Who’ll tell grandma?

3 June 2009WineChris Shanahan

In December last year Australia and Europe tied off a loose end that had been dangling since March 1994. But who’s going to tell grandma that the agreement spells the end of Australian ‘sherry’ (the name at least, if not the drink)?

We’d committed to dropping European wine names from our labels under a wine trade agreement on 1 March 1994. However, the agreement hadn’t specified the phase-out period. But the new agreement, signed in Brussels on 1 December 2008, details how and when we drop the few remaining European place names – plus a long list of ‘traditional expressions’ – from our labels.

The agreement will become effective when Australia amends the Australian Wine and Brand Corporation Act 1980 and Trade Marks Act 1995. From that point we have one year to phase out our use of Burgundy, Chablis, Champagne, Graves, Manzanilla, Marsala, Moselle, Port, Sauterne, Sherry (poor grandma) and White Burgundy, and ten years to drop ‘tokay’.

And good news for grandma – at a cost of a reported $1million ($500,000 of it from the Australian Government) the industry’s come up with a new name for Australian sherry. The draft Fortified Wine Code of Practice proposes ‘Apera’ – a word play on ‘aperitif’ – to apply across the whole sherry flavour spectrum, including those that aren’t aperitif styles. Don’t you just love committees?

But if grandma drinks commercial Apera, the transition may not be too confusing as the current descriptors ‘dry’, ‘medium dry’, ‘semi sweet’ and ‘cream’ are to remain. If, however, she enjoys a more expensive drop, she’ll search in vain for the now-forbidden ‘fino’, ‘amontillado’ and ‘oloroso’. These, too, will be replaced with style descriptors above.

The committee that gave us Apera also offers ‘Topaque’ as the replacement name for Tokay – the luscious, aged fortified wine made from the muscadelle grape, most famously in Rutherglen, northeastern Victoria.

This final mop-up of European place names is just the last fiddly little bit of a transformation that began in Australia long before the 1994 or 2008 agreements with Europe.

In reality, when did anyone last see on a retail shelf an Australian ‘Chablis’, ‘Champagne’ or ‘Burgundy’? Regional, varietal labelling began to replace these outmoded, derivative generic terms in the late seventies, gathered a head of steam during the eighties and had become mainstream by the time of the 1994 agreement.

And something the sherry – sorry, Apera – makers might note is the futile push by some in the eighties and nineties to come up with an Australian term for ‘Champagne’. Most makers didn’t give a toss. Rightly, they saw the discussion as irrelevant.

Large-scale commercial brands like Minchinbury and Great Western simply removed the word ‘Champagne’ from their labels. The strength of the brands and packaging said all that needed to be said.

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

Our top makers gave us Croser, Pirie, Arras, Salinger, Chandon, Hanging Rock – and many more individual brands packaged clearly as high-quality sparklers and quite often with varietal and regional information on the label. Quite simply, we didn’t need a single name. Indeed, creating one would have been a diversion from our more innovative, regional and cross-regional-blending approaches.

While it’s easy to focus on what the agreement with Europe takes away from us, it’s probably more important to see the protection it gives to our own wine names and winemaking practices.

The irony is that when we signed the 1994 agreement with Europe, we didn’t even have defensible regional names. The 1994 agreement forced us to develop our Geographic Indications system – the official naming and registering of our regions.

We initially defined Australia, then the states then the engine room of our burgeoning export industry, ‘South Eastern Australia’, embracing much of NSW, Victoria and South Australia. Then began the hard grind of defining zones within each state, then within the zones, regions, and within some regions, sub-regions to go on the register of protected names.

The new agreement protects our 112 place names, just as it protects Europe’s more than 2,500. It also accepts many Australian winemaking techniques and eases the entry of our wines into Europe.

Grandma will soon get used to sipping McWilliams Cream or Seppelt Fine Apera. But the bigger challenge for Australian winemakers will be to convince the world that we’re not just one big, hot country making a single wine style. We’ve got a huge task ahead to reveal the tremendous diversity of styles produced across our 112 official wine growing areas.

