By any measure, Coonawarra is an extraordinary wine-growing region. Its broad acres produce annually more than 20,000 tonnes of grapes, about two thirds red, one third white. Its reputation, though, springs solidly from elegant reds produced there since late last century.

For most of its vinous history, however, Coonawarra sent its reds away for blending. The region’s modern history, and its wide reputation with wine drinkers, springs from the establishment of Wynns Coonawarra Estate by David Wynn in the early 1950’s.

Since then the area’s expanded rapidly, mainly at the hands of Australia’s biggest wineries, but with a significant presence of smaller and middle-sized operators. Many others not physically present in the area nevertheless make outstanding Coonawarra reds by buying from contract growers.

The area’s flatness and high water table are the wine drinker’s greatest friend. Flatness allows an ease of vineyard management through mechanisation of tilling, spraying, pruning and harvesting. And the prolific underground water supply means not only moisture for sun-stressed vines in the dry summer, but frost protection through overhead spraying in spring.

A large part of Coonawarra’s unique, elegant fruit flavours derive from the climate: as Australia’s southernmost major aggregation of vines it enjoys a long, comparatively cool ripening period. By the time red grapes are harvested in March and April, they have an intensity of flavour but higher natural acidity and lower pH then those grown in our mainly warmer regions. These are characteristics winemakers say make wines of greater flavour intensity, fragrance, longevity, and elegance.

Historically, Coonawarra’s greatest reds come from the northern end of a narrow strip of shallow ‘terra rossa’ soil overlying a limestone reef. However, patches of these well-drained soils are sprinkled widely through the immediate largely boggy terrain. Thus, despite local winemakers having thrown a formal boundary around ‘Coonawarra’, the jury – the world’s red wine drinkers – is still out on exactly where the limits should be.

Without doubt in my mind, Coonawarra’s average quality of red stands above that of any other Australian region. In fact, it’s difficult to think of any region in the world whose average quality is so high. I think what we are seeing in Coonawarra today are the fruits of a particularly favoured growing area being combined with advanced vineyard management and winemaking skills.

In tasting thirty eight Coonawarras this week, I saw amongst a myriad of winemaker styles a common thread running through reds that ranged from simple good value drinking to some that are amongst the most profound being made in Australia today.

That common thread is a delightful cherry-like fragrance and a most delicious, fine, delicate fruit flavour. Finally, each winemaker puts his or her own thumbprint on a wine, but in masked tastings of wines from one region, the first thing perceived (frustrating when you’re looking for differences) are the similarities. In the case of Coonawarra, the common bond turned out to be very strong.

Beneath the surface, though, every wine turned out to be an individual. And in awarding scores out of twenty for these thirty eight wines just as in our show system, we three very experienced judges proved our own fallibility and highlighted some of the dilemmas of judging raised in last week’s column.

With so few objective criteria in wine judging, any notion of a wine having some fixed value in points is nonsense. The more I taste and evaluate, the more ridiculous seem the ever-so-earnest claims of some commentators to award wines points on a fixed scale out of 100.

As we concluded after our Coonawarra tasting. – a single region and only thirty-eight wines – a one hundred point scale could barely cover the scope of qualities we saw. Yet some commentators claim to be able to compress all the wines of the world into this scale. Even if any one palate were keen enough to make such fine distinctions, surely the results would be valid only if they could be reproduced consistently. They cannot.

Even Australia’s best show judges give a wine 19 points and a gold medal in one show, and 13.5 points and no medal in another show a week later.

In our little tasting we put one wine, Wynns Coonawarra Cabernet 1989, in two separate line-ups. I gave it 14.5 points in one, and 17.0 in the other. Both other judges made the same mistake. Which simply shows that our perception of a wine varies according to the circumstances.

Nevertheless, there is, I believe a need for critical evaluation of wines, and there are valid conclusions to be drawn about the relative merits of wines. But they are far more subtle than putting a fixed number on each product. More on this and the lovely Coonawarras next week.

