By April this year, Clare and Eden Valley riesling makers could hardly believe their own good luck.

They’d barely finished crowing about 2002  — the best vintage in twenty years, they said — even better than the excellent 2001s. And, here were the barely fermented 2003s looking every bit as good as the 2002s, perhaps better.

What reticence there was to crow yet again has almost totally crumbled as realisation sets in as to how good the 2003s are.

The usually staid Robert Hill-Smith, proprietor of S. Smith & Sons, owner of the Yalumba, Heggies and Pewsey Vale brands, issued a press release this week – the first I can recall in a 20 year acquaintance. “Eden Valley riesling the best in decades”, screams the headline.

And it goes on, “2003 vintage classification tastings were recently held at Australia’s oldest family-owned winery, Yalumba. Proprietor Robert Hill Smith declared 2003 Riesling quality from the winery’s high country vineyards as the best in decades. And, in seeking the opinions of Riesling specialists from flagship cool climate regions, a similar enthusiasm is shared.

“2002 was seen as one of the greatest ever Riesling years in Eden Valley and also Clare, yet the low pH and high natural acids seen in the 2003 wines, combined with tight and concentrated citrus lime flavours are delivering aromas showing even greater finesse than the 2002 vintage”.

A similar enthusiasm seems to be bubbling at Clare — a little to the north of Eden Valley on the Mount Lofty Ranges. English critic, Matthew Jukes, tasting Tim Adams Riesling 2003 (reviewed below) wrote, “Tim’s 2003 looked simply stunning, It was forward, even juicy and sensuous and then came the wall of awesome acidity. The overall feel was one of a stroll through a lemon grove”.

Tim Adams’ press release asks, “Is it too early to have another best-in-living memory vintage?” – a sentiment repeated in this note from Cardinham Estate’s Jim Smith, “Nearly all the winemakers, Cardinham included, are rating the 2003 rieslings as good as or better than 2002. It is funny to think that last year we all said ‘this is the best riesling vintage in the Clare Valley for 20 years’. What will everyone say this year? ‘This is the best riesling vintage in the Clare Valley for … 12 months!’”.

The quality of the 2003s is certainly very high. And if the fruit flavour seem rather well developed already (in comparison with the more austere 2002s), another characteristic is what Matthew Dukes called ‘the great wall of awesome acid’ – ie the wines are fruity but with the high natural acidity associated with long-cellaring potential.

A few weeks back I tasted a masked line up of 12 2003 rieslings – one a Mount Barker/Margaret River blend, one from Central Victoria, one from the Eden Valley, the rest from Clare.

I’ve recommended three of the wines in recent columns – Petaluma Hanlin Hill Clare Valley 2003, Taylors Clare Valley 2003 and Sandalford Mount Barker Margaret River 2003. But the standard across the board was extraordinarily high

This tasting, followed by  another of three Clare Valley 2003’s with Rob and Kay Howell at Jeir Creek winery, simply confirmed early impressions of dazzlingly fresh, fruity well-structured rieslings from the vintage. To add local flavour, Rob and Kay served their own 2003 ($20 at cellar door). It, too, showed crystal-clear, intense varietal flavour, but with notably more acid backbone than the Clare wines.

These tastings tend to support winemaker excitement about the vintage. And it’s worth noting just how fresh and pure these rieslings are under screw cap. For the first time we’re seeing virtually the whole vintage sealed this way – not a corked, cork-woody or oxidised wine in sight at this stage.

Other 2003 rieslings to perform well in the tastings were: Penna Lane  Clare, Skillogalee Clare, Jeanneret Clare,  Annie’s Lane Clare, Crabtree Watervale and Stephen John Watervale 2003.

I also formed a strong opinion on Richmond Grove Watervale and Orlando Steingarten from tank samples tasted in the Barossa back in April – although these have not hit retail shelves yet.

What all this boils down to is amazingly good quality, comparatively cheap drinking. If you like riesling, then now’s the time to mop up the last of the outstanding 2002s and begin tasting the first of the 2003s.

There’s rich pickings out there whether you want something to quaff now or prefer to pop a few cases away to enjoy in five, ten or even twenty years.

