Category Archives: Wine

Winners from the Limestone Coast show

Wine, Wine review

The Limestone Coast wine zone takes in all of South Australia south of Lake Alexandrina, bounded to the east by the Victorian border and to the west and south by the sea.

This unique limestone plain is home to The Coorong, Naracoorte World Heritage caves, the extinct volcano, Mount Gambier, the Robe crayfish industry, vast pinus radiata plantations, flocks of tasty fat lambs, sundry crops and about fifteen thousand hectares of vines. In the bumper 2004 harvest these produced about 172 thousand tonnes of grapes – equivalent to around 13 million dozen bottles.

So the Limestone Coast is a big wine producer. But it’s also a high-quality producer embracing one of Australia’s greatest gems, Coonawarra, as well as Padthaway, Wrattonbully, Lucindale, Mount Gambier, Robe, Mount Benson and Bordertown.

Together these make a feast of wine across a wide range of styles and prices. As the results of the recent Limestone Coast Wine Show indicate, the region produces not only high average quality but spectacular highlights as well.

In a field of 433 entries from 64 producers, two three-member judging teams awarded 33 gold, 64 silver and 163 bronze medals – a strike rate of 60 per cent.

And the spread of latitude, local climates, soil types and winemaker approaches saw a diversity of wine style sharing the medal haul with gold medals awarded to two rieslings, two chardonnays, one sauvignon blanc, ten shirazes and eighteen cabernet and cabernet blends.

Where cabernet fares poorly in most Australian regions, Coonawarra – a world specialist in the variety – underpinned, but didn’t monopolise, an exciting display by the variety at the show.

While Murdoch Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 – an intense, firm, slow evolving example of the style, won the Cabernet trophy, there was a feast of other styles, ranging from the fragrant and juicy Penley Estate Coonawarra Phoenix Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 (top drops) to the sublime, mellow perfection of Wynns Coonawarra Estate John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon 1982.

And amongst the blends, the emerging Wrattonbully region earned golds for the 2002 and 2003 vintages of Stonehaven Rat & Bull Cabernet Shiraz while Padthaway struck gold with Browns ‘The Brigstock’ Cabernet Shiraz 2002.

The cabernet gold-medal shopping list included, as well, Majella Coonawarra 2003, Mildara Rothwell Coonawarra 2003, Leconfield Coonawarra 2003, Reschke ‘Empyrean’ Coonawarra 2002, Peppertree Coonawarra Grand Reserve 2002, Stonehaven Hidden Sea 2001, Jacob’s Creek St Hugo Coonawarra 1996, Orlando Jacaranda Ridge 1998, Balnaves Coonawarra Cabernet Merlot 2001, Penley Estate Coonawarra Conder Cabernet Shiraz 2004, Mildara Coonawarra Cabernet Shiraz 2003 and Majella Mallea Coonawarra Cabernet Shiraz 2002,

Shiraz showed class across the region with styles ranging from the supple, low-oak, new style Wynns Coonawarra 2004 to the inky-deep, powerful Orlando Lawson’s Vineyard Padthaway 2003, 2002 and 1994 (the 2002 won the best-shiraz Trophy).

While Coonawarra won three of the ten shiraz gold medals (Wynns 2004, Ladbroke Grove Reserve 2002 and Majella 2003) and Padthaway earned six (Morambro Creek 2003, Orlando Lawsons 2002, 2003 & 1994, Stonehaven Limited Release 1999 and 2001).

The tenth shiraz gold medal went to Wrattonbully grape grower Greg Koch for his Redden Bridge ‘Gully’ Shiraz 2003, winner, too, of the trophy for best single-vineyard wine. This excellent new drop is due for release next year. So watch this space.

And to finish on a refreshing white note, Balnaves topped the show with its intense and silky Coonawarra Chardonnay 2003, made by Pete Bissell.

WINE REVIEWS

Penley Estate Coonawarra Phoenix Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 $19.99
At last week’s Limestone Coast Show, Singapore based writer, Ch’ng Poh Tiong awarded Phoenix the International Judge’s Trophy as his favoured wine of the show. Together with James Halliday, we’d ranked it at the top of the small 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon class, noting its vibrant, sweet, fruity aroma and juicy, fleshy, drink-now palate. Waxing metaphorical at the trophy presentation, Poh Tiong praised its ‘smouldering-ember smoky’character – fitting for a wine named Phoenix, I suppose. With or without metaphors, it’s simply delicious and made specifically for early drinking. It’s to be released in early December and will be available at cellar door (08 8736 3211) and fine wine retail outlets.

Wynns Coonawarra Estate Johnson’s Block Shiraz Cabernet 2003 $35
Johnson’s block is a distinguished Coonawarra vineyard with vines dating from 1925. Recent rejuvenation work – principally restructuring dense, woody, vine canopies – seems to have paid off in Johnson’s blend with its beautifully even, ripe berry fruit flavours and supple tannins. It also displays Sue Hodder’s well thought out change in winemaking philosophy inspired by the elegance and longevity of Wynns reds of the 1950s. The limpid colour, bright berry flavours, supple tannins and supportive oak provide a substantial, potentially long live modern interpretation of a traditional style well removed from the darker, more alcoholic, more tannic, more oaky reds that’ve prevailed in recent decades. Johnson’s hits the mark as it focuses on Coonawarra’s unique, bright berry flavours without compromising depth or complexity of flavour.

Ladbroke Grove Coonawarra Riesling 2005 $17.99
This is a little producer to watch. Ladbroke’s Killian Cabernet 2001 won three trophies in the 2003 Limestone Coast Show. This year it was the riesling’s turn. After topping a strong 2005 vintage riesling class it went on to win the Karl Seppelt Trophy. Fruit comes from a northern Coonawarra vineyard, contracted to Ladbroke Grove and made in the Di Giorgio Winery by former Wynns winemaker, Peter Douglas. The wine springs out of the glass with its floral and lemon varietal aroma then lights up the palate with vibrant, very fine lemony flavours. Refreshing, delicate, minerally acids give the wine structure and length – and probably longevity, too.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

The Eileen Hardy story part 2

People, Wine

Eileen Hardy Shiraz – flagship red of the Hardy Wine Company was introduced in 1973 to celebrate the 80th birthday of family matriarch, Eileen Hardy. That wine, a selection of the best McLaren Vale Shiraz from the 1970 vintage, still drinks well today.