October 4th, 1992

The shortcomings of wine judging have been discussed in this column over the last few weeks. Despite the pitfalls and errors inherent when so few objective criteria are available, from a consumer’s point of view, it’s important the judging and opinion making goes on.

I can’t think of any other product undergoing as much public scrutiny as wine. The glare of lights and constant dissection contribute to the amazingly high quality we enjoy today. The show judging system in particular keeps makers at a high level of competitiveness constantly throwing a spotlight on wines that are not up to scratch.

Even if results from show to show reveal inconsistencies in judging, all that means for the consumer is to take any single result with a grain of salt. In the long run, the best wines keep rising to the top. And, no matter what the experts say, the final judge is the consumer.

Over a very long period of time the price drinkers pay for a wine is a fair indicator of quality. Thus, the safest buys are wines with long pedigrees and constantly high auction prices. In the short term though…and this applies especially when we’re looking for something new and exciting…the price asked by a maker is not necessarily a reflection of a wine’s comparative quality.

Since we’re so often in the position of having to buy without tasting, expert opinion has its role. Look for wines rating highly amongst numerous commentators and in many wine shows. Finally, no matter how revered a wine is, it’s no good if it’s not to your taste. And always buy a bottle and drink it before getting a case for the cellar. If it doesn’t pass the bottle test, move on to something else.

Now, back to those lovely Coonawarra reds tasted last week.

Just as in Australian wine shows it was a masked tasting (we knew we were tasting Coonawarras, but all we had in front of us were numbered glasses. The bottles were out of sight). After assessing the wines we compared scores out of twenty for each wine. Where there was a disparity, we discussed the wine while re-tasting it.

Now that’s the point at which show judging usually stops. Judges scores are tallied after the discussion and the aggregate determines awards: 46.5 to 50.5 bronze; 51 to 55 points silver; and 55.5 points and above gold.

In our smaller, private tasting we had time to take things two revealing steps further. Having scored the wines, we next unmasked the bottles and re-examined each in light of its price. After all, a $10 wine rated one point below a $20 may be extraordinary value-for-money.

The second extra step, and casual drinkers will see the sense in it, was to re-cork the wines for re-appraisal the next day. All wine collectors are familiar with the problem of loving a wine on the strength of a quick sip taken with the winemaker but finding little charm in the dozen lugged home in the boot.

This highlights one of the dilemmas of wine judging and tasting: you can’t really know a wine until you’ve drunk it. Sipping and spitting are just not the same. As well, very high quality young reds built for long-term cellaring take a long time to reveal all their hidden depths and complexities. Thus tasting and re-tasting over a few days unveils the real champions more reliably than one quick tasting.

Our tasting threw up a couple of gems. Wynns John Riddoch Cabernet 1988 rose quickly to the surface and stayed there over the days the bottles were re-examined. There simply isn’t any questioning the power and elegance of this wine as vintage after vintage it wins trophies and golds in Australia as well as high praise overseas.

Contrasting with the sheer power of John Riddoch is Petaluma Coonawarra 1988. It’s a wine always easy to identify in blind tastings (unfortunately, because the judge is instantly biased) because of its extraordinary crimson colour – a hallmark of Brian Croser’s fanatically anaerobic approach to winemaking. The fruit flavours are extraordinarily concentrated and, though four years old, the wine tastes as if it’s barely out of the fermenter. It requires long cellaring and, strangely enough, I believe its absolute purity of fruit flavour will make it another controversial Petaluma red. It’s good and it’s distinctive, but there will be those who simply don’t like the style; others will love it.

There were other individual wines, in my view not rising quite to the level of John Riddoch or Petaluma, but still with their own individual accents as well as a whole band of outstanding value reds as well. These will be discussed next week.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 1992 & 2007

As wine drinkers we’re bombarded with a considerable volume of opinion as to which are the best wines.