Tim Adams Clare Valley Riesling 2003, $15 to $18
UK writer Matthew Jukes writes, “The overall feel was one of a stroll through a lemon grove” – a colourful description for this delicious, zesty, pure riesling. Typical of the 2003 Clare rieslings tasted to date it offers heaps of up front, lemony varietal aroma and flavour with a bracing, tingly, spine of acidity. The full flavour and freshness means terrific current drinking. But, as long history shows, these are wines that develop wonderful new dimensions with extended bottle agein

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2003 & 2007

Two Tasmanian producers — Pipers Brook and Tamar Ridge — between them own a little over half the island’s approximately 500 hectares of vines. Both are set to boost production significantly and, through the hard-learned lessons of twenty-five years viticultural and winemaking experience, mechanisation of new vineyards and efficient winemaking processes, bring Tasmanian wines to a broader global audience.

According to Jane Ross, Pipers Brook Production Coordination Manager, the company’s vineyard holdings now stand at 224 hectares on ten sites in the Pipers Brook, Pipers River and West Tamar regions in northern Tasmania.

Site variation gives Pipers Brook a considerable range of ripening conditions for its diversity of grape varieties: predominantly chardonnay and pinot noir for both table and sparkling wine, plus commercial quantities of riesling, pinot gris, cabernet sauvignon, sauvignon blanc, merlot, cabernet franc, traminer and pinot meunier.

Founded by Dr Andrew Pirie in 1974, Pipers Brook later became a privately listed public company before listing on the Australian stock exchange in 1998, acquiring the Heemskerk and Rochecombe vineyards from Jo Chromy, and establishing new, efficient vineyards.

The Heemskerk winery, adjacent to the original Pipers Brook vineyard has been decommissioned and the fruit directed to the Pipers Brook and Ninth Island brands. And the Rochecombe winery, to the south of Pipers Brook, has been re-Christened ‘Ninth Island’. It is now the processing centre for Pipers Brook sparkling-wine grapes.

After a quarter of a century at Pipers Brook, Andrew Pirie understands the idiosyncrasies of the original vineyards. What to the casual eye looks like an homogenous long line of undulating vines is, in fact, an intricate patchwork of sites producing a surprising spectrum of wine aromas and flavours depending on grape variety and subtle variations in aspect, soil type, drainage, vine orientation and other factors.

This intimate understanding of the older vineyards and a growing understanding of the newer vineyards in warmer sites underpins Pipers Brook’s new four-tier branding structure. And, just as it does in Burgundy, the wines at the very peak of the pyramid come from quite small, favoured locations.

Look at the photograph, for example, and locate the shed towards the top right hand corner. To the left, a little plot of well-drained, naturally low-yielding vineyard in mid-slope consistently produces the estate’s finest pinot noir grapes.

From the 2000 vintage this fruit has been processed separately and will eventually be released as a single site wine – presumably at whatever price the market will bear. One taste of a barrel sample suggests it will be a ripper. But let’s hold our verdict until it’s blended, bottled and ready to go.

Similarly, Andrew Pirie streams fruit of various quality towards the appropriate brand: the ‘budget’ Ninth Island range (‘budget’ meaning a little over $20 in Tassie terms), Pipers Brook Estate, Pipers Brook Reserve and the new Pipers Brook single-site wines (the forthcoming 2000 vintage chardonnay, like the Pinot, is a knockout).

This fractionation of the vineyard resource – and its expansion into the warmer West Tamar area – points to a surge in quality across the Pipers Brook range. In particular, we can look forward to fuller, riper, more complex cabernet-based blends, with notable lifts in quality, too, to the traditional strengths: riesling, traminer, chardonnay, pinot gris and pinot noir.

The release of Pirie 1995, Pipers Brook’s superb sparkling wine, also demonstrated the sensational fruit quality of the region’s cooler sites. The current-release 1996 vintage continues in the same mould.