What began as a birthday gift became a company flagship, despite significant style and quality changes across the years. As we saw last week, modern Eileen now brings together all that’s been learned in vineyard and winery in the 35 years since that first vintage.

Individual vineyard plots – mostly in McLaren Vale but including components from Clare, Padthaway and Frankland River — contribute small batches of varying style. These are all fermented separately and matured in French oak barrels separately until chief red-wine maker Paul Lapsley and his boss, Peter Dawson, assemble the final blend.

The current release 2001, for example, comes 88 per cent from McLaren Vale and 9 per cent from Frankland River with a splash from other regions – all matured in a variety of high quality French oak barrels.

It weighs in at a comparatively modest 13.6 per cent alcohol (some of our gun reds hit 14.5 or more) and is clearly a wine to cellar. The colour’s deep but not opaque and the aroma and flavour are built on bright, intense varietal character with a delicious savouriness. The structure is firm, tight and satisfying – a wine to reveal more as it ages for a decade or two.

From past tasting and a fresh look at the 1970 then the nineties vintages last week, I’d say the very early Eileens were wonderful and the eighties vintages lacklustre. During the nineties the style strengthened, especially towards the end of the decade. But in the new century Eileen appears to be settling into a consistent, fine, savoury style – epitomised to me by the glorious but not yet released 2002 vintage. This is jaw-dropping stuff.

The white flagship, Eileen Hardy Chardonnay is a jaw dropper, too. Made by chief white-wine maker, Tom Newton – with support from Peter Dawson – this is blazing new trails.

It’s a wine without boundaries. Newton and Dawson’s search for the best material began in 1986 in Padthaway – the company’s largest chardonnay resource – and widened over time to include Canberra, the Yarra Valley, Adelaide Hills and Tasmania.

Says Dawson, “we look for a good expression of chardonnay with intensity and the inherent structure to support oak fermentation, malolactic fermentation and oak maturation”.

What this means is that if you use the right grapes, a string of potentially intrusive winemaking practices are subsumed by the intense fruit flavour. The result is a beautiful, complex, dry, firmly structured wine capable of extended bottle ageing.

That the ‘right’ fruit is now sourced predominantly from Tasmania was partly an accident. A search for intensely flavoured, delicate chardonnay and pinot noir for sparkling wine, while successful, also revealed promising parcels of table wine material.

The first Tasmanian material was included in Eileen in 1999. So good was it, that in 2000, a particularly warm vintage in many cool regions, the proportion of Tasmanian fruit in the blend shot up to sixty five per cent – the remainder coming from the high, cool Hoddles Creek vineyard in the Yarra Valley.

Subsequent vintages retain a core of Tasmanian material combined with fruit from the Yarra Valley, Tumbarumba and the Adelaide Hills.

The current release 2002 is as good as Australian chardonnays gets.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

The Eileen Hardy story part 1

People, Wine

This is the story of three jaw-dropping wines – a $90 shiraz, a $13 shiraz and a $40 chardonnay.

The first has been 35 years in the making and the second, 19 years. The third, with only a few vintages in bottle, might be just a shadow of itself without the 35-year endeavour behind the $90 bottle.

The $90 and $40 wines are Eileen Hardy Shiraz and Eileen Hardy Chardonnay, respectively – flagships for the Hardy Wine Company, a division of US based Constellation brands.

Both wines give the lie to the notion – put about by French makers and some critics — that big Aussie companies make nothing but oceans of bland soul-less wine. What rubbish.

The Eileens are superb, small production wines built on a deep and growing intimacy with numerous small vineyard plots.

At a tasting this week, Hardy red-wine maker, Paul Lapsley, explained that in May, after red-wine classifications, the team reviewed the performance of wines from each vineyard and sub-plots within vineyards and from there determined a pruning regime and target yields.

Vineyards likely to produce fruit good enough for Eileen Hardy shiraz had, over the last five years, been converted from mechanical pruning to hand pruning. While expensive, it means individual care of every vine and a higher success rate in creating properly ripe berries – the very core of a wine of this calibre.

Correct pruning is only part of the picture. Lapsley says that it’s important to keep the vines free of excess stress and to avoid overcropping. To achieve this, the Eileen vineyards are mulched to retain ground water while shoot thinning and the removal of unripe fruit help maintain a crop load in balance with the foliage.

If all goes well this produces berries that ripen at modest sugar levels (too much sugar equals too much alcohol in the finished wine) and produce wines with vibrant fruit, not the ‘thick stewiness of over-ripe fruit’.

Typically, says Lapsley,  “the vineyards that produce this quality are 30 to 100 years old. Old vines produce wines that have a sweetness and creaminess on the mid palate – a silkiness”.

The perfect Eileen Hardy Shiraz grape, Paul reckons, weighs about one gram, displays vibrant fruit ripeness and has ripe tannins in the skins and seeds. That’s how finicky this flagship wine business is – aiming to get every berry just right.

Having harvest the right fruit Lapsley’s aim in the winery is to “express that fruit”, to build a savoury element, and to extract the tannins that give structure without harshness.

Each batch is gently crushed to include whole berries and fermented in small open fermenters with the skins floating as a cap on top. The open fermenters mean some desirable alcohol evaporation, with finished wines 1 to 1.5 per cent lower in alcohol than wines from closed vessels.

And the floating cap (as opposed to submerged using boards), according to Paul, allows some oxygen exposure, greater permeability for pumping the juice over and better temperature control.

From the fermenter each batch goes to compatible oak barrels. And the diversity of small parcels used in Eileen means an equal diversity of new used French oak barrels from various top coopers.

And remember, at this stage Eileen is still a collection of unique small batches. The blend comes much later as we’ll see next week.

Hardys Eileen Hardy Chardonnay 2002 $35 to $45
A vertical tasting of Eileen Hardy Chardonnays from the first vintage, 1986, to the unreleased 2004 (see main story) confirmed in my mind that Eileen sits at the top of the pack in Australia. To my palate it hit the pace in 2000 and, since then, it’s made little advances with the 2002 and 2004 being as good as it gets in Australia. And that makes it a bargain given the $100 plus price tags of some of its competitors. Good bottles of 2002 I’d rate as probably the best Aussie chardonnay yet tasted. However, the 2004 gives it a close run and will ultimately be the better buy as it comes screw cap sealed and should not suffer the bottle variation seen under earlier cork-sealed vintages.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Geologist David Farmer defines Barossa land surfaces

People, Wine

As reported last week, David Farmer, co-founder of former Canberra-based Farmer Bros, is about to re-enter the wine trade via a cellar door mail order operation –glug.com.au — in the Barossa Valley.