As a commentator…one of those public voices on wine if you wish…I always feel some uncertainty when it comes to recommendations or criticisms. The simple fact is that when it comes to wine, there are few absolute values. Almost all that we say in judgement of a wine is subjective. So many deliberations on wine in our daily press are the mere whim of the writer; some fail even to ascertain the facts.

The fragility of our judgement on wine struck me a number of times in the past few weeks.

The first occasion, already reported on in this column, was in the awarding of the Jimmy Watson Trophy at the Melbourne Wine Show.

A dubious award at the best of times (given that it virtually guarantees commercial success to samples only partly through oak maturation) the Jimmy Watson this year simply did not go to the best wine in the taste off.

Chairman of judges, Bill Chambers, told me that it was simple. There were four wines in the taste off, a shiraz, a cabernet, a pinot noir, and a blend, and the judges picked the best one.

Well, Bill, they did not. Chief Winemaker at Seppelt’s, Ian McKenzie, was only too happy to collect the prize for his 1991 Harper’s Range. But no one was more surprised than Macka that this pleasant $10 wine beat another of his reds, the $20 a bottle Seppelt Dorrien Estate Cabernet 1991.

It’d be nice to believe the judges had stumbled on one of the great bargains of all time. But, no, the tooth fairy doesn’t exist, and as Ian McKenzie cheerfully admits, Dorrien is by far the better wine. The judges got it wrong.

Under Ian McKenzie’s chairmanship they got it wrong in some of the red classes in last year’s Canberra Show, too. As detailed in this column late last year, when you line up a hundred tannic young reds, it’s virtually impossible to assess the quality pecking order in one sitting.

Yet when you put young reds in masked tastings against older wines, invariably the young wines rise to the top as judges bypass sometimes quite glorious vintages.

We saw this phenomenon emerge strongly in the recent Melbourne Age/Sydney Morning Herald annual review of red wines.

It’s easy to see how good judgment lapses in these tastings: the rich, fruity aromas, powerful flavours, and gripping tannins of baby reds swamp more subtle characteristics of older wines.

The lesson is not that judges are necessarily incompetent (although that may sometimes the case), but that results of any one tasting are an approximation – .a broad guide only and in no way definitive in the sense that rankings are fixed forever.

During the week, I sat in on three extensive masked tastings, every one of them illustrating some of these points. In one, we lined up twenty-two young Australian blends (mainly cabernet with shiraz or merlot) with retail prices ranging from $6 to $15 a bottle.

My top pointed wine was the $6-a-bottle Penfolds Koonunga Hill Claret 1990. Neither of the other two judges ranked it top, but both rated it amongst the best few wines of the tasting.

After unveiling the wines then re-tasting and discussing each, a few valid conclusions could be drawn: a couple of the wines were faulty and would not look good in any tasting; several more stood apart in that they offered the drinker a greater depth of aroma and flavour; the rest sat in the middle as pleasant but undistinguished.

Of the top wines, the three judges reached no consensus as to the order of merit. In show-judging this is no problem as panels of three judges simply tally their points for each wine: thus a wine pointed bronze by one judge, silver, by a second, and gold by a third, normally scores enough to win silver.

My conclusion is that in ours and like tastings (including show judging), wines rising to gold, silver or bronze status tend to be superior wines of comparable quality. A wine winning gold, silver, and bronze medals in many different shows is usually outstanding. And one that wins gold consistently is a sure bet.

From a consumer’s point of view, accolades from numerous sources over a wide span of time is a reliable guide. Single bursts of enthusiasm about any wine, especially one with no track record, should be treated with the greatest skepticism.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 1992 & 2007

I’m a drinker with a running problem.

That’s what Brian Wenn at the Runner’s Shop told me, anyway.

And with wine-drinking taking priority over running, it’s been hard to swallow Monty Dortkamp’s advice in preparation for today’s Canberra Times Fun Run. I mean, no wine for a whole week before the run! No way, Monty. I didn’t mind skipping this morning’s glass but, well, Saturday wouldn’t have been the same without a decent red.