Beer review — Cascade First Harvest Ale 2009

3 June 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Cascade First Harvest Ale 330ml bottle $4.59
Cascade’s eighth salute to the hops harvest is a medium amber colour brew. It’s lively and fresh, with rich underlying malt flavour and pervasive, refreshing, tangy, bitter hops. The bitterness builds as you sip, but in a pleasant way – and it’s offset by the delicious rich malt flavour.

Cascade’s all-Tassie hop celebration

3 June 2009BeerChris Shanahan

Eight years ago Max Burslem brewed Cascade’s inaugural ‘First Harvest’ ale – a beer dedicated to Tasmania’s hop harvest.

The just released 2009 vintage, coinciding with Max’s fortieth year with Cascade, uses fresh hops flowers from three experimental hops varieties that Max says ‘have never been used in brewing before’.

Max even named the three varieties himself, honouring Tasmania’s earliest hops pioneers Richard Clarke, Ebenzer Shoobridge and the Francomb family. Max says that Clarke grew Tasmania’s first hops, Shoobridge established the industry in the Derwent Valley and the Frankcomb family pioneered the Huon Valley.

The hops for first harvest came from the Derwent Valley’s Bushy Park Estate hop field, site of Shoobridge’s plantings. In the brewing process they join Tasmanian barley, malted at Cascade’s own malt house.

Each brewer has his own style – and this is streets away from the Wig & Pen’s on-tap versions reviewed here last week. Max’s is less in-your-face in the hops department and not as aromatic. Against a background flavour of rich, smooth malt First Harvest focuses more on hops flavour and its pervading, loveable bitterness.

And next week we’ll look at Chuck Hahn’s James Squire Hop Thief. It’s bound to be utterly different again, but still in the zesty, bitter hops mould.

Wine review — Wallaroo, Coriole and Chapel Hill

31 May 2009Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Wallaroo Wines Canberra District Shiraz 2006 $28
This delicious, fine-boned shiraz, from Canberra’s Hall sub-region, earned a silver medal a few weeks back in Decanter magazine’s World Wine Awards, London – putting it in the top 13 per cent of the approximately ten thousand wines judged at the event. Roger Harris made the wine at Brindabella Hills Winery, using fruit from the neighbouring Wallaroo Vineyard. It’s notably paler in colour than the three McLaren Vale shirazes reviewed below. But that’s exactly what you’d expect from cooler Canberra – fine, elegant wines with silky texture and intense berry and spice flavours. This is a lovely regional style. See www.wallaroowines.com.au

Coriole McLaren Vale Redstone Shiraz$16–$19
Coriole McLaren Vale Estate Grown Shiraz 2006 $25–$28
Coriole’s a consistent McLaren Vale performer, offering harmonious, full, ripe regional reds that never tip into the over-ripe, porty style and always come with a satisfying savoury edge. Redstone, an old favourite, delivers bright, fruity flavours and soft tannins with the appreciable extra dimension of age (2006 vintage versus the more usual 2007 or 2008 at this price). Its cellar mate, sourced entirely from Coriole Estate (in the Vale’s Seaview sub-region) offers more intense flavours, savouriness and an appealing supple, smooth texture – though there’s a good load of tannin there to match the fruit. Should cellar well for a decade or so.

Chapel Hill McLaren Vale Shiraz 2007 $27–$30
Chapel Hill McLaren Vale Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 $27–$30
Chapel Hill winery backs onto the Onkaparinga Gorge, high up in McLaren and built its reputation under the now retired Pam Dunsford. Michael Fragos, an old McLaren Vale hand, formerly with Tatachilla, now makes the wine. These are at the big end of the regional style. But they’re well balanced, with crystal clear varietal character. While shiraz is the regional specialty, cabernet performs well, too, as the robust Chapel Hill demonstrates – it’s full, firm and offers the rich mid-palate flavour sometimes missing in warm-climate styles. The shiraz is very deep and purple rimmed with pure, ripe-black-cherry varietal flavour.

Will wine in plastic bottles succeed in Australia?