While setting up the business, though, David’s been applying the disciplines of his old trade, geology, to the Barossa. This work when published could reshape the Barossa marketing landscape.

An exploration geologist before turning to the wine trade in 1975, Farmer’s been sleuthing the Barossa landscape for several years now, seeking to understand what created the various land surfaces and pondering the style of wine that each of these might create.

While this may seem an academic activity, an intimate knowledge of land surface and its relationship to wine styles in the long term lies at the heart of France’s wine appellation system.

Farmer’s not arguing for a similar naming system here. But he believes that an understanding of the landscape could contribute to a better understanding of wine styles. And, linked with that, comes better, more informative marketing of wine from a particular site.

Marketing wines from individual vineyards or groups of vineyards isn’t new. It evolves in virtually every wine region as winemakers recognise the individuality of wine from particular sites.

In an area as old, complex and intensively planted as the Barossa, the practice is well established and growing rapidly as winemakers compete for grapes from the best vineyard plots and then vinify even quite small batches individually.

From his work Farmer expects to define about fifteen distinct grape-growing sub-regions within the Barossa, based on his observations of the land surface, what lies immediately beneath it and what formed it.

Winemakers with long-term experience sourcing grapes throughout the valley understand site-related flavour variation. But the names given to the sites tend to be generalised and based on points of the compass or local place names.

As the practice of releasing these wines separately grows, the use of Farmer’s definitions in conjunction with the old site names could add dramatically to the marketing message – especially were the sites to be viewed on the three-dimensional maps now under construction.

In the future, instead of hearing of northern, southern, eastern or western Barossa, or of Kalimna, Moppa, Lyndoch or Stockwell, we’ll hear, as well, of the southern angular-rock type soils, the cobbled soils of Roland Flat, the Kalimna dunes and the Gomersal Ridge sands.

And through Farmer’s 3-D map, we’ll be able to see each of these and more in the context of the Valley as a whole: starting south at the separate Lyndoch Valley with its slopes, flats and feeder valleys; then north over the ridge into the southern Barossa proper with its rolling, North-Para-River-eroded landscape; over the Gomersal plateau with black, cracking soils, inhospitable to vines, and its magic, sandy western ridge; through to the rising and flatter central and northern valley to the Kalimna sand dunes; east to the rim of the recently uplifted ranges (the Eden Valley) and across to the lower,  more eroded western rim, including the Marananga and Seppeltsfield bowls.

Throughout this infinitely varied landscape, winemakers are defining the sub-regions by the wines they make. What Farmer is doing, with a touch of genius, is creating a future marketing platform for an emerging generation of highly individual sub-regional wines. The publication date has yet to be announced. Check Farmer’s website, www.glug.com.au for updates.
Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Farmer Bros old firm set to rise in the Barossa

People, Wine

If you’re wondering where David Farmer went, I’ve found him in the Barossa. I found his brother Richard there, too. They’re about to re-enter the wine trade.

For those who don’t remember the Farmers, this is the pair that back in 1975 took advantage of Whitlam’s Trade Practices Act and liberalised ACT liquor licensing laws to smash retail price maintenance in the Territory and beyond.

They established Farmer Bros at Manuka in June of that year and by the end of 1976 had a thriving Australia-wide mail order wine business, operating out of a warehouse/store in Mort Street, Braddon.

In 1985, by now with a large store in Sydney’s Waterloo as well, the brothers split — in the acrimonious way to which family partnerships seem prone. David and a group of partners, myself included, bought Richard’s half of the business. Richard promptly set up in opposition. And the original Farmer Bros, now under David’s control, expanded rapidly, quadrupling its turnover, expanding to Melbourne and buying a hotel in Tasmania.

Following the demise of his business, Richard moved out the industry. Farmer Bros survived a little longer. But in late 1994 after a near merger with Cellarmaster Wines – the large and then privately owned wine club operator — the receivers walked in.

The business’s major asset, its mailing list, was sold to Cellarmasters. As a result ‘Farmer Bros Direct’ continues to exist, though Cellarmasters now belongs to Fosters. Coles Myer’s Liquorland Group bought the Farmer Bros stores in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.

David Farmer worked with Cellarmaster for a short period before joining Theo Karedis, owner of Sydney-based Theo’s liquor store chain. With Theo, David established David Farmers warehouse style outlet at Philip and produced those highly distinctive, informative tabloid catalogues that used to fall out of the Canberra Times.

When Theo sold his chain — including the David Farmer outlet — to Coles Myer about two years ago, David continued to produce the David Farmer, Theo’s and Crown of the Hill catalogues for the Sydney and Canberra markets – an arrangement that continued until June this year.

By this time Coles Myer had re-branded the David Farmer store twice – firstly as Theo’s and now as First Choice, a brand created to take on Woolworths Dan Murphy chain.

Meanwhile, the ever inventive David had slipped off to the Barossa and established glug.com.au, an idiosyncratic website built around wine but including an eclectic mix of politics, election polls, food, book reviews, industry news and analysis, much of the latter provided by brother Richard.

While David provides a marketing consultancy to several wineries in the Barossa, he’d established Glug as an entrée back into wine retailing. This time, however, his comeback will be as vigneron – he already has the license – by tapping into small parcels of fruit from high-quality Barossa vineyards and having these made into wine by leading local producers.

The first of these are to be released at the National Press Club in November. I’ll cover these in a later article. But the topic of interest for next week will be a look at David’s perspective of the Barossa’s surprisingly diverse viticultural landscape.

A geologist before turning to the wine trade, Farmer’s been sleuthing the Barossa landscape for several years now, seeking to understand what created the various land surfaces and pondering the diversity of wine styles that each of these might create.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Barossa show turns on a treat

Wine, Wine review

A long winemaking history, varied landscapes, large area under vine and sheer numbers of winemakers underlie the Barossa Valley’s ability to make so many wine styles so well.