Sourced predominantly from the ‘Hills’ vineyard, a cooler site not far to the south of the Pipers Brook winery, this 70 per cent pinot noir, 30 per cent chardonnay blend presents the intense but fine-boned flavours unique to fruit grown in a genuinely cool climate, where grapes become physiologically ripe at a low sugar, high acid level.

For all the excitement of Pipers Brooks’ top reds, whites and sparkling wines, the company’s bread, butter and profit appears most likely to come from the Ninth Island range, now moving rapidly up the quality curve as the new and better vineyard resource comes on stream.

These are less complex, less intensely flavoured wines than the Pipers Brook range. But they are honest, beautifully crafted wines offering the ripe but delicate flavours of the cool climate. I particularly like the 2000 vintage pinot noir for its delicious, pure varietal flavour and velvety, fruit-sweet palate, and the 2000 vintage chardonnay for its rich fruit and racy, bracing structure.

These delicious $20-ish Ninth Island wines along with those from Jo Chromy’s 55 hectare West Tamar vineyards may never be household names, as production remains comparatively modest. Nevertheless, these wonderful wines are the first Tassies to go mainstream. As production reaches its full potential over the next few years, we will see these wines on the shelves of all major wine retailers. And the flavours really are worth experiencing.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2001 & 2007

What has a bowl of tiny, exquisitely flavoured strawberries got to do with wine?  The intense but delicate flavours of a cool climate, that’s what. The strawberries, fresh picked from Tamar Retreat B&B’s garden, became a metaphor for the equally intense but delicate Tasmanian wines tasted on a quick tour in late January.

As if to emphasise the cool climate, northern Tasmania’s maximum temperature hovered — comfortably for vines and humans — in the mid twenties as the mainland wilted in the high thirties.

Near Bicheno on the east coast (two hours’ drive east south east of Launceston), manicured vines on Freycinet Vineyard’s amphitheatre-shape site, soaked up the gentle warmth, steadily ripening their lode.

In this cool but sunny site near the spectacular Freycinet National Park, winemaker Claudio Radenti lets the exquisite fruit flavours do the talking in a range of near perfect wines.

Claudio says he’s happy to follow the style established by his father-in-law, Freycinet’s founder Geoffrey Bull.

Geoff founded the vineyard in 1980, after carefully selecting the site for its climate and the lean, mean soils that help vines focus on ripening fruit, not growing new foliage.

Within ten years Geoff had established a reputation for his ripe, delicate, seamless wines – all estate grown, made and bottled.

During this period, while making wine at Goundreys in Western Australia, Claud hired Lindy Bull, Geoff’s daughter, as assistant winemaker. They later married, moved to Freycinet and took over the running of the vineyard and winemaking from Geoff in 1992.

With the same vineyard-to-bottle perfectionism established by Geoff, Claud makes a ripe, delicate riesling, one of Australia’s best pinot noirs, a surprising seductive, elegant cabernet merlot, and a glorious chardonnay which, like the pinot, sits amongst the very best made in Australia.

Freycinet’s tiny plot of muller-thurgau is giving way to more pinot noir. And Claud has recently added a superb bubbly, modestly named Radenti, to the portfolio.

He made the first vintage of this pinot noir – chardonnay blend in 1993. The family was thrilled by the quality and subsequently established a small vineyard, at a slightly cooler site, especially for the new wine.

Radenti 1996, a 60:40 pinot noir chardonnay blend, shows unequivocally just why Tasmania is destined to make Australia’s best sparkling wines. Aussie sparklers in general lack Radenti’s ripe, sweet depth and delicacy – characteristics drawn in Tasmania as they are in France’s Champagne region – from a cool climate that produces physiologically ripe grapes at low sugar and high acid levels.

Claudio Radenti’s fascination with bubbles runs to beer, too. With an old mate, former brewer Ken Holmes, he formed the Wineglass Bay Brewing Company. Together they make small runs of Hazards Ale (named after nearby Hazards Bay), a delightfully full and malty ale seasoned with aromatic/spicy hops, using Tasmanian grown Frankland malt and Hallertau hops.