Anyway, what would Monty know. I’ve often drunk wine with him, but I’ve never seen him run.

And what about after the race? I won’t run as fast as I did ten years ago. Or, rather, I’ll run even more slowly than I did then. But at 44 surely I can try for a personal best at the bar afterwards. I mean ten kilometre’s a long way to run without a drink.

Even Steve Monaghetti admits to a warm red on a cold night. Could it’ve been a period of abstinence that did him in at Barcelona?

Ben Johnson’s name may be mud. But, my, wasn’t he fast over one hundred metres. His coach, Charles Francis, admits steroids helped a little. And he also says that Ben thrived on late nights and beer.

I guess sprinting’s what you’d expect of a beer drinker. The stuff’s so bulky, ten seconds is about all you can take before a pit stop.

Wine drinkers, though, take a more leisurely approach. Just as a good lunch lingers for six hours – each new course and wine deserves full attention – so a distance runner enjoys the slow unraveling of the course.

There are other parallels between long-distance runners and wine drinkers, too.

Wine buffs are discerning not only in what they drink, but in how it’s served, where it’s served, what it’s served in, what it’s served with, and who else is there.

Runners are just as fussy. They look the part (just as Grange looks more becoming in an Orefors glass than in a beer mug, serious runners colour co-ordinate from head to toe: from reflective sunglasses to Reebok runners).

If you don’t believe me, jog out to Deek’s drive anytime after 6 am on a summer’s Sunday. It’s a blaze of fashion, whizzing and wobbling by in a faint, pungent haze of sweat. More often than not, little bands run and wheeze together, gasping conversations over ten or even twenty kilometres.

Or watch one of the ACT Cross Country Club’s events and count the dollars on five hundred or so feet of varying ages and sex. You won’t find anyone loping around in canvas Dunlops. They’re about as welcome as Ben Ean at a dinner party.

Hang around after and listen to the conversations. They’re as studded with jargon as bizarre as you’ll find at any wine tastings. Just as tasters find berries, cherries, raspberries, and tar in wines made from grapes, runners warm up, warm down, achieve PB’s (personal bests), fall prey to DNF’s (did not finish), run ‘reps’ and enjoy the odd bout of Fartlek.

If you’re serving a ’62 Lafitte, you don’t just whip out the cork and splash it into vegemite glasses. You stand it in a warm place to reach room temperature, allowing the sediment to settle before ever so carefully easing the cork out and gently pouring it into a crystal decanter. Finally you serve it lovingly into fine glassware, then sniff and sip appreciatively.

Similarly, you won’t see Andrew Lloyd, Sean Creighton, Deek or any other top runners strap on their boots and roar off at top speed. Like old wines, they need to be warmed up first. Watch Deek sometime: gentle run throughs, a longer, slow jog, short fast sprints, and then into the long solid grind of the race.

Afterwards, distance runners ‘warm down’: first recovering from the race then heading off for a few easy kilometres. This, according to Monty, gets the blood out of the muscles and back to the heart.

Wine drinkers, too, have a warm-down phase, especially after a PB. When the dinner party’s done, you don’t down forks and rush off into the night. Coffee and cognac ease the drinker to a more comfortable level and afterward, sleep, and a slow start the next day round off the event.

Finally, whether a runner’s high or a wine drinker’s high is the better, I don’t know. But today I’m trying both. Pity the run has to come first.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 1992 & 2007

The lights at Chateau Shanahan burned late on deadline eve this week. Remington Norman’s just-released The Great Domaines of Burgundy, a guide to the finest wine producers of the Cote d’Or (286 pages, Kyle Cathic Ltd, London, 1992) proved the best, if somewhat heavy reading since Hugh Johnson’s The Story of Wine was released two years ago.

While Johnson’s studious book takes a broad look at wine from the earliest times to the present, Norman’s focuses in considerable detail on just one region – Burgundy – in the present time.