27 May 2009WineChris Shanahan

There’s a saying going around the industry that you can always tell a Foster’s wine executive – but you can’t tell them much. It shows in every part of their faltering wine empire, and even in a recent press release announcing the launch in Australia of wine in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles.

It’s an admirable, environmentally friendly initiative. But did anyone check the facts? And where’s the corporate memory?

The press release claims, “In an Australian first, Wolf Blass has released its latest range of wines producing 29% less greenhouse gas emissions. The new Wolf Blass Green Label wines come in a lightweight recyclable plastic bottle”.

It seems the attention-getting headline outranked truth, as Queensland’s Sirromet winery released its First Step range in PET plastic several months ahead of the Wolf Blass launch.

And what about corporate memory? Has Foster’s forgotten that it served Seppelt Fleur de Lys bubbly from PET bottles during Flemington’s spring carnival in 2006 – and added Wolf Blass table wine in PET bottles to the carnival menu in 2007?

These probably were the wine industry’s first use of 750ml PET bottles in Australia. And Foster’s had been an early mover in other markets, too, having launched PET-bottled Wolf Blass wine Canada in 2007 and the UK shortly afterwards.

And even before that, because of its lightness and safety, PET bottles rapidly replaced glass in the fast-growing single-serve market, dominated by those little 187ml bottles served on aircraft.

This seems to have sparked their successful uptake by consumers in the US – led by Fetzer’s Valley Oaks brand early in 2005 and followed in August the same year by Foster’s California based Stone Cellars by Beringer brand.

Both Foster’s and Sirromet push the environmental credentials of PET. Foster’s attributes much of the reduced carbon footprint to a “90% weight reduction of the 51gm PET bottle used for [Wolf Blass] Green Label compared to the industry standard glass bottle”. The lighter bottle contributes to a 36% reduction in the overall weight of the product, they claim.

But will this be enough to win wine drinkers over? In an online survey by Choice in 2007 those calling wine in PET bottles “sacrilegious” slightly outnumbered those saying they’d embrace it – but are outnumbered by those who don’t care.

We should remember, too, that almost half of the wine consumed in Australia reaches our dinner tables via the flexible bladder crammed inside chateau cardboard.

But not since the cask appeared some thirty years ago have we embraced any non-glass packaging so enthusiastically.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the four-litre cask (known more aptly in other markets as bag-in-box) drove the humble two-litre glass flagon from our shelves. Today only cheap fortified wines come in flagons, although the diminutive ‘goon’ lives on as the twenty-something’s jargon for cheap wine.

Various cheap, strong, light and appealing alternatives to glass and casks have enjoyed niche but not mainstream success.

In the eighties we saw sections of the trade boycott wine coolers packed in lunchbox-sized tetra packs. Some retailers feared that the fruit-juice-like appearance might appeal to underage drinkers, or that children might even confuse it for juice.

We’ve since seen some attempts at packing wine in one-litre tetra packs enjoying a modicum of success. And several makers have succeeded with wine in cans – most notably Italy’s Rich Prosecco, spruiked in Europe’s fashionable ski resorts by Paris Hilton.

But the successes are isolated and to date haven’t appealed to mainstream wine drinkers. However, environmental concerns about glass – particularly regarding its weight, high handling and transport costs and safety – mean that alternatives have to found.

As environmental concerns, backed by public policy, now dovetail with commercial cost-cutting needs, the number of alternatives is sure to grow. And PET plastic looks to be a strong favourite.

Like glass it’s strong, can be moulded into bottle shape, enjoys a long history as a drink container and is recyclable.
Unlike glass it’s comparatively light and won’t break into dangerous shards – which is good – but it’s not completely airtight, which is not so good.

Lightness is it’s overwhelming advantage over glass. Two years back, as they launched PET in Canada, Foster’s said that a 750ml PET bottle weighed around 54 grams, compared to a glass bottle’s 400–700 grams.