If you’re in Tassie, you can enjoy Hazards Ale on top at Freycinet Lodge, in the national park, or at the Royal Oak, Launceston. The wines (with the exception of Radenti, at this stage) are distributed by Negociants Australia. However, the quantities are tiny. To ensure supply, reserve a little from your retailer, or order direct from the winery, phone (03 6257 8574.

Two hours’ drive north west of Freycinet, on the west bank of the Tamar River, Tamar Ridge presents a somewhat different face of Tasmanian wine. With 55 hectares under vine, another 30 hectares planned and with production pushing to about ten times that of Freycinet, Tamar aims to bring good Tassie wine to the world at a comparatively modest $20 a bottle.

Well-known Tasmanian businessman Jo Chromy, established Tamar Ridge in 1998 after disposing of Heemskerk and Rochecombe wineries to the publicly listed Pipers Brook.

Jo retained 22 hectares of vines on the West Tamar, designed and built a magnificent winery, extended the vineyard and hired veteran Tasmanian winemaker, Julian Alcorso, to head the small cellar team.

He also hired Adelaide-based wine-package specialist, Barbara Harkness, to design the complete package.
The result is surely one of the most stunning, complete and instant wine-brand creations in the history of Australia’s wine industry.

As if to emphasise the perfect appearance of the vineyards, winery and packaging, Alcorso’s wines won 4 trophies, 4 gold, 4 silver and 8 bronze medals at the Tasmanian wine show, judged by Huon Hooke, James Halliday and Zar Brooks the week before the Chateau Shanahan entourage hit the apple isle.

These are terrific wines which, along with Pipers Brook’s Ninth Island brand, are set to take Tasmanian wines out of the ‘boutique’ category. More on these next week.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2001 & 2007

In vintage 2000, Tasmania harvested 3263 tonnes of grapes, a little under 0.3 per cent of the nation’s 1.147 million tonne total.

Amongst the grape statistics, one little gem sparkles most. And that’s the relative volume of pinot noir being produced. The apple isle’s 1036 tonne pinot crush in 2000 represented 6.4% of the Australian total – disproportionately large after we’ve seen that Tassie makes less than 0.3 per cent of all Australian wine. And pinot noir accounts for 32 per cent of Tassie’s grape crush but makes up only 1.4 per cent of Australia’s.

Shiraz, the mainland’s red hero barely gets a look in. Even cabernet sauvignon, riesling and sauvignon blanc languish at 5, 9, and 8 per cent respectively of the island’s wine grape output.

In 2000 pinot noir’s sparkling wine sibling, chardonnay, weighed in at 1224 tonnes, representing 38 per cent of Tassie production. Australia’s 224,546 tonnes of chardonnay made up 20 per cent of the national crush.

The disparity between the national figures and Tasmania’s simply highlight a narrower focus on top-shelf table wines, and perhaps even more so, on the exquisitely-delicate top-shelf bubblies made only in truly cool climates.

Nobody seems to know exactly what proportion of Tasmania’s pinot noir and chardonnay goes to sparkling wine production. But local guesstimates expect the figure to be around sixty per cent in the coming, even larger vintage.

Certainly a couple of all-Tasmania sparkling blends – Jansz Vintage, Pipers Brook Pirie and Taltarni Clover Hill – may be found relatively easily on the mainland. And virtually every high-quality bubbly producer now acknowledges the importance of Tasmanian fruit.

Southcorp, BRL Hardy and Chandon all ship significant quantities across Bass Straight. Ed Carr, BRL Hardy’s talented bubbly maker, and the latest darling of wine shows, rates Tasmanian fruit as a key to the success of ‘Arras’, the company’s $55 sparkling flagship.

Tom Stevenson, Britain’s well-known sparkling wine aficionado, wrote that Pirie 1995 was the best sparkling wine yet produced in the southern hemisphere.

And, through the mists of time, I recall a dinner party held in about 1979 in Manly, Sydney by former Canberran, Jack Brilliant. Brian Croser was there. We discussed at length the emergent Petaluma’s strategy of sourcing each wine style from the most appropriate region: Clare Valley for riesling, Coonawarra for cabernet sauvignon and, one compromise, the Piccadilly Valley, in the Adelaide Hills, for sparkling wine.