And while it is packed full of facts and figures, a little turgid in parts, its origins are firmly from the British romantic school of wine writing. The hallmarks of this school (the contemporary head of it being Hugh Johnson) are a scholarly approach underpinned by a deep love of the topic that wells up time and again. These are writers who love wine, love discourse on it, but, finally, see it as product to be drunk and enjoyed.

In contrast, we have the harsh, put-a-spot-light-on-it-dissect-it-and-give-it-points-out-of-a-hundred approach of the Americans. Winemakers love and fear the leader of this school, Robert M. Parker, as a high score from him virtually guarantees success in the U.S. market.

Parker is confident and fearless enough to rate every wine he comes across on his own absolute scale of 100 points. To some, the concept of an individual achieving credible results, especially on such a small scale, is ludicrous. So, from Parker we see page after page of turgid tasting notes and a point score that falls short of being the absolute measure of quality it claims to be. $5 and $10 chardonnays, for example, come uncomfortably close in score to great White Burgundies at $100 – not a true measure of the quality difference.

On the positive side, Parker’s fearless approach, which I suppose is in the democratic ‘free speech’ tradition of American journalism, admits unknown wines and helps in breaking down the worst aspects of the myth that all French wines are necessarily better than all other wines. Winemakers of the new world, including those from Australia, owe some of their success in the United States to Parker.

Yet I read Parker and don’t feel inspired to go out and enjoy a good bottle as I do after reading Johnson, Broadbent, Forbes, or Arlott (yes, the late cricket commentator), to name just a few of the British romantics.

Remington Norman’s book deals with a topic dear to his heart – dear to the heart of anyone fortunate enough to have drunk good genuine Burgundy, either red or white. That’s a luxury now with world demand and a weak dollar having pushed the price of the best well over $100 a bottle. But Burgundy’s importance to wine lovers goes beyond

its own production as virtually every pinot noir and chardonnay made anywhere in the world is modeled on Burgundy.

While it’s a serious and substantial book to be devoured by Burgundy lovers, the reader unfamiliar with Burgundy will also come to grips with this most complex of all wine-growing regions. Perhaps the only criticism I can make in this regard is that while the maps of Burgundy’s many communes are good, there is no map showing where Burgundy sits in France. That would have been very helpful for beginners. Still, it’s no great difficulty to look up Beaune or Dijon in an Atlas.

An excellent foreword from Michael Broadbent precedes a pithy introduction from Norman. Then follows a commune (parish) by commune description (with maps) of the Cote d’Or (the central strip of Burgundian vineyard from Dijon in the north to Santenay in the south).

Each commune description is followed by a fairly detailed analysis of ‘Domaines’ associated with that commune. As ‘Domaines’ (winemaking operations with ownership of vineyards) are generally seen as the makers of the greatest Burgundies, descriptions of 111 such adds up to a fair snapshot of modern Burgundy.

For beginners, the last forty pages should be read before proceeding into the commune and Domaine descriptions. Here you’ll find chapters on appellation, climate, soil, the two Burgundian grape varieties, pinot noir and chardonnay, vine maintenance, oak barrels and maturation, winemaking, marketing of Burgundy, tasting, as well as a bibliography, vintage guide from 1945 to 1991 and a glossary of terms.

It’s not only a good read, but attractively laid out as well, with magnificent colour photography from Jenny Price. The Great Domaines of Burgundy has a recommended retail price of $90 and I’m told by the distributors that it’s been ordered by Angus and Robertson, Collins, and Dymocks.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 1992 & 2007

With the long expected fall in the Australian dollar now on us, we can kiss many imported wines good bye. Real non-vintage Champagne, for example, can still be sniffed out, occasionally, on special for between $30 and $35 a bottle.

In that price range, though, we’re looking at someone’s distress sale and invariably at stock brought into the country a long time ago – quite often long enough for the Champagne to have lost one of its key ingredients – freshness.

