Last week, as part of a cost cutting drive related to its acquisition of Southcorp, Fosters Group announced the sale of one of Australia’s most cherished and visited wine estates, Seppeltsfield.

The 185-hectare property is a treasury of Barossa winemaking history dating to the early 1850s. Visitors to the site drive through an avenue of date palms – established to keep workers employed during the depression – to the complex of cellars, dwellings and National Trust listed Seppelt family homestead.

Five generations of the Seppelt family established this sprawling village before the company floated in 1970 and subsequently passed, intact, through successive ownerships by South Australian Brewing Holdings, Adsteam, Southcorp and Fosters.

Perhaps the most direct links to the past, with continuing relevance to wine today, are the 108-hectares of vines and around nine million litres of fortified wine stored in an estimated thirty thousand barrels – each in need of TLC.

With the market for fortified wine all but dead, who will take on such a colossal volume, even if it is some of the best material in the world?

It’s easier to imagine would-be buyers eyeing the beautiful old grenache, shiraz and mourvedre bush vines and thinking red rather than fortified.

But those nine million litres of fortified wine won’t simply evaporate. And the fact that Fosters is offering for sale the Seppeltsfield fortified brands as well as the stock means that their continuation is not beyond imagination.

Could a luxury goods business – such as Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, already with substantial wine and spirit assets – be tempted? If anyone knows how to crack luxury markets, the French do?

Look, for example, how they’ve created the Chandon sparkling business in the Yarra and at the importance of the magnificent winery, restaurant, cellar door complex in the marketing of it. Could they attempt this with fortifieds and with a similar icon in the Barossa?

Another possibility is to find an extremely wealthy family or private company prepared to become custodian of this priceless asset. They’d need to love wine more than they love money.

But that has been the case historically with wine and wealthy people. The pursuit of great wines can supplant normal commercial judgement – or live side by side with it in the situation where a profitable business supports a lofty wine ambition.

Those of us who love those irreplaceable Seppeltsfield fortifieds certainly hope a suitable new owner can be found. And I’m sure James Godfrey does, too.

For many years now James has presided over this extraordinary collection of wine, including an unbroken line of Para Liqueurs stretching back to 1878.

His is a demanding and highly specialised skill. Each year he makes and adds new wines to the barrels while taking off carefully judged portions of older material for blending and bottling.

The range is wide and includes pale, delicate fino, aged-amontillado and luscious old oloroso ‘sherry’ styles; tawny ‘port’ styles of various ages, up to and including the sublime DP 90; luscious, aged

Rutherglen muscats and tokays; and the unique single-vintage Para 100-year-old – the first barrel of this having been laid down by Benno Seppelt in 1878 with instructions – duly followed – that it be bottled in 1978.

Whatever commercial possibilities Seppeltsfield possesses, this unique fortified collection will hopefully endure. It’s the heart and soul of Seppeltsfield – a national treasure that ought not gather dust, nor be discarded. Rather, it demands to live on giving every generation a taste of the past, present and future in every glass.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2006 & 2007

Business people have been easily seduced by the sheer size of China. Surely, the argument seems to go, if I can sell just one widget for every ten of the 1.3 billion population, then I have a market for 130 million widgets.

But in China – as in every market – the devil is in the detail.  Hence recent decisions by both of Australia’s major brewers – Fosters and Lion Nathan – to shut or sell their Chinese operations.

Unlike the big brewers, Australian winemakers are in general more likely to export to China than to attempt local production. But despite encouraging export growth from a low base, it’s going to be a long march to success.

Driven largely by shipments of bulk wine, China exports for the year ended May 2006 grew 483 per cent by volume and 110 per cent by value over the figures for May 2005.

In the same period, the surge in bulk wine shipments – no doubt fuelled by Australia’s wine glut – saw the unit price plummet sixty four per cent to $1.75 a litre – the lowest of any of our export markets.