I well recall Croser’s view of Tassie as the site most suited climatically for sparkling wine production. But the expense of running wine across Bass Straight ruled out that option, in his opinion. And so the Adelaide Hills it was – and still is, making it perhaps the only second-best call of one of our most percipient and most successful winemaker/marketers.

If sparkling wine is Tasmania’s biggest contribution to wine quality it is not the only one, as superb table wines across a spectrum of styles continues to emerge between latitudes 41 and 43 degrees south along the north, east and south east coast and hinterlands.

Volumes may be small, but to taste finely-crafted wines like Freycinet Pinot Noir, Lubiana Chardonnay, Pipers Brook Pinot Gris, Tamar Ridge Riesling and tens of others from the state’s 66 winemakers – is to see the unique, if small, place Tasmania occupies on Australia’s wine map.

Taking into account vines planted but not yet yielding in 2000, potential production, without further vineyard development, appears to be in the vicinity of 5000 tonnes – about fifty per cent more than was produced in 2000.

Five hundred and eight hectares in the far north, all within a short drive of Launceston, account for 70 per cent of Tasmania’s vineyard area. The remaining two hundred and twenty three hectares are sprinkled around the East Coast (Bicheno), Coal Valley, Derwent Valley and the Huon/Channel areas, the southernmost being in the vicinity of Cygnet, just below the forty-third parallel.

Vineyard ownership is anything but concentrated. Just eighteen growers own more than ten hectares, twenty three have between five and ten hectares and ninety one hold five or less.

At last count, sixty-six winemakers, including subsidiary brands of larger producers, actively make wine. Of these, just two — Moorilla Estate (1958) and Providence Vineyards (1956) – existed prior to 1960.

Eight commenced operations in the 1970’s, thirty-four in the 1980’s and twenty-one in the 1990’s. (I know, that adds up to sixty-five, not sixty-six. Brian Franklin of Apsley Gorge Vineyard, Bicheno, when did you set up shop?)

Clearly this is all deserves checking out in more detail. I’ll report back on a little Tassie tasting tour over the next few weeks.

WINE REVIEWS
With Tassie shaping up to be the pinot noir capital of Australia, both as sparkling wine star and as the southern hemisphere’s Burgundy, what better place to start than with two delicious red versions from the two producers set to take the style to larger audiences than have ever seen it before.

Tamar Ridge Tasmania Pinot Noir 1999, about $20
Although Tamar Ridge was founded by Joseph Chromy just two years ago, he brought to it 22 hectares of established vineyard on the west Tamar, his own wealth of experience as former owner of Heemskerk and Rochecombe – and the formidable talents of veteran Tasmanian winemaker, Julian Alcorso. Under the attractive Barbara-Harkness-designed package lies a mid-weight, delightfully pinot-scented red with a tasty but fine-boned palate. It captures the elusive and elegant character of pinot with touches of the variety’s gamey character, albeit in a lighter vein. This is a great start to the line, but after tasting several barrel samples of the 2000 vintage with Julian Alcorso this week, there is even better to come. I see this as a seminal wine – one to bring high-quality, complex pinot noir to the market at a comparatively modest price. If you can’t find it in Canberra, call the winery on 03 6334 6208..

Ninth Island Tasmania Pinot Noir 2000, about $22
The recent expansion of publicly listed Pipers Brook, through acquisition and planting, to 224 hectares, makes it the Tassie giant. The expansion will see the company’s second label, Ninth Island, grow considerably in both volume and quality, thanks to Dr Andrew Pirie’s clear vision. Using fruit from the slightly warmer West Tamar region (about thirty kilometres west of Pipers Brook), Andrew’s winemaker Andre Bezemer fashioned in vintage 2000 a wine of exceptionally good aroma and fruit sweetness. It’s easy to drink, but has convincing fine tannins and should develop gamey pinot character if aged for just a year or two. Although a comparative newcomer to the scene, a wine of this character and sophistication could not have been created without Dr Pirie’s quarter century of winemaking and viticultural experience in the Pipers Brook/Tamar regions.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2006 & 2007