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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2007

Regional wine shows, says leading Australian wine man Brian Croser, can be marketing springboards. With the international fine wine market so focused on what grows best where, he argues, regional shows can highlight what varieties best suit a region and the results used to take that message to the world.

Croser was in Canberra last week to chair the Canberra Regional Wine Show, an event open to producers from Canberra, Hilltops (Young), Tumbarumba, Southern Highlands, Gundagai and the south coast.

It’s an extraordinarily varied catchment for grape growing – and hence wine flavours – with vineyards spread over a significant range of latitudes (Mittagong in the north to Gundagai in the south) and, perhaps more importantly, from altitudes of near sea level at Nowra, to around 900 metres at Tumbarumba.

That spread means, as well, a wide range of soils, aspects and, of course, the all import diurnal temperature ranges and low humidity of inland sites, versus the more humid, lower temperature range of coastal sites.

That ensures considerable diversity of wine styles in our local show. Interestingly, our judging scores correlated closely with the theory of what varieties ought to work in the various locations.

At the trophy presentation and exhibitors’ tasting, Croser urged local makers and growers to maximise the four benefits that he sees flowing to them from the show.

First, look at the results, he said, and they’d find a fine-tuned benchmarking exercise, especially in classes like shiraz. In Canberra, he said, the judging was harder than in a big-city show because our styles were in a more limited range – and not shaded by blockbusters from the Barossa or McLaren Vale as they might be in an open show.

This made the task harder for judges. But it allowed a regional style to be judged in all its subtlety and, hopefully, for a range of styles within that comparatively narrow spectrum to be awarded.

Second, regional shows highlight, as well, the bigger picture of what suits various parts of the region. He said that in the Perth Sheraton show for Western Australian wines last week, for example, regional specialties dominated the awards list: chardonnay and cabernet merlot from Margaret River and shiraz from Frankland River.

Similarly, the Canberra show illustrated the strength of high-altitude Tumbarumba’s chardonnay and pinot noir chardonnay sparkling wine; Nowra’s suitability for semillon; and Canberra’s suitability for shiraz, riesling and viognier.

Third, Croser argued, the ratings, in conjunction with judges comments in the catalogue of results, provide clues for improving technical aspects of viticulture and winemaking – and, hence, wine quality.

The fourth and final virtue, Croser believes, is the ability of shows to ‘inform and inspire the way a region manifests itself – to identify its strengths and how to tell the world’.

As to Canberra itself, as opposed to the outlying areas included in the judging, Croser sees a natural matrix of soils, geology and climate that make shiraz, riesling and viognier naturals, and as good as it comes anywhere. ‘These three belong hand in hand’, he commented.

A great highlight of the show for Croser was ‘consistency of style through the shiraz and shiraz viognier classes’. He sees in them similarities to the wines of Hermitage, France, Australia’s two Mount Barkers (Western Australia and Adelaide Hills) and Great Western, Victoria.

He described our shiraz as bright and spicy of medium intensity, fine grained and having finesse – not blockbusters in the traditional Aussie mould.

And what do we have to do as a region to improve? Sadly, as Ian McKenzie had found as chair of judges from 2004 to 2006, winemaking faults remain far too common.

Croser found fewer faults than when he last judged in 2002 but more than he’d expect to find in other regional shows. He lamented that good, expensive-to-grow fruit should be compromised by basic winemaking faults – principally relating to smelly yeast bi-products and largely seen in white wine classes.

He emphasised that the judging of the show was to international standards and that the bronze, silver, gold and trophy award-winning wines would scrub up in any company. Our district has phenomenal strengths but room to improve, too.

The trophy winners from this year’s show were: Lerida Estate Canberra District Shiraz Viognier 2006, Bidgeebong Wines Icon Series Tumbarumba Chardonnay 2006, Wallaroo Wines Canberra District Riesling 2007, Coolangatta Estate Nowra Semillon 2001, Kosciusko Wines Tumbarumba Pinot Noir Chardonnay 2005.

That’s only the top of the honours list. For the full results go to www.rncas.org.au

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2007