planted to shiraz had grown by 207 per cent to 41,115 hectares – eclipsing even chardonnay’s dramatic 127 per cent surge to 31,219 hectares. Riesling, meanwhile, grew by a paltry 29 per cent to 4,400 hectares while Australia’s total vineyard plantings swelled 91 per cent from 88,474 to 168,971 hectares.

But the riesling fixation only grew – attracting almost as much attention, as far as I can gauge, as our number one variety, shiraz.

The riesling buzz, I believe, rests on its sublime quality, extraordinary cellaring ability and its suitability to Australian conditions. It’s been here since the first half of the nineteenth and survived for many reasons, including good luck, but perhaps mostly because winemakers loved it and wouldn’t let go.

In 2006, wine industry veteran, Phil Laffer, wrote in The View From Our Place, ‘We were lucky as an industry that we didn’t lose all those riesling vineyards when the chardonnay boom began in the 1980s. Private growers pulled out nearly all of their riesling – they just couldn’t get the price for their fruit. But proprietary winemakers such as Orlando, Lindemans, Leo Burings, Hardys, Yalumba and Penfolds in particular, hung on to their riesling vines.

‘We are as a company, and as an industry, surrounded by remarkably good riesling vineyards. And in Australia we have a history of making very good, long-lived riesling. With the superb fruit that we have, that’s just a case of being very careful all the way from the vine through to the bottle.’

While Laffer rightly ties riesling’s survival and reputation to its Barossa-Clare-Eden Valley heartland, the variety now makes its mark across Australia in a diversity of styles, reflecting the climates and sites where it’s grown.

Within riesling’s generally floral/aromatic theme, these variations can be subtle or dramatic – and can be appreciated in the terrific 2007s now coming into the market.

I’ve reviewed several of these, mostly from Canberra, in recent Sunday Times’ columns. But two weeks back, with the help of an enthusiastic wine mate, I judged twelve 2007s, including some of Australia’s most respected labels.

Now, judging young rieslings is difficult. You only have to look at wine show results to see that judges struggle with the new releases while generally nailing it with older wines. Why is this?
I think it gets back to the delicacy and subtlety of young riesling. The more of them you line up, the harder it is to differentiate one from the other. From my observation, in big shows, like Canberra’s recent Riesling Challenge, the simpler, fruitier wines tend to outscore more subtle and restrained, but ultimately better, wines.

In this year’s Challenge, for example, the delicious Leo Buring Clare Valley Riesling 2007 scored 55.5 points out of 60 where it’s more expensive and, to my palate, far superior cellar mate, Leonay Eden Valley Riesling 2007 scored just 45.5. There were other similar examples from Tasmania and Western Australia where cheaper, commercial wines outscored more expensive, premium cellar mates.

Given the numbers of wines (135 in this instance), their delicacy, and the time taken to judge – an average of two minutes per wine from my wine show experience – it’s not surprising that we see such anomalies, even from the most experienced palates.

In our little Chateau Shanahan tasting, therefore, we took our time – about an hour and a half to taste twelve wines. We sniffed, tasted and spat for first impressions. Then, wine-by-wine enjoyed a little sip – because it’s really only in the drinking that you can see all a wine has to offer.

And what we found, amongst the delicacy, were lovely style differences ranging from the ultra finesse of Tasmania’s Bay of Fires to the very rich, but still delicate, Petaluma Hanlin Hill Clare Valley.

These contrasting styles were, in a sense, our bookends – representing the opposing ends of the style spectrum – with the other wines falling somewhere between.

I’ll be reviewing the wines in my Sunday column in coming weeks, but one, in particular stood out – Bay of Fires Tasmania Riesling 2007 ($30).

It stood out because it was so different from the other wines – a difference created largely by Tasmania’s climate.

As part of the Hardy Wine Company Group, Bay of Fires sources fruit widely within Tasmania. And winemaker Fran Austin says fruit for the 2007 came from a single block within contractor vineyard at Rokeby, a particularly cool site, near Hobart,

Fran believes that the very cool growing conditions concentrate riesling’s aromatic intensity. This, in combination with high natural acidity and modest alcohol content, gives the wine a tremendously appealing aroma and the most delicate, yet delicious flavour imaginable.

And for once a professional judge’s palate aligned with those of consumers – and that’s not all that common. After the tasting, I put the top four wines to a table of people aged 21 to 56. All five preferred the Tassie riesling but couldn’t share our excitement over the benchmark Grosset, Mount Horrocks and Henschke wines.