Riesling, semillon, chardonnay, viognier, shiraz, grenache, grenache-mourvedre-shiraz blends, cabernet sauvignon and a range of sublime fortifieds all earned gongs at last week’s Barossa Wine Show.

This tasty mix of the traditional and new reflects two decades of change caused by export driven vineyard expansion, producer rationalisation, an explosion in the numbers of small makers and constant reappraisal and fine tuning of wine styles.

While the Barossa remains the home of generally big, burly reds, a shift to greater emphasis on fruit and less on oak and tannin can be seen in wines from many makers around the Valley.

Increasingly, wine judges support this shift in style and at last week’s show, two of the most important trophies went to elegant but complex reds of great flavour concentration.

Penfolds RWT Barossa Shiraz 2004 towered above the younger shirazes in its class and won hands down in the trophy ballot against other gold-medal reds. First produced in 1997 by John Duval, RWT aims to capture the sweet perfume and supple depth of carefully selected Barossa shiraz matured in fine French oak.

It provides a remarkable contrast to the power of American-oak-matured Grange, even though much of the fruit for each is sourced from the Kalimna dunes sub-region in the northwestern Barossa.

Runner up to Penfolds RWT Shiraz for the red wine of the show title was Henschke Johann’s Garden 2004, a grenache-mourvedre blend.  This has the limpid colour and lifted perfume of grenache with mourvedre adding depth and backbone to an amazingly silky palate.

These are magnificent wines, beautifully expressing region and variety and inviting another sip. Though the release dates on these screw cap sealed reds is a few years off, they are must buys as they represent a significant lift in Barossa red wine quality as well as a change in style.

Another old Barossa wine restyled in recent years is semillon, the most prolific white in the region. The heavy, oaky, prematurely ageing versions have been replaced by vibrant, fresh, intensely flavoured with considerable cellaring potential – exemplified in the show by Peter Lehmann Reserve Semillon 2001 and 2002 and St Johns Road ‘First Eleven’ Semillon 2004.

Barossa makers nailed the riesling style decades ago and the best from the Eden Valley (the elevated Eastern edge of the Barossa) are truly great wines with long term cellaring potential. The highest scoring wines from this year’s show were Peter Lehmann Eden Valley 2005 and Yalumba Contours Eden Valley 2001. Many of the just-missed-outs, though, seem set to shine as they mature (see wines reviewed below).

While there’ll be more on the Barossa next week (an overview of the landscape from geologist-turned-wine-merchant, David Farmer) it’s fitting to close this week’s column with the great treasures from the fortified classes of the show.

Fortifieds may be in decline. But the ancient stocks held in the Barossa, especially the reserves stretching back for more than a century at Seppeltsfield, are unique in the world.

Yalumba Old Fino and Grant Burge 20 Year Old Tawny seemed good enough. But beside the profound Seppelt DP 90 Rare Tawny, all else is forgotten. This pale tawny, ancient –but-fresh masterpiece is the work of James Godfrey, using the amazing palette of flavours hidden in those venerable old barrels at Seppeltsfield.

WINE REVIEWS

Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier 2004 $19.95 to $22.95
Yalumba offers three viogniers, each outstanding at its price – and little wonder. Since establishing Australia’s first significant plantings in the Eden Valley in 1980, they’ve worked hard to tame and bottle what winemaker Louisa Rose calls an ‘incredibly challenging’ and ‘unpredictable’ variety. The amazingly plush, complex $60-a-bottle ‘The Virgilius’ comes from those original plantings; and at the other end the $10-$13 ‘Y’ is a tasty South Australia blend. In between, at $19.95 cellar door or $22.95 retail, comes this trophy winner from the recent Cowra and Barossa Shows. Partly barrel and partly tank fermented with indigenous yeast, it offers viognier’s unique and delicious apricot-like aroma and flavour and silky, slippery texture.

Peter Lehmann Eden Valley Riesling 2005 $16 to $20
More often than not the very best rieslings reveal more as they age. This was reflected in last week’s Barossa wine show results. Amongst the 2005 vintage contenders, the flagship rieslings of Peter Lehmann, Yalumba and Leo Buring all rated behind cheaper commercial releases from the same companies. But, over time, we are sure to see those delicate, steely flagships surge ahead. Meanwhile, as these mature, there’s huge drinking pleasure in the more revealing, slightly cheaper rieslings like this trophy winner from Peter Lehmann. With lovely aromatics, delicious fruit and taut, ultra-fresh, dry finish, it’s a stunning summer drink. Watch for the specials when it’s released in the next month or two.

Yalumba Barossa Bush Vines Grenache 2004 about $18
This gold medal winner from last week’s Barossa show presents a fragrant, bright, fruity expression of grenache without the confection character sometimes found in the variety. Winemaker Kevin Glastonbury says it’s all sourced from 60-70 year old Barossa vines. The fruit is hand picked, crushed, partially de-stemmed then left in fermenters varying in capacity from 8 to 20 tonnes. After a couple of days soaking on skins a spontaneous ferment begins but this is augmented by the addition of cultured yeasts shortly thereafter. Part of the wine sits on skins for a few months after fermentation. The balance goes to 3, 4 and 5 year old barrels for maturation.  The result is a generous, soft, savoury red featuring slightly brighter fruit in the about-to-be-released 2004 than in the more savoury, currently available 2003.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Aussie 2005 rieslings looking good

Wine, Wine review

After a hot, flavour-sapping 2004 vintage, the milder 2005 season seems to have produced rieslings of subtle perfume, delicious flavour and, in the better examples, the classic intensity and acid structure for long-term cellaring.

As these flow into an increasingly competitive market over the next few months, it’ll pay to stock up – provided, of course, that you like riesling.

Not everyone does. But I suspect that riesling’s relegation to a niche, albeit highly publicised, role amongst Aussie whites owes less to its flavour than it does to the lingering, sweet aftertaste of generic ‘riesling’.

Though gone forever, generic riesling — often sweet, bland and made from anything but riesling grapes — left a cloying legacy for today’s riesling makers to overcome.

As riesling lovers know, the variety offers deliciously fresh, pure, delicate fruit flavour and, in the Australian context, it’s usually dry, although any level of sweetness can be found. That’s all determined by winemaking decisions.