By my calculation, the landed cost to an importer of non-vintage Champagne, after sales tax and licence fee, is now about $37 a bottle. Add to that two profit margins, the wholesaler’s and the retailer’s, and it’s hard to see the average price falling under $70 a bottle in normal circumstances. Even distress sales are likely to see prices move quickly from the present $30 -$35 to $40 -$45 a bottle range.

It’s easy to predict that Champagne sales, already flagging, will now collapse totally, wiping out all the peripheral brands and leaving what’s left of the market to the strong, well capitalised Houses with equally strong distributors.

That, of course, opens a large window of opportunity for producers of high quality Australian and New Zealand sparkling wine. The window has been ajar for a few years now, and our makers have been piling through it, but now it’s open wider than ever.

But, more than a weak dollar, Australian winemakers created their own opportunities. Large investments in dedicated vineyards and hard-won winemaking skills are behind the steady rise in quality of our best sparkling wines.

Over the last few years increasing numbers of consumers have come to view Australia’s better ‘methode champenoise’ wines on a par with non-vintage French Champagne. The French cause has not been helped, either, by the sometimes-variable quality of its non-vintage product. A year in Australia’s hot climate does nothing for a delicate wine like Champagne. And with the bigger Houses buying a good deal of Champagne ‘sur latte’ (already made and bottled) from Co-operatives, I feel Australia has sometimes got the short end of the stick anyway.

By early October, well ahead of the silly season, I plan to assess all of our top bubblies in a single comparative line-up and will report back immediately.

In the meantime, a tasting conducted by wholesalers Tucker and Company in Sydney this week offered a glimpse of very good Australian, New Zealand, American, and French bubblies widely distributed amongst the retail, hotel, and restaurant trade in Australia.

With Veuve Clicquot now controlling the Cape Mentelle (Margaret River, W.A.)-Cloudy Bay (Marlborough, N.Z.) group you’d expect a reasonable flavour from its widely publicised new ‘Pelorus’ 1988 methode champenoise from New Zealand. At $31 I believe it’s overpriced in relation to the best Australia makes, but the wine is distinctive with quite full, rounded pinot noir flavours. (David Hohnen tells me the blend is about 60 per cent pinot noir, the balance chardonnay).

For sheer intensity of fruit flavour Croser 1990 leaves Pelorus, and just about any other bubbly, in its wake. Where Pelorus bears a superficial resemblance to the French product, Croser is totally, utterly Australian despite its being, like Pelorus, a 60 per cent pinot-40 per cent chardonnay blend.

Croser’ 1990 shows yet again just how magnificent the 1990 vintage was in South Australia. And it bears Brian Croser’s winemaking hallmarks…cleanliness, finesse, and delicacy. You can enjoy Croser 1990 now for its pure fruit flavours. But later releases will, I believe, be even better as the wine takes on greater ‘champagne’ character from further maturation in contact with the yeast lees. (I tasted evidence of that in a 1987 vintage especially disgorged for the tasting). Croser, a-state-of-the- art bubbly is worth its $26 a bottle.

Croser’s Argyle Brut 1987, from his venture in the Willamette Valley (Oregon, U.S. A.) doesn’t pack the same punch as his Australian wine, but it’s a first vintage and bound to increase in flavour with later vintages. However, coming from such a cold climate, we should always expect the wines to be more delicate than those from the Adelaide Hills.

The French put in a good showing, too. Bollinger Cuvee Brut Champagne (non vintage) sits on the high side of the pre-devaluation price range at $59. But it is an extraordinary wine – absolutely classic non-vintage French with great freshness, finesse, and an amazing intensity of pinot noir flavour.

If your taste runs to Rose, then Bollinger’s Loire Valley connection, Langlois Chateau’s Cremant Rose Dry NV is terrific value at about $16.

The outlook for Christmas, I’d say, will be Australian bubbly all round unless we grab the best of pre-devaluation French stock now.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 1992 & 2007

It’s only in the past few years the tonnage of chardonnay crushed for winemaking edged ahead of riesling. Yet, in consumer interest expressed through sales of varietally labelled bottles, chardonnay has streaked ahead.