Perhaps that says something about why riesling doesn’t cut the mustard with all drinkers. It also says that rieslings from really cool climates, like Tassie’s, might have what it takes to lure more drinkers into the fold.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2007

Sauvignon Blanc. Kath and Kym once called it sauvignon plonk. Others call it cat’s pee. Over a glass or two, a vet I know enquired if the horse had been shot. Wine man, the late Len Evans listed it with goat’s cheese amongst his pet hates. And England’s wine luminary, Jancis Robinson, once wrote that its ranking amongst the world’s nine ‘classic’ varieties came only because of its ‘divine combination with semillon in parts of Bordeaux’.

While wine show judges almost invariably find sauvignon classes disappointing, populated by weedy, tart wines, sprinkled with one or two juicy highlights. Despite all the sauvignon put downs, Aussie drinkers love the variety – notably as a straight varietal from Marlborough, New Zealand or, from Margaret River, Western Australia, blended with semillon.

Twenty-one years ago, Jancis Robinson wrote “Sauvignon blanc produces wines for our times: white, dry, refreshingly zesty, aggressively recognisable and ready to drink almost before the presses have been hosed down after the vintage”. Her words seem even more on the money now than they did in 1986.
And the word from retailers and producers is that sauvignon blanc and blends are the fastest growing segment in the domestic wine market. And, for example, when I left Vintage Cellars a few years back, sauvignon blanc already accounted for one sixth of wine sales at a time when the variety accounted for only one twenty fifth of Australia’s grape crush.

This suggests a dash into sauvignon blanc by Australia’s keenest wine drinkers. The sustained growth in sauvignon blanc demand shows up, too, at the nation’s grape crushers. In 2002 we crushed 28, 567 tonnes of it. In the small 2003 vintage the figure fell to 21,028 tonnes before doubling to 42,504 tonnes in 2006 and slipping marginally in the drought-affected 2007 vintage to 39,463 tonnes. This growth suggests many hectares of plantings coming on stream to meet rising demand.

So why the rise in popularity of sauvignon blanc? I suspect it’s the exciting quality of straight varietals from Marlborough and blends from Western Australia delivering what Jancis described 20 years ago, “dry, refreshingly zesty, aggressively recognisable and ready to drink almost before the presses have been hosed down”.

It’s not that chardonnay’s in decline. Far from it. Rather, sauvignon blanc has found its niche as a fruity, zesty undemanding white well suited to our warm climate and casual dining habits – capturing what might have been riesling’s role.

Twenty years ago when the Aussie dollar was stronger, the most loved sauvignons were those imported from Pouilly and Sancerre at the eastern end of France’s Loire Valley. Magically fruity with a minerally, bone-dry finish, they reigned until international demand and a weakening dollar pushed them out of reach of most Australians.

Domestic sauvignons, at the time, came from mainly warm areas and were often made in the oak matured ‘fume blanc’ style pioneered by Robert Mondavi in California. These attracted momentary attention but were by and large over oaked and lacking varietal flavour.

By the mid eighties Australians had begun to enjoy the first in-your-face Marlborough sauvignon blancs. These offered pungent, capsicum-like aromas and flavours in tandem with high natural acidity – the product of Marlborough’s very cool climate, a pre condition for good sauvignon.

Twenty years on and Marlborough’s the world capital of sauvignon, having spread from a few vineyards at the southern cooler side of the Wairau valley to the warmer northern side and to the even cooler Awatere Valley, over the Wither Hills to the south.

The resulting diversity of sites, viticultural practice and winemaking preferences means a great diversity of Marlborough styles today. In general that means zesty, fresh, well-defined varietal flavours. But the varietal spectrum varies from the riper citrus and tropical fruit character of warmer sites to the old in-your-face capsicum-like ones.

Australian sauvignon blanc hasn’t found its Marlborough yet. But it has found a comfortable home in the Adelaide Hills. Like Marlborough the Adelaide Hills region is far from homogenous climatically. But selected sites do bring home the bacon, like the pace-setting Shaw and Smith.

And at Margaret River in the west, where sauvignon blanc seldom makes it on its own, semillon steps in to fatten out the mid palate and add a lovely citrus note without detracting from the racy freshness of sauvignon blanc.

These range from ever-popular ‘classic dry white’ styles like those from Evans & Tate and Vasse Felix at modest prices to the seamless glory of Cullens and Cape Mentelle partly oak fermented sauvignon blanc and semillon blends.

With a few exceptions like Cullens and Cape Mentelle wine, though, these are wines to chill, quaff and enjoy by the bucketful. Then back up for the new vintage as soon it hits the shelves.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2007

In a good year Australia crushes about two million tonnes of grapes, equivalent to about 150 million dozen bottles of wine. About one quarter of that comes from New South Wales, second in volume to our undisputed winemaking monarch, South Australia on fifty per cent.