I’m told that the bulk of these exports are destined to the big commercial centres of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. And, indeed, it’s easy enough to fine Australian wine – conspicuously Jacob’s Creek — in these cities.

But with Jacob’s Creek selling at around 160 Yuan ($27) a bottle – about two thirds of the weekly wage for a schoolteacher — we get some idea of how limited the market is in relation to the population as a whole.

While China’s massive economic growth is surely increasing wealth for parts of its population, the continuing weak Yuan seems likely to limit demand for imported consumer goods like wine for many years.

Visiting China recently, I heard a Bloomberg report that the number of Chinese earning more than fifty thousand Yuan a year is set to double by 2010. Impressive as that sounds, it may not mean a great lift in consumption of wine imports.

While a person might live well in China on fifty thousand Yuan a year, it equates to just $AD8,300 or $US6,250 – leaving limited power for buying imported luxuries.

As well, it could take decades before China changes its broad consumption habits. The same Bloomberg report said that household consumption accounted for just forty per cent of China’s GDP (compared with seventy five per cent in the USA) and that Chinese households saved twenty five per cent of disposable income (compared with minus 0.1 per cent in the USA)

Assuming continued economic growth, then the market for Australian wine in China should increase steadily in the major cities then, over many, many decades, spread as the middle class grows.

At present, though, I could see little evidence of wine consumption beyond the city stores and expensive restaurants.

What I found on the streets of China was an abundance of fresh, delicious, cheap food and a choice of beer, baijiu (clear spirit), water or tea in most little restaurants.

A good sign for future marketers though, is that the Chinese love their food and the blokes in particular like to wash it down with a refreshing lager or tot of baijiu.

Indeed, it’s easy to imagine a future Chinese generation enjoying a chilled Aussie riesling. But it’ll be a long, smoggy road that might take some time to traverse.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2006 & 2007

Most of Australia’s wine shows are packed into the last six months of the year to allow whites from the current vintage to be shown. From this burgeoning wine show scene come all those trophies, gold, silver and bronze medals adorning labels.

But what does all this glitter mean to a wine drinker? Are gongs really a good indicator of quality? The short answer is yes, but with some caveats, perhaps best illustrated by a judge’s eye view of a particular class being assessed.

Judges see nothing but wine-filled glasses lined up on numbered squares on a white table. Judges know that the wines are, say, dry rieslings from the current vintage – but nothing more.
Each of three judges and one or two associate judges, working in isolation (no discussion allowed at this stage) awards each wine a score out of 20 points.

Most Australian shows use this 20-point system. In theory this is sub-divided into three segments: a maximum of 3 points for appearance, 7 for aroma and 10 for flavour. In practice, most judges simply award an aggregate score based on an overall impression of a wine. 15.5 points equals bronze medal standard; 17.0 points silver and 18.5 gold.

After assessing the wines, judges and associates convene to compare notes.

The panel chair (the senior of the three judges) tallies the points as each judge calls a score for each of the wines. Typically, the majority of wines attract a narrow range of scores. These ‘consensus wines’ are simply aggregated (the associate judge scores are not included) to determine bronze and silver medallists and the also rans.

After this initial tally, the panel chair asks stewards to serve fresh glasses of all wine attracting a gold medal rating from any of the judges.

The judges and associates gather at one table – generally with the Chairman of judges — and now taste and discuss each gold-medal candidate in turn. This group tasting and discussion usually sees one or two gold medals awarded and another few candidates dropped back to a silver medal aggregate.

And what’s in the results of wine show judging for the consumer and the producer?

For the consumer, there’s a pretty reliable form guide. But it’s a guide to be viewed with healthy scepticism. To begin with, it’s not a race where there can be only one winner. In wine judging, in theory at least, every wine can be a gold medal winner.

And there’s the fact that the same wine receives variable scores in different wine shows. In part this reflects evolving aromas and flavours over time. But more than anything it shows that judges’ perceptions vary. As a general guide, a wine that wins medals consistently in a variety of shows is usually well ahead of the pack.