That means a significant energy saving for every inch of a wine’s journey. By my reckoning the forklift carries 266–496 kilograms less in every pallet; each 1000-case shipping container weighs 4.1–7.7 tonnes less; and the case you lug to your car weighs 4.1–7.7 kilograms less.

And the bottle even looks less bulky. The 750ml Sirromet sample in front of me, for example, looks like it might be 500ml.

At this stage, though, PET’s use will be limited to early-drinking wines as slight air permeability means a shorter shelf life than for the same wine in glass. Since most wine is drunk shortly after purchase, this perhaps makes the majority of wine a candidate for a PET bottle.

And will we wine drinkers accept the new packaging? A fair bit of evidence says that we will.

Indirectly, we’ve seen the dramatic take up of screw caps in the past decade. This can be viewed largely as a triumph of convenience over tradition – even if winemakers originally drove the change on quality grounds. The screw cap acceptance suggests that wine drinkers are not all that conservative and that the power of convenience and good sense should not be underestimated.

Beer review — Wig & Pen

27 May 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Wig & Pen Hopidemic ale half-pint $4.20
Brewer Richard Hopkins believes this is among Australia’s hoppiest beers with over 1.6 kg of hops for every 100 litres of beer. But the focus is on fresh, pungent aroma and flavour rather than bitterness – and it works deliciously with the unctuous malt flavours. This is the cask-conditioned and hand pumped.

Wig & Pen Hop Heads ale, Venom ale half-pint $4.20
Hop Heads, a brew for heroes, percolates through a container (Modus Hoperandus) of Galaxy hop heads en route to your glass, giving the full, raw hops experience. Despite the name Venom has less sting than Hop Heads, balancing a dry, malty palate with intense, lingering, resiny bitterness.

Brewers go hop mad

27 May 2009BeerChris Shanahan

The hops season ended recently and already we’re seeing beers that capture, in various forms, the wonderful aromas and flavours of freshly harvested hops.

From Foster’s there’s Cascade First Harvest Ale, brewed with fresh Tasmanian hops flowers. And from Lion Nathan, there’s James Squire Hop Thief, brewed at the Malt Shover Brewery and making a return after last year’s absence.

I have samples of each on the way for review in the next week or two. But closer to home, the Wig & Pen brewpub, Civic, offers three extraordinary ales brewed on the premises and served from the tap – including one that’s cask conditioned and hand pumped in the real ale style.

These are idiosyncratic beers and a little goes a long way. But they’re beautifully made. And they express various hops characteristics – aroma, flavour and bitterness – from a range of hop varieties, added at different stages of the brewing process to a diversity of malts.

The varieties include Golden Promise, American Simcoe, Tasmanian Hallertau and Tasmanian Galaxy (from Bushy Park hop gardens).

Wine review — Ninth Island, Toolangi, Mud House, Main Ridge and Cloudy Bay

24 May 2009Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Ninth Island Tasmania Pinot Noir 2008 $20–24
Toolangi Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2007 $22–25
With a few exceptions, the entry price for decent Australian pinot seems to be around $20. But that’s the nature of a beast that needs a cool climate and low yields to deliver flavour and structure. Ninth Island (part of Pipers Brook, owned by Belgium-based Kreglinger) and Toolangi are two very good examples of entry-level pinot. Ninth Island seems light and fine at first sip, but there’s a depth to it that grows as you sip irresistibly to the end of the bottle. Toolangi, from Yarra Valley, perhaps because of its extra age, offers more savouriness and earthiness.

Mud House Central Otago Pinot Noir 2007 $25–$28
The comparatively recent, emphatic arrival of Central Otago pinot noir on the world wine scene gives us such names as Felton Road, Chard Farm, Rockburn, Carrick, Mt Difficulty and Mount Edward. Their quality and fame also means a $50-plus price tag. But the recent arrival in Australia of Mud House gives us a decent pinot from the region at a modest (for pinot) price. Made in Marlborough from fruit grown in Central Otago’s Bendigo sub-region, Mud House offers ripe, well-defined pinot flavour supported by soft but assertive red-wine tannin. It doesn’t need cellaring and should be enjoyed over the next two or three years.