Scratch below the surface of these big figures and we find, beyond the cask wines and daily quaffers, an increasingly rich palette of flavours emerging from the hottest plains to the chilliest peaks across New South Wales.

Vines now speckle the endless wrinkles and folds of the Great Divide from Queensland to Victoria and sprawl in broad acre plantings along the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers.

The latter, known officially as the ‘Big Rivers’ zone, accounts for more than 70 per cent of New South Wales’ wine production. While much of the wine from these areas is homogenous, destined for wine casks and cheaper bottled products, there are pockets of specialisation.

Take, for example, the luscious dessert wines of the Riverina district. Back in the eighties the de Bortoli family showed that semillon, the region’s then most widely planted white wine variety, need not make ordinary wine. De Bortoli Noble One, now Australia’s best known sticky, was born of imagination and the propensity of the area’s warm, humid sites to produce suitable grapes.

irtually every Riverina grower now makes a semillon in the Noble One mould – a style that goes so well with desserts, patés, and ripe old blue-vein cheeses.

Along the Great Dividing Range style variations can be remarkable – sometimes over tiny distances, thanks to dramatic variations in altitude. Warm Cowra, at about 200 metres makes fat, soft peachy, drink-now chardonnays; an hour’s drive north at 900 metres chilly Orange makes an altogether, leaner, slow evolving, more interesting style.

The former can be quaffed happily with any casual meal; the latter deserves the very finest seafood and your undivided attention.

The lower Hunter, of course, one of Australia’s oldest wine making regions, specialises in low-alcohol, delicate, long-lived semillons and elegant, earthy shiraz but, like most regions, produces a wide range of wines with notable success, too, in chardonnay and verdelho.

In our very own Canberra district (most of it within New South Wales, despite the name), shows the dramatic impact of altitude-related climate variation. Warmer sites between 550 and 650 metres around Hall and Murrumbateman make wonderfully elegant, refined shiraz — a great match for rare spring lamb, veal or turkey. And the shiraz performance has worked to higher altitudes in recent years and now includes Mount Majura, Wamboin and Lake George foreshore.

The cooler sites at over 800 metres up on the Lake George Escarpment, above Bungendore, make fine chardonnay and, occasionally, pinot noir – fine pairings for Atlantic salmon and duck, respectively.

Throughout the Canberra region, in comparatively warm Hall and Murrumbateman, up on the cool, high escarpment and along Lake George foreshore, at 700 metres, riesling performs well, albeit in a number of dry styles — all suited to a range of seafoods, depending on body and richness.

Canberra’s southern neighbour, Tumbarumba, in the cool lee of the Snowy Mountains, produces superb, delicate pinot noir and chardonnay for top Australian sparkling wines – delicate, appetisers to serve with finger food. Tumbarumba also contributes to some of our very best elegant, intense and expensive chardonnays. Like those from Orange, these gems can be savoured with the finest seafood.

Farther to the north, Mudgee (meaning ‘nest in the hills’) mixes the broad acre plantings of the last decade with the smaller plots of boutique makers. Though its winemaking story stretches back to 1858, its explosive growth is largely a story of the wine boom of the nineties.

Mudgee makes sturdy but not heavy reds, noted for their high tannin content and the longevity and ultimate grace of the very best. Shiraz and cabernet sauvignon are the main varieties – the latter working well with the local lamb and beef and former being a treat with rich pasta dishes.

Thanks to Italian immigrants Carlo Salteri and Franco Belgiorno-Nettis, Mudgee is also home to mature plantings of the Italian red varieties sangiovese, barbera and nebbiolo.

The first two work well in the area and though they’ve disappeared from sight in recent years, they’re about to reappear under the new ownership of Bob Oatley. The medium bodied, savoury sangiovese works well with savoury foods, including pizza; while the dazzling summer-berry exuberance of barbera loves pasta, salads and a good laugh.

And all of this is only part of what New South Wales wines have to offer. Vineyards have sprung up, as well, on the south coast, in the southern highlands, around Gundagai and on the New England highlands from Tamworth through to the Queensland border.

Every vineyard is a flavour and a story in itself and there are food styles aplenty to go with them.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2007

Last week I presented the industry perspective on the Canberra Regional Wine Show, but what’s in it for consumers? Well, read on and for a guide to dozens of delicious wines coming from Canberra and surrounding regions – Tumbarumba, Gundagai, Southern Highlands, South Coast and Hilltops (Young).

You can troll through the catalogue of results at www.rncas.org.au. And if you do don’t limit the shopping list to the gold medal and trophy winners, because there’s great drinking among the silver and bronze medallists, too.