As well, bear in mind that many producers of benchmark wines choose not to enter wine shows. So trophies and gold medals, while a reliable guide to superior quality, do not imply that a wine is the best of its kind – just the best of its kind on a particular day in the opinion of a particular group of judges.

Producers enter shows both to win gongs and to benchmark. Hence, makers generally attend the exhibitors’ tasting after a show tasting their own wines against those from other regions and other makers.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2006 & 2007

Do we really need to breathe or decant high quality wines to get the most enjoyment from them? For most wines, the answer is no. Breathing is almost never necessary and often detrimental. And the only practical reason for decanting is to separate clear wine from sediment in the bottle.

The idea of breathing wine almost certainly dates to a time when winemaking was more rustic than it is today. Without the rigorous controls of modern winemaking, many a bottle held traces of smelly aromas and flavours – principally sulphide compounds.

These are natural products of fermentation and because they are reductive – formed in the absence of air – the traditional method of elimination was by racking wine: moving it from one vessel to another in the presence of air. Winemakers still do this with red wines today.

Because racking doesn’t eliminate all sulphides, modern winemakers, where necessary, remove the traces by adding small amounts of copper sulphate, sometimes determining the need to do so by a simple triple-blind test.

This means taking a wine sample, pouring it to three identical glasses and adding a trace of copper sulphate to only one glass. Put the three unmarked glasses to a winemaker, and if one glass smells different from the other two, then sulphides are indicated and the wine is appropriately fined.

Interestingly, the advent of the screw cap in recent years forced winemakers to be doubly diligent in the search for sulphides. Because the cap is a far more effective barrier to air than cork, some of the earlier bottles showed signs of reduction.

That such a tiny ingress of air through cork kept sulphides below the human aroma threshold is a clear illustration of why breathing wine was once all the go: smelly wines could be cleaned up by a good splash from bottle to decanter – effectively a final racking.

So, unless we find a stinky bottle, there’s no need to aerate it. And if we do find one, give a good gurgle into a jug or just splash it around in a glass. Simply pulling the cork and leaving the bottle open won’t work because the surface of wine exposed to air is insignificant.

And what of the belief that exposure to air releases the aromas and flavours of sturdy young reds? Well, there’s not a lot of science to support the notion. Indeed, quite the reverse appears to be true as prolonged exposure to air disburses a wine’s positive attributes.

Modern winemaking, too, means that fewer wines throw a sediment or ‘crust’ and therefore the need for decanting is much less than it was.

Cold stabilisation means that white wines seldom lose excess tartaric acid prior to bottling. Hence, it’s rare, albeit not unknown, to see deposits of tartrate crystals in bottles or on corks as we once did.

Filtration prior to bottling also reduces sedimentation in most commercial red wines. However, many of our more robust wines still drop sediment as they age.

As this looks terrible in the glass and tastes gritty and bitter, it’s easily removed by decanting. Simply stand the bottle up twenty-four hours beforehand then, particularly in the case of very old wines, open and decant immediately prior to serving.

Fine crystal decanters certainly add a sense of occasion. But if you don’t have one, decant to any clean jug, wash the bottle, then tip the wine back in. Now, take a sip and breathe easy.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2006 & 2007

While older drinkers might remember Seppelt for everything from sherry to bubbly to long-lived reds, younger people may have noticed nothing more than the amazingly good reds and whites now appearing under its retro label.

This striking suite of wines from western and south western Victoria — while owing much to the current winemaking team – have been built on an a much older culture that survived waves of industry consolidation.

Seppelt’s reputation was built largely on great fortified wines, produced at Seppeltsfield in the Barossa along with sparkling wines and, on a much smaller scale, superb, long-lived reds from Great Western, Victoria.

Then in 1964, Karl Seppelt, with remarkable prescience, foresaw the coming table wine boom and established vineyards at Padthaway, four hundred-odd kilometres south of the Barossa and at Drumborg near Portland in southwestern Victoria.