Main Ridge Mornington Peninsula Half Acre Pinot Noir 2007 $65
Cloudy Bay Marlborough Pinot Noir 2007 $54–60
This is a classy pair of pinots, one from the Moet-Hennessy-Louis-Vuitton-owned Cloudy Bay at Marlborough New Zealand, the other from the White family’s tiny Mornington Peninsula estate. Main Ridge showed terrific promise tasted from barrel in January 2008. Tastes of the finished wine in February and May this year confirm it as one of the finest ever made in Australia, in my opinion – a silky, succulent, fine-boned wine of rare dimension, with the capacity to age for many years. Cloudy Bay offers the darker fruit flavours (like ripe black cherry or plum) of the pinot spectrum, with good structure, depth and cellaring potential.

A yummy Hunter shiraz tasting

20 May 2009Vineyard, Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Ask any retailer and they’ll tell you Hunter shiraz is a hard sell. In the past it’s been described as tasting of sweaty saddles, old boots and even a gypsy’s nether regions. Like its white cellar mate, semillon, Hunter shiraz remains an intensely loved, niche wine style with tremendous ageing ability. The best are profound and – surprisingly when you look at the northerly latitude and hot climate of the Hunter – medium bodied and refined.

For a period in the eighties and nineties some Hunter shirazes caught the oak craze. But rather than push the region’s shiraz into the full-bodied mainstream, strong oak flavour and tannin simply swamped the delicate fruit – prompting one veteran Hunter maker, Phil Laffer, to say he’d shoot any winemaker using new oak.

But for every action there’s a reaction, and from the nineties we’ve seen a resurgence of Hunter shiraz making. Vignerons with a great respect for the old, long-lived styles and the patches of old vines in the Valley now produce a great diversity of top shiraz within the distinctive, medium-bodied, earthy mould.

Probably all of the best makers hold in awe the extraordinary Maurice O’Shea reds of the forties and early fifties – sourced largely from vines that still exist on McWilliams Mount Pleasant property, in the lee of the Brokenback Range.

And thanks to the Lindemans maturation cellar, established by Ray Kidd in the sixties, the same makers, and many wine drinkers of my generation, will have tasted classics from Lindemans Ben Ean vineyard, Pokolbin. Rare bottles of the 1965 Hunter River Burgundy Bin 3110 and Bin 3100 (one with a dash of pinot with the shiraz) still drink well. And has there ever been a better Hunter red (or, indeed, Australian red) than the beautiful 1959 Hunter River Burgundy Bin 1590?

Lindemans rationed small quantities of it into the market during the seventies and eighties from its air-conditioned, humidified cellars. I remember the final release (not sure if it was late eighties or early nineties). I worked for Farmer Bros at the time and we placed a dozen bottles in the cellar under the Manuka store (now Vintage Cellars) – kept at a constant 12 degrees.

We aimed to share the occasional bottle, hopefully over the next several decades as treasures like this should never be rushed. But, alas, Farmers went belly up in the last recession and Liquorland (owned at the time by Coles Myer) ended up with the stores and the stock.

Several months later, in mid 1995 and now working for Liquorland, I was there when the precious case appeared at a suppliers’ dinner in the Hunter. What an impressive stunt – every last trophy bottle slipped down the hatch in one evening. But I had the good fortune to sit with Len Evans, and shared the bottle he’d so carefully slipped under the table. There it was, 36 years old, gloriously, ethereally delicious and good for many more years.

While the precious old O’Shea and Lindemans wines inspired winemakers, Tyrrell’s and McWilliams, thanks to winemaker Phil Ryan, had kept working on the regional style without a break. And from the eighties, Brokenwood’s ‘Graveyard Vineyard’ shiraz took on a legendary status. This, perhaps more than any other single wine, restored respect to Hunter shiraz.

It’s at the full-bodied end of the Hunter spectrum – but far lighter, say, than Barossa or McLaren Vale shirazes. The just-released 2007 fetches $140 a bottle and back vintages are always in strong demand at auction.