This potentially winning theme of purity and delicacy lies in the grape itself and in the ability of winemakers to bring that delicacy and purity all the way from vineyard to bottle.

It’s a journey fraught with peril. The fruit has to be just right to begin with. But even then, every compromise along the way, no matter how small, reduces quality. The sum of the compromises can be devastating – as we saw judging riesling classes at the recent Canberra region show.

Two wines from the same vineyard scored 55.5/60 and 40/60 respectively: the first a superb gold medal winner; the second barely drinkable thanks, it seems, to inattentive winemaking.

Because of its delicacy, riesling leaves little room for error. Every flaw stands out. But with the level of understanding we now have and ready access to refrigeration, inert gas and protective winemaking in general, there is no reason for any riesling to be faulty.

Phil Laffer, winemaking head at Orlando-Wyndham, recently showed a line up of lovely Steingarten rieslings from vintages 2005 to 1990. To make top-quality riesling, he said, fruit flavour and delicacy need to be preserved at all stages. The Orlando regime includes harvesting at night and only with the temperature below 15 degrees; processing the fruit in the winery within 30 minutes of harvest and uncompromising, protective handling through juice extraction, fermentation, storage and bottling.

Even after production and bottling, cool storage is vital. And in recent years, the arrival of the screw cap has removed cork’s many threats to delicate riesling. Seven years after its widespread adoption, we’re now seeing beautiful rieslings that show wonderful aged flavours while retaining great freshness.

With all the work that’s been done in the vineyards and wineries of Australia’s leading riesling making regions, the arrival of a good vintage like 2005, then, is reason for excitement. We see sound wines every year from the best winemakers. But a good vintage adds extra flavour to the grapes for our enjoyment.

My early impression of 2005 is that the rieslings seem slightly less aromatic than the 2004s but that they offer far greater intensity and depth of flavour.

Outstanding 2005 vintage rieslings tasted to date (apart from those in ‘top drops’), include Neagles Rock Clare Valley, Penfolds Reserve Eden Valley, Helm Premium Canberra District, Chatto Wines Canberra District and Ravensworth Wines Canberra District.

There are bound to be many more as the new releases roll in the coming months, so watch this space for outstanding summer drinking.

A FEW GOOD 2005 RIESLINGS

Grosset Watervale Riesling 2005 $33 & Polish Hill Riesling 2005 $39
Jeffrey Grosset’s Clare rieslings, from the subregions of Watervale and Polish Hill, rank consistently amongst the best of the style in Australia. The Watervale (for the first time in 2005 entirely from Grosset’s own vineyard) is almost unbelievably pure and delicate with a racy, lingering lime-like flavour and acidity. It’ll age forever. But even now one bottle’s not enough. Polish Hill starts subtly with a delicate, minerally aroma. Then on the palate there’s great weight and richness behind a steely acid backbone. From experience – refreshed by the recent Langton’s classification tasting – these are wine to enjoy for many, many years.

Mount Majura Canberra District Riesling 2005 $16
I’ve seen this at a couple of tastings now and at the Canberra Regional Show where it won a silver medal. Even against the benchmark Grosset wine it made a strong showing, suggesting the variety works well in Canberra but it takes the sort of attention to detail that Frank Van Der Loo gives to deliver the goods. The wine shows attractive floral and citrus aromas and a very delicate, fine palate built on lemony citrus flavours with hints of mineral and musk. It’s very fresh and delicious now but should mature and change in pleasing ways for many years if properly cellared.

Leo Buring Eden Valley Riesling 2005 $17.95, Clare Riesling 2005 $17.95 and Leonay DW 117 Eden Valley Riesling 2005 $32.95
In 1945 Leo Buring purchased Chateau Leonay at Tanunda, in the Barossa, and hired John Vickery as winemaker. From this winery, at first under Buring and later under Lindemans, Vickery polished the craft of riesling making and played a seminal role in establishing the dry, pure, long-lived styles we know today. Vickery now consults to Orlando and Chateau Leonay has become Richmond Grove. But the Buring and Leonay names live on as part of the Fosters group the rieslings show great quality under winemaker Matthew Pick. The Eden and Clare wines show steely intensity and citrusy zip, respectively, while the flagship Leonay is simply exceptional, especially for those prepared to wait 5-10 years.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Hunting the Hunter wine region innovations

Travel, Vineyard, Wine

As far north and as coastal as it is, the lower Hunter Valley of NSW ought to be too warm, too wet, too humid and, with Sydney so close, too expensive to make wine. But it has successfully done so for 170 years and today it is more varied and innovative than at any other time in its long history.

By my estimate, the Hunter now has 159 winemakers with the greatest concentration – and therefore the richest pickings for visitors – in the lower Hunter, quite close to Cessnock.

Clearly, that’s more wineries than any visitor can cover in a fortnight, let alone a weekend. But that’s part of the Hunter’s interest: scale and diversity mean you can go back time and again and still find something new.

For a writer reporting on the Hunter, it’s also a frustration. How can a three-day tour, visiting a handful of wineries, do the region justice? Hence, the sins of omission are many and the gaps can be covered only by you, dear reader. Visit the Hunter, explore and enjoy for there’s much more there than you’ll find in this brief report.

The purely regional experience begins (and, for some, ends) with Semillon and Shiraz, the area’s time-proven, long-lived and idiosyncratic specialties. These find dozens of subtly different expressions amongst makers large and small and could easily be the focus of a weekend’s tour. However, there is much, much more to discover, and it goes beyond the old familiars of chardonnay, verdelho, merlot and cabernet sauvignon.

Today’s diversity in the Hunter reflects the explosion of grape growing in Australia and the good old Aussie traditions of cross-regional fruit sourcing, blending and a restless quest to make new and different styles.

Hunter contacts now stretch throughout NSW from the cool regions of Orange and Tumbarumba to warm areas like Mudgee and Cowra. Hunter makers also source fruit from Victoria’s King Valley, Heathcote and Beechworth regions and even from Tasmania and South Australia.

So don’t be surprised when you visit the Hunter to find familiar regional favourites from around Australia as well as emerging varieties like Sangiovese, Barbera, Tempranillo, Pinot Gris and Viognier from the Hunter and beyond.