A Nielsen survey of bottled white sales in NSW, Victoria, and South Australia for the twelve months to April, shows chardonnay with 32.1 per cent of the market compared to riesling’s 23.2 per cent – a gap far wider than plantings of the two varieties dictates.

Riesling’s decline in popularity, though, has a beneficial fallout for drinkers. Vast plantings of riesling vines, many in prime growing areas, are still in the ground. So, it follows that the fruit goes somewhere. The stern laws of supply and demand, then, virtually guarantee the consumer a good deal.

It’s no mistake that prices of popular riesling brands such as Wolf Blass, Siegersdorf, and Seaview have tumbled in real terms in the past few years. And when the big brands tumble, wines from the middle-sized producer immediately follow suit, and, with time, even the boutique producer comes under pressure. Thus, an oversupplied market has virtually guaranteed a favourable result for the drinker.

In a masked tasting last week two of the popular wines mentioned above, Seaview and Siegersdorf, were included as benchmarks in a field of rieslings from small wineries. The exercise was planned to identify small makers turning out decent wines. A few did stand out, but it was also clear that Siegersdorf is excellent and totally reliable drinking at around $8 a bottle and Seaview, for $4 to $7, is one of the great white wine bargains of our troubled times.

Before saying more about Seaview and its amazing qualities, there were three small-maker rieslings worthy of a mention. Two local wines, Madews Rhine Riesling 1992, from Queanbeyan, and Lark Hill Rhine Riesling 1991 from the Bungendore escarpment, were outstanding.

Madews wine, about to be released, shows an uncommon intensity and length of flavour with very sharply defined varietal character. The Lark Hill was considerably softer with a pleasing touch of sweetness. The third small-maker wine came from Plunketts Vineyard high up in Victoria’s Strathbogie Ranges.

I was unable to make contact with the Plunketts during the week to find out more about the 1989 Whitegale Rhine Riesling. But the appealing thing about it was the influence of a very cool growing climate on its smell and flavour. In brief it more resembled the gentle, sweet wines of the Rhine Valley than the big, ripe wines we grow here.

Now back to Seaview’s 1991 Rhine Riesling and the reasons for its excellence.

In the tasting, all judges ranked the wine highly. What we all noted were its clean, fresh flavour, very clear rhine riesling flavours, high, crisp acidity, delicacy, and a lingering, dry finish that left the mouth refreshed. All of us ranked it highly and, likewise, we were all surprised to see the label after the points had been awarded.

We were surprised, because cheap rhines normally have telltale aromas and flavours of muscat where the winemaker stretches the blend with a legal addition of other floral grape varieties. As well, mass produced wines don’t normally have such good solid acids giving the wine the backbone this one has.

A call to winemaker Neville Falkenberg confirmed our judgement of the wine. And the news that it has just picked up a gold medal in Brisbane shows there’s something special about it.

Falkenberg’s opening comment tells it all, “. there’s so much good material available”, he said, referring to the Penfold Wine Group’s vast plantings of Rhine Riesling. Not only have they broad acres in the absolute plum Eden and Clare Valleys, but also in the very good Barossa, Coonawarra, McLaren Vale and Padthaway regions, with sprinklings as well in Victoria.

As Falkenberg says, when you’ve got all those fantastic grapes coming in, the last place it will end up is in wine casks.

With few up-market Rhine Riesling brands capable of earning bigger consumer dollars in the group’s portfolio, there really is no alternative to putting those excellent grapes in large-volume commercial blends and taking what the market will pay until times get better.

Falkenberg also points out that Seaview Rhine Riesling has declined from its peak production of around 100,000 cases to an average now of 30,000. Hence, the current blend, he tells me, is predominantly Eden and Clare with a touch of Barossa.

That extra ‘zing’ in the 1991 comes from a naturally low pH level from early picked components in the blend. This is one to buy up and drink over the next five years as it matures.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 1992 & 2007

Judging by the number of high school, college, and university students ringing me for information, Australian winemaking and marketing is a fruitful (and fascinating) ground for research projects.