Its release, alongside several other wonderful top-end Hunter shirazes, prompted this column. These are wonderful wines with proven cellaring ability and all from great old vineyards. Anyone who’s kept a cellar knows that it’s not always rewarding. From my experience well-chose Hunter shiraz usually comes up trumps. Recent examples include maturing but youthful Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz 1994, McWilliams Maurice O’Shea Shiraz 2000, McWilliams Rosehill Vineyard Shiraz 1998, Vintage Cellars Somerset Vineyard Shiraz 1997.

Brokenwood Graveyard Vineyard Hunter Valley Shiraz 2007 $140
The deepest coloured of the five wines in the tasting, Graveyard is still limpid and crimson rimmed. It’s ripe and earthy with noticeable, sympathetic oak. The fruit’s deep, concentrated and layered and the oak gives a spicy bite – but the tannins are soft. This one will age for decades. Vine age 39 years’; Graveyard vineyard. Screw cap.

Tulloch Private Bin Pokolbin Dry Red Shiraz 2007 $35
This is the third vintage of the reborn Tulloch Private Bin Red, a once legendary, long-cellaring wine that was as much an icon to the red drinkers of the fifties as Grange is today. This is pure, beautifully made Hunter shiraz – intensely flavoured, finely structured, silk smooth and elegant. There’s not a rough edge to it – tribute to superb fruit and sympathetic wine making. It should drink beautifully for decades if well cellared. The Tulloch label returned to the Tulloch family in 2001 after 32 years under corporate ownership. Vine age 100 years plus; Tallawanta Vineyard. Screw cap.

Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea Hunter Valley Shiraz 2005 $65
This is another comparatively big Hunter wine at 15 per cent alcohol. It’s ripe and earthy with just the first notes of maturity showing. There’s quite a bite to this one, both from tannin and oak, but the flavour depth and firm structure suggest long-term cellaring. Vine age over 125 years; Old Hill Vineyard. Screw cap.

Mount Pleasant OP&OH Hunter Valley Shiraz 2004 $39.99
While this is still big in alcohol at 14.5 per cent, it’s notably lighter bodied than the Maurice O’Shea wine. There’s spiciness to the aroma, nicely seasoning the warm, earthy Hunter aroma. The spiciness comes through, too, on the warm, supple, earthy palate giving a pleasing twist in the otherwise, soft, gentle finish. Another classy wine needing time, if only the cork survives – wine had already penetrated two-thirds of the one in the sample bottle. Vine age: from 1921 on the Old Paddock (OP) vineyard and from 1880 on the adjacent Old Hill vineyard (OH). Cork.

Mount Pleasant Rosehill Vineyard Hunter Valley Shiraz 2004 $33.99
Maurice O’Shea planted the Rosehill vineyard in 1946 near what is now Lake’s Folly vineyard, several kilometres from the Mount Pleasant property. This is the lightest bodied of the three Mount Pleasant reds and probably the least adorned with winemaker artefacts. It’s warm, mellow and earthy on the nose with a delicious, medium-bodied, earthy palate, finishing soft, with a little spicy twist. Long cellaring if the cork holds (had already travelled one centimetre in the sample bottle. Vine age: 58 years; Rosehill Vineyard.

Beer review — Brasserie du Bocq and Young’s

20 May 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Brassserie du Bocq La Gauloise Amber Ale 330ml $5.30
This is a traditional Belgian top-fermented ale, re-fermented in the bottle. It has a dark amber colour with a lovely, sweet, fruity/malty aroma. This fruity/malty character comes through on a warming, well-balanced palate with a satisfying, tangy, bitter finish. It’s refreshing, complex and moreish. Imported by Phoenix beers and well distributed.

Young’s Luxury Double Malt Chocolate Stout 500ml $7.00
There’s chocolate in the brew and it shows up as a dry, bitter note in the finish – like strong high-cocoa chocolate. But more than anything it’s a full-bore stout featuring rich, roasted malt flavour, all-round opulence, smooth texture and assertive hops bitterness. A small glass on a cold night would be perfect.