Invariably, the innovators with these new varieties are also the guardians of the traditional Hunter styles.
Andrew Margan, for example, planted the Italian red variety Barbera at Ceres Hill, Broke, in 1998. He’d seen the increasing popularity of Merlot and believed an Italian variety, either Sangiovese or Barbera, might provide yet another flavour experience for visitors.

Andrew opted for the thick-skinned, high-acid Barbera, reckoning it to be better suited to the Hunter’s warm, humid climate than thin-skinned, big-cropping sangiovese. Cuttings from a Mudgee vineyard (planted by Italian winemaker Carlo Corino in the 1970s) took to the new site and yielded the first Margan Barbera in 2001.

Cellar door customers loved the 2001, 2002 and 2003 vintages. And the current release 2004 — and even better, yet-to-be-released 2005 — show the variety’s brilliant purple colour, exotic summer-berry perfume and flavour and savoury, tangy, food-friendly grip.

No matter how tasty though, five Barbera vintages do not a Hunter specialty make. For Andrew Margan the main game remains Semillon, Chardonnay, Verdelho, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon from a former Lindemans vineyard, planted at Broke in 1970 and Merlot from a newer planting next to the Barbera vines.

Margan says that working with Tyrrell’s from 1989 to 1994 taught him “that the basis of wine quality was great viticulture”. Hence, the TLC given to the 78-hectare former Lindeman vineyard at Broke and the 70-year-old former Elliott family ‘Beltree’ Semillon vineyard at Belford, Pokolbin, twenty minutes drive from Broke.

Andrew acquired the Beltree Vineyard in 1999, “returned it to a good state”, and from it produces an absolutely stunning classic Hunter Semillon: delicate, pale, austere and hard for the uninitiated to understand when young but of a style to develop an extraordinary toasty richness with extended ageing.

When you visit Margan’s cellar door — cohabiting with Restaurant Beltree on Hermitage Road, Pokolbin — you can taste Beltree Semillon and other traditional styles like Shiraz alongside the newcomers: Barbera, an excellent Shiraz-based rosé called Shiraz Saignee, and a highly-original, low-alcohol, no-oak, light-and-sticky Botrytis Semillon, sourced from the old Lindemans vineyards at Broke.

Andrew offers, as well, an innovative variation on traditional Hunter Shiraz, born of the current rosé boom. His rosé is made by the ‘Saignee’ or bleeding method – draining lovely pink juice from the Shiraz before it extracts too much colour from contact with the skins.

This has a significant impact on the red wine, too, as it means less juice remaining with those colour-and-tannin-packed grape skins. Margan Timber Vines Shiraz emerges from the fermenting vats as a deeper and richer wine than it would otherwise have been. And to be sure that it doesn’t carry too much mouth-puckering tannin, Andrew doesn’t blend in the pressings – the usual practice with red wines.

Timber Vines, then, has the usual Hunter fruit flavour, but it’s a little darker in colour, a bit fuller on the palate with lots of velvety, soft tannins – cleverly retaining Hunter character while sending a seductive siren song to those who love the bigger wines of, say, the Barossa or Clare.

This respect for tradition spiced with ingenuity shows all through the valley from makers of all sizes.
For example, in 1993 when the Lusby family carved Tintilla Estate out of the bush on Hermitage Road, they included in the seven-hectare vineyard the Italian red variety, Sangiovese – the thin-skinned variety rejected by Margan in favour of Barbera.

In Australia, our most likely exposure to Italian Sangiovese comes via the tight, savoury reds of Chianti – the huge wine zone bulging between Florence and Siena in Tuscany. The quality ranges from glad-when-you’ve-had-enough to jaw dropping, good – especially when you include the related Tuscan heavyweights, Brunello di Montelcino and Vino Nobile de Montepulciano, also made from Sangiovese.

The better wines share a savoury intensity and a ripple of tannin that sweeps across the palate, cleaning up before the next sip. We generally don’t see this in fruit-focused Aussie wines. But it’s what Tintilla and a number of other Hunter makers now seek, as an addition to the traditional styles.

Thus, young James Lusby makes convincing examples of the Hunter staples — a traditional, low-alcohol, delicate Semillon and an earthy, soft Shiraz — plus an attractive Merlot, while really bowling over cellar door visitors with three versions of Sangiovese.

Its thin skin and lighter colour make Sangiovese an ideal source for Tintilla’s rosé, Rosato di Jupiter Sangiovese – a pale pink, zesty, savoury luncheon drop – made, like Margan’s Shiraz Rosé, by the Saignee method.

And the ‘bleeding’ process boosts the colour and body of Tintilla Sangiovese, which remains pale in comparison to traditional Aussie reds. However, it has the variety’s cherry-like fruit character and fine, grippy, savoury tannins.

And inspired by modern Tuscan practice, James makes a Sangiovese Merlot blend, a delicious red that retains Sangiovese’s flavour and structure while benefiting from a little more colour, flesh and silkiness contributed by the Merlot component.

Over in Broke at Olivevine, Ian and Suzanne Little specialise in alternative varieties, including locally grown Sangiovese. Like James Lusby, they find the variety struggles for colour, so use the Saignee method to produce a rosé and bolster the red version — with striking success in the excellent 2005 vintage. These are delicious wines.

Olivevine’s a must visit, too, for its racy, limey Gewurztraminer sourced from the former Penfolds Wybong vineyard in the Upper Hunter and a plush, silky, ‘pear drop and apricot’ laden dry white made from Broke-grown Viognier.

And you’ll find Sangiovese and Viognier at Brokenwood that great maker of traditional Hunter Semillon and Shiraz. The homely cellar door looks much as it has for decades. But out back in the winery Peter-James Charteris makes barrels of fun.

P-J’s currently working with different clones of Sangiovese from McLaren Vale, South Australia, and Beechworth, Victoria as well as Nebbiolo (the noble red variety of Piedmont), Viognier, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir from Beechworth and Chardonnay from Mount Panorama and Orange.

Sure, these are not Hunter wines. But they are truly exciting. And as they move from development to bottling, you can taste and buy them from the Hunter cellar door. I’d drive there again just to re-taste P-J’s creations.

All of this, of course, is a mere swatch of the colourful Hunter fabric. I’ve not even mentioned the time-proven, glorious Semillons and Shirazes from Tyrrell’s and McWilliams Mount Pleasant.
These are surely the region’s greatest beacons. Be attracted to them. But allow time to fan out and see the impressive diversity offered by the other 157 makers.