This applies especially to some of the emerging or niche varieties. Semillon, for example, while unlikely to achieve much in Canberra, is the star variety at Coolangatta Estate, Nowra. These Tyrrell-made wines are unique and lovely. The stand out in this year’s show was their mature-but-fresh silver-medal winning 1998 vintage.

Closer to home at Gundaroo, pure, rich, apricot-like silver medallist Tallagandra Hill Viognier 2006 came within a sniff of gold and showed, yet again, how well suited Canberra is to this variety. Clonakilla blazed the way, Hardy’s encouraged wider planting of it amongst independent growers and established a significant plot at Holt. We’ll be hearing a lot more of viognier in Canberra, despite Hardy’s exit from the region.

We judged several promising whites made from pinot gris but to this judge, anyway, silver medallist Mount Majura Pinot Gris 2007 soared above the others. It’s a particularly vibrant and pure white wine made by Frank van de Loo.

Bryan and Jocelyn Martin’s Ravensworth Murrumbateman Sangiovese 2006, another silver medal winner, presents a bright, fresh, modern face of this classic Italian variety without losing the slightly rustic, savoury tannin structure. This is another significant, trail-blazing local wine.

In the past, Hardy’s tended to dominate the sparkling wine class with its Tumbarumba-based pinot noir chardonnay blends made by Ed Carr. However, Kosciusko Wines of Tumbarumba and Gallagher Wines of Murrumbateman, plugged the gap created by their exit, this year.

Gallagher Blanc de Blanc 2005, made from Murrumbateman chardonnay, won silver. It’s a very appealing, well-made example of this lighter aperitif style. Gold medal winner Kosciusko Scius Pinot Noir Chardonnay 2005 showed the sheer class of fruit from cold Tumbarumba – and the extra dimension and structure added by pinot noir. This is another significant regional wine.

Ever-so-fashionable sauvignon blanc shows a glimmer of hope in two attractive and contrasting silver medallists: taut, pungent and pure McWilliam’s Barwang Tumbarumba 2007 and funky, softer Brindabella Hills Canberra District 2007.

It would be fair to say that pinot noir remains a niche variety for the district, despite high ambitions for it from Lerida Estate at Lake George and Lark Hill, higher up on the Lake George Escarpment.

Lark Hill no longer enters the show, which is a pity. And Lerida topped the pinot noir classes, winning a silver medal for its fragrant, silky-textured 2006. At the exhibitors’ tasting proprietor Jim Lumbers said he’s confident of an even better performance in future vintages.

In the national wine market riesling, too, remains a niche — albeit much discussed –variety. But it’s a star of the Canberra District and will be even better when our makers eliminate faults that blemish outstanding fruit.

Frost and drought slashed the 2007 riesling harvest, hence we had just eleven rieslings to judge, of which eight won medals: gold for Wallaroo, silver for Gallagher, Mount Majura and Helm Classic Dry and bronze for Pialligo Estate, Brindabella Hills and Four Winds. These are all lovely, fresh wines and strongly recommended.

A riesling topped the white museum classes, too. Wallaroo 2002 (gold) came in ahead Coolangatta Semillon 199 (silver) and Coolangatta Alexander Berry Chardonnay 2000 and Barwang Chardonnay 1996 on bronze.

Cabernet’s thirty-three per cent medal strike rate was the lowest of the mainstream varieties that exhibited in significant numbers.

But there were several attractive silver medallists: Shaw Vineyard Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 and Cabernet Shiraz 2004, Lambert 2004, McWilliams Barwang 2005 and Little Bridge 2005.

Fifteen of the twenty-four chardonnays exhibited earned medals. The only gold medallist, Bidgeebong Icon 2006 comes from Tumbarumba.  And demonstrating chardonnay’s versatility, the silver and bronze medallists came from Tumbarumba, Southern Highlands, South Coast, Hilltops, Lake George, Mount Majura and Murrumbateman.

Saving the best for last, shiraz, once again, was star of the show and certainly heads any consumer-shopping list for the region. We judged forty-five shirazes and awarded seven gold medals, six silver medals and 16 bronze medals.

The winners came in a diversity of styles – within a generally refined, medium-bodied theme – from Murrumbateman, Lake George, Hilltops and Wamboin. In the taste-off for the trophy, the beautifully fragrant, silky Lerida Estate Lake George Shiraz Viognier 2006 beat velvety, supple Chalkers Crossing Hilltops 2005 by two votes to one.

Other absolutely wonderful shirazes included gold medallists Nick O’Leary Canberra 2006, Lambert Canberra 2004, Lambert Reserve Canberra 2005 and Barwang Hilltops 2005; and silver medallists Ravensworth Canberra 2006, Chalkers Crossing Hilltops 2004, Lerida Canberra 2005, Lambert Reserve Canberra 2004 and Barwang Hilltops 2004.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2007