Despite Karl’s foresight, the company struggled and, in a wave of industry rationalisation, was acquired by South Australian Brewing Holdings in 1984. Then, in 1990, SABH acquired Lindemans from Philip Morris and Penfolds from Adsteam.

The conglomeration became Penfolds Wine Group but this became Southcorp Wines when SABH sold its brewery division in 1993.

Throughout this intensive blending of wine cultures, James Godfrey held (and still does) the fortified reins at Seppeltsfield while Great Western based Ian McKenzie supervised Seppelt winemaking overall.

Inevitably, rationalisation meant change. But the formidable fortified resources at Seppeltsfield remained intact. And McKenzie – aided by a mid nineties Victorian vineyard expansion — led both a rejuvenation of the Seppelt Victorian red styles and the development of top end whites and sparkling wines.

The reds were inspired mainly by those made at Great Western by Colin Preece in the forties, fifties and sixties – which, in turn, had been preceded by extraordinary early twentieth century vintages from the St Peters Vineyard, next to the winery.

While the cold, windswept Drumborg vineyard struggled for decades, renewed investment and improved management techniques saw the vineyard producing flashes of brilliance during the eighties and sustained high quality by the late nineties.

By the end of Macka’s stewardship in 2002 the Seppelt reds – led by St Peters Vineyard Shiraz (formerly called Reserve Shiraz) – were back amongst the most highly regarded in the country and the new whites, led by riesling and chardonnay from the Drumborg vineyard, showed a unique finesse and intensity.

And now, four years into Arthur O’Connor’s stewardship, we’re enjoying not just the Great Western and Drumborg wines but an expanded Victorian range based on vineyards – particularly the Glenlofty Pyrenees site — established in the mid nineties.

It’s really the culmination of one hundred years work, piled layer on layer and, finally, being brought to market in a coherent manner. Those new ‘old’ Seppelt labels really do convey something of this continuity – and the exceptional quality of the wines.

Seppelt Coborra Pinot Gris 2005 $25 to $29
This is a striking and individual pinot gris that appeals as soon as it’s poured. The brilliant pale straw colour promises the great freshness that follows. There’s lots of aroma here with pear-like fruit and a mineral edge. The palate is intense, pear like, and very finely structured for this variety. A taut, steely acid backbone seems to intensify the fruit flavour and carry it right across the palate leaving the mouth really refreshed and looking for the next sip. The fine-ness and intensity probably mean an interesting and slow flavour evolution in the bottle for those with good cellaring conditions.

Seppelt Jaluka Drumborg Chardonnay 2005 $25 to $29
Twenty years after it was planted Drumborg vineyard produced outstanding chardonnay sparkling wine. Another decade on, in the mid nineties, it produced classy chardonnay table wine – sometimes good enough for Penfolds flagship white, Yattarna. Now the vineyard’s fruit stands on its own. This one, made by Emma Wood, has at its heart the restrained, grapefruit-like varietal flavour of very-cool climate chardonnay, supported by lovely inputs of barrel fermentation and contact with yeast lees. It’s a rich but delicate delight to drink now but is of a style to evolve with careful cellaring for five or six years.

Seppelt Chalambar Grampian Bendigo Shiraz 2004 $25 to $29
Seppelt Victorian Shiraz 2004 $13 to $18
Above these two Seppelt reds sit the sublime St Peters and Benno shirazes. These establish a familial style based on richness with cool-climate structure, albeit with a distinct character to each wine. Victorian Shiraz is the often-discounted entry-level wine that invariably surprises new drinkers with its one-more-glass-please drinkability. Chalambar is the resurrection of a hallowed-then-devalued old Seppelt brand. The 2004 is sensational. It has the beautifully, floral perfumed lift of top cool-climate shiraz and all the supple, sweet, palate richness that goes with it. That means opulence without heaviness and enormous drinking pleasure. This is a very impressive wine.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2006 & 2007