HUNTER — HOW TO GET THERE, SLEEPS AND EATS

How to get there

Drive north on the Newcastle freeway from Sydney, take the Cessnock turnoff ramp to the left, then follow the signs to Cessnock, then follow the ‘Wine Country’ signs. Take a map, be adventurous and have fun. The greatest concentration of wineries is around Pokolbin, but Lovedale and Broke are must-visits, too.

Sleeps

Tonic Hotel
251 Talga Road, Lovedale
Phone 02 4930 9999 or tonichotel.com.au
Your hosts: Nici and Tom Stanford
Luxurious king-bed suites in clusters of three. Luxury ensuite, TV, oodles of space, balcony, bush views and very peaceful and quiet. Tasty, healthy breakfast in room

Wilderness Grove
77 Wilderness Road, Lovedale
Phone 02 4930 9078
Your host: David Wilson
Luxurious ensuite rooms in purpose-built modern mansion, next to the olive grove in peaceful and quiet location. Share pre-dinner drinks in the lounge or deck and enjoy David’s hearty cooked breakfast.

Eats

Margan Restaurant Beltree
266 Hermitage Road, Pokolbin
Phone 02 6574 7216 or margan.com.au
Offers breakfast, fresh and imaginative Mediterranean-inspired lunches as well as fresh cakes, desserts and coffee all day. Doubles as Margan’s cellar door,

Hungerford Hill Terroir
1 Broke Road, Pokolbin
Phone 02 4990 0711 or hungerfordhill.com.au/terroir
In this magnificent setting chef Darren Ho produces food of the highest calibre. A degustation menu, each dish matched with a Hungerford Hill wine, reveals the depth and brilliance of Darren’s art. His signature ‘Dixon Street bbq duck with sweet pickled lemons on basmati rice and choy sum’ and ‘Caramelised lemon tart with coconut sorbet’ are two highlights.

Mojo’s on Wilderness
Lot 82 Wilderness Road, Rothbury
Phone 02 4930 7244 or mojos.com.au
The ambience is suburban living room. But the do-it-all yourself approach of proprietors Adam and Ros Baldwin delivers homely, relaxing service and strikingly good food. And that’s not surprising given Adam’s twelve-years as a chef in London’s West End and another eight at the Kurrajong, Cessnock.

Judges’ eye view of Canberra District wine show 2005

Wine, Wine review

Results of last week’s Canberra Regional Wine Show confirm shiraz as the district’s outright star. Various delicious examples won four gold medals and, for the sixth consecutive year, the variety earned the ‘champion wine of the show’ trophy.

But for the first time since I’ve been judging at the event, shiraz met a serious challenger for that top award. In a two to one vote, Kamberra Shiraz 2004 narrowly pipped Helm Premium Riesling 2005 for number one spot. In truth, however, it was an apples and oranges comparison. Each wine is top-notch example of its style.

Shiraz, overall, delivered more highlights than riesling. The 2004s in particular look good and offer a diversity of styles from the intense, silky and elegant Kamberra 2004 to the bigger, more robust traditional Grove Estate Hilltops 2004 (Young, NSW) to the savoury, refined Wallaroo 2004 (Hall, NSW) – the other two gold medallists.

The 2004 shiraz class also produced two silver medallists, Ravensworth (Murrumbateman) and Chalkers Crossing (Young); and three bronze medallists, Meeting Place (Canberra), Wimbaliri (Murrumbateman) and First Creek (unknown fruit origin).

While the 2003 and older shirazes provided fewer highlights, Long Rail Gully Granite Stone 2003 really shone, winning another gold for Murrumbateman while Gallagher Wines 2003 (Murrumbateman) and McWilliams Barwang 2002 (Young) won silver medals.

As judge Tim Kirk commented during the show the best of the shirazes from the Canberra region show a fruit flavour not dissimilar to that of wines from Great Western, Victoria. In general local shiraz is well removed from the big and burly styles of warmer areas and, at its best, shows a great intensity of supple, soft fruit without excessive oak.

In the very hot 2004 vintage even the most attentive riesling makers struggled. The cleanest, freshest wines simply lacked fruit flavour. But in 2005, we saw two beautiful and different gold medallists in Helm Premium, from Al Lustenberger’s Murrumbateman vineyard and Gallagher, from Graeme Shaw’s Murrumbateman vineyard.

Silver medallists Ravensworth, Mount Majura and Chatto Wines, too, displayed flawless winemaking but not quite the fruit intensity for gold.

The two gold and three silver medal wines show that after decades of glimpsing greatness in Canberra riesling, we have, as a district, finally arrived. The best is as good as anything in the country. But the challenge is to eliminate the serious winemaking faults in those that failed to make the honours list.

The tasting supported, too, the belief that cabernet sauvignon just doesn’t work in our district, nor in the greater area within the wine show’s catchment. The contrast between the bright, generous fruit flavours in shiraz and the mean, fruitless cabernets couldn’t have been greater.

The pinot noir classes, too, yielded little joy. And chardonnay proved surprisingly weak, although I was impressed by Kamberra Tumbarumba 2004, a bronze medallist. I think we’ll see stronger product from this cool area in future years.

Tumbarumba argued its case well, though, with the gold medal winning Kamberra Pinot Noir Chardonnay 2000. It’s a ripper – and available at Kamberra cellar door for $30.

Of the emerging varieties, the bright, fresh Mount Majura Pinot Gris 2004 earned silver. Given these are from very young vines, we can expect to see greater flavour concentration in the years ahead. And Kamberra Viognier 2004 from Holt delivered sufficient plush, juicy ‘apricot’ flavours to earn a silver medal. This looks to be another natural from the district.

A FEW GOOD CANBERRA DISTRICT WINES

Helm Canberra District Premium Riesling $ $33
Ken Helm’s been talking the riesling talk for decades. Now, deservedly, he’s walking the walk with this stunningly good wine. It’s the product of years of incremental adjustments to a winemaking regime applied to the very best grapes from Al Lustenberger’s fastidiously managed Murrumbateman vineyard. All it took was thirty years’ hard work, fuelled by vision, and a benign 2005 growing season that seems to have brought out the best in the variety. This is a wine with a seriously long future: it has the classic citrus and mineral aromatics and taut, intense, steely-yet-delicate palate of classic riesling. This is a great achievement for Ken and a very significant wine for the Canberra district, too. Cellar door phone number is 6227 5953.

Gallagher Canberra District Riesling 2005 $17
Greg Gallagher’s riesling, sourced from Graeme Shaw’s Murrumbateman vineyard, earned the second gold medal (half a point behind Helms) amongst sixteen 2005 vintage rieslings at the regional show. It’s a delicious drop and quite different in style from Ken’s, with a greater volume of floral aromatics and a rounder, more overtly fruity palate. It also has vibrant, fresh acidity and the delicacy essential in riesling. Canberra benefits greatly from the presence of an experienced, accomplished winemaker like Greg. He not only recognises good fruit but also has the skills and attentiveness necessary to take it all the way to the bottle we drink. The Murrumbateman cellar door is open weekends and public holidays, phone 6227 0555.

Kamberra Canberra District Shiraz 2004 $30
Put this one in your diary and be sure to buy a bottle or two when it’s released. A gold medal and three trophies won at this week’s district show confirm how good it is. But what the gongs don’t convey is what style of wine it is. It’s not one of those inky, oaky Aussie monsters. That’s not what Canberra does. It’s a limpid, seductively fragrant red with a juicy, succulent, silky palate. It’s soft and lovely to drink now. But there’s a layered depth to it that almost certainly ensures good medium to long term cellaring. It’s sourced principally from Andrew McEwin’s vineyard at Murrumbateman (with a few other components including a splash of viognier) and sensitively made by Alex McKay at Kamberra.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Jacob’s Creek goes upmarket as it eyes the future

Wine, Wine review

Jacob’s Creek is a wine brand in transition. As the team behind growing, making and marketing it looks ten, twenty and thirty years into the future, they see – and have laid the foundations for –- a brand with a sense of place and history. And it’ll be led, in future, by benchmark regional varietals and special high quality blends rather than the under-$10 perennial favourites that have defined the brand until now.

It’s not that these bread and butter wines will become less important. With sales this year expected to exceed one million dozen bottles domestically and seven million globally – and growing — they’ll form the base of the Jacob’s Creek brand pyramid for the foreseeable future.

What the future holds, though, is an increasing role for the upmarket Jacob’s Creek wines introduced in recent times — some created especially for the brand, others having recently migrated from the Orlando portfolio.

The first ‘Reserve’ Jacob’s Creek wines arrived in 2000 as exciting, big-value varietals selling at a modest premium to the standard range (about $15 versus $10). These are now an established part of Australian retail offerings and enjoy moderate success. However, the Reserves constitute about 15 per cent of volume in the USA – an indicator of where markets might be headed.

In 1997, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the planting of Johann Gramp’s first vines at Jacob’s Creek in 1847, Orlando showed its first two Jacob’s Creek ‘Limited Release’ wines: a 1994 Barossa Shiraz/Coonawarra Cabernet blend and a Padthaway Chardonnay 1996.

While these and subsequent vintages appear to have made little impact on consumers to date, the reds – especially the sensational 1996 — easily rate amongst Australia’s very best and the rapidly-improving chardonnay is a great show performer.

As the Jacob’s Creek ‘Reserves’ and ‘Limited Release’ wines emerged, Orlando’s French owners, Pernod Ricard, lent full support to the building of the Jacob’s Creek Visitor Centre, a magnificent cellar door, restaurant, conference facility on the banks of Jacob’s Creek.

As the vision for Jacob’s fruit crystallised, the French also supported a ‘buy back the farm’ project, often paying a premium to re-acquire vineyards and land in the vicinity of Jacob’s Creek sold off by the Gramp family or subsequent owners, Reckitt and Coleman.

Then followed an ambitious heritage project aimed at drawing together various strands of the Jacob’s Creek and Gramp family history. During 2004 and 2005 a wild life enclosure was completed along with native plant regeneration on the Jacob’s Creek Visitors centre site on the eastern side of the Lyndoch-Tanunda Road.

And on the western side, Johann Gramp’s original cellars were restored and the family house renovated to include a boardroom, kitchen and VIP dining room. At the same time exotic garden remnants were cleared and native plants established.

Coinciding with this, the well-established Steingarten Riesling, sourced from vineyards in hills on the Jacob’s Creek catchment, subtly changed from ‘Orlando’ to ‘Jacob’s Creek’ branding, as did Centenary Hill Shiraz – a robust red made from vineyards along Jacob’s Creek.

All the pieces finally fell into place recently with a clear four tier structure to the Jacob’s Creek brand: at the top at $100 a bottle is ‘Johann’, the red formerly labelled as ‘Limited Release’; then come four ‘heritage’ wines, the reds at $40 and the whites at $30: Steingarten Barossa Riesling, Centenary Hill Barossa Shiraz, St Hugo Coonawarra Cabernet (another migrant from the Orlando brand) and Reeve’s Point Padthaway Chardonnay (formerly ‘Limited Release); then the $15 ‘Reserve varietals and, finally, the big, volume ‘core’ range at $8-$10 a bottle.

Most importantly for consumers, the upmarket additions to Jacob’s Creek are not just names. These are all outstanding wines of some pedigree.

Jacob’s Creek Johann 1999 $100, St Hugo Coonawarra Cabernet 2002 $40, Centenary Hill Barossa Shiraz 1997 $40, Steingarten Barossa Ranges Riesling 2002 $30, Reeve’s Point Padthaway Chardonnay 2002 $30
Meet the posh members of the Jacob’s Creek family: Johann, an extraordinarily rich, elegant Barossa Shiraz, Coonawarra Cabernet blend for long cellaring; Centenary Hill, a powerful, savoury southern Barossa Shiraz based on the 1920s Willandra Vineyard at Jacob’s Creek; St Hugo Cabernet Sauvignon, a Coonawarra classic; Steingarten Riesling, an intense, very fine, bone dry and minerally riesling from the Steingarten and St Helga vineyards in the Barossa ranges immediately to the east of Jacob’s Creek; and Reeve’s Point, a concentrated, barrel fermented, melon-and-peach chardonnay from a very special vineyard at the foot of the Padthaway sand hills.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007