Answering all the questions is made easier (school, college, and university teachers and librarians please note) with the release this week by the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation of a Wine Industry Education Kit.

In his covering letter with the kit, Chairman George Paciullo says the kit is available free on demand to senior high school and tertiary students, libraries, Austrade representatives and Australian Government officials serving overseas.

The kit won’t get you through a PhD, but it’s a good starting point for most Australian-wine orientated projects. And the wine enthusiast with no academic ambitions whatever will find it of interest.

There’s a brief overview of Australia’s wine history and its size and value today; a broad picture of exports; a glimpse of world wine trade and Australia’s share of it; a look at viticulture and viniculture in Australia; an outline of grape growing and winemaking’s value to the rural economy, the value-added nature of the industry, and the positve impact of exports and import substitution on our balance of trade; social issues are addressed but far too briefly in my view; an introduction to local and global laws and regulations; and the role of various industry bodies are outlined. Finally, there’s a glossary of reference material.

On a global scale, Australia’s wine industry is tiny. In 1990, we accounted for less than one per cent of the world’s wine exports and consumed only one quarter of a per cent of the world’s imports. But to optimists, that’s one reason to believe we can go on with our phenomenal export growth. Brian Croser, Chairman of the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia and head of Petaluma Wines, for instance, told me earlier this year he believes growth in absolute volume will continue (which means a lower rate of growth in percentage terms).

Indeed, the picture for exports and import substitution appears rosy when compared to the situation ten years ago.

In June, 1982 imports of wine to Australia outweighed exports. About 9 million litres worth $23.5 million dollars came in while 8.4 million litres worth $13.9 million went out.

A similar pattern continued through the early eighties, with import litres peaking at 13.1 million in 1985. Imports in those years were fuelled by a shortage of certain varieties in Australia, but more importantly, a very strong Aussie dollar. It’s no surprise that imports peaked in 1985, because that’s the year our dollar peaked against European currencies, reaching, for example, more than 8 French Francs to the dollar. It collapsed in the same year, which no doubt explains why 1986’s litre imports were down by 600 thousand while the value went up by almost $13 million.

If the collapsing dollar broke the back of imports in 1985, it was also the spur our exporters needed. And it took just two years to build up a big head of steam. In 1986, the year after our dollar fell, export litres grew by a quarter to 10.8 million. But the value, $20.5 million, was still dwarfed by imports of $53.1 million.

A year later our wine industry had become a nett exporter for the first time since before the second world war. In the twelve months to June, 1987 exports totaled 21.1 million litres worth $44.6 million. In the same period, imports dropped to 7.6 million litres valued at $41.6 million.

Exports continued to boom through the late eighties and are still going strong. In the year to June, 1991, we sent 54 million litres of wine, with a value of $177.3 million, overseas. Imports for the same period were 9 million litres, valued at $46.8 million. And the figures for 91/92 may a touch better. That’s a phenomenal turnaround for an industry that’d been beaten on its home turf for half a century.

Australia’s wine industry avoided the excesses of the eighties, investing solidly (about a billion dollars) in the plant and vineyards now delivering the goods. It employs 5,000 people, contributes $400 million dollars to Government coffers, and most important of all, delivers a terrific product to us drinkers.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 1992 & 2007

Four companies – The Penfold Wine Group, BRL-Hardy, Orlando-Wyndham, and Mildara-Blass…by my estimate make seventy six per cent of Australia’s wine. Add to that the production of another three…McWilliams, Yalumba, and DeBortoli…and you’ve accounted for something like 91 per cent of our output. The remaining 9 per cent of the market is shared by about 600 producers.

The major conglomerations are quite recent occurrences: late in 1990, South Australian Brewing Holdings (SABH) acquired Penfolds when John Spalvin’s Adsteam group struck trouble. Penfolds had only recently added the Lindemans, Rouge Homme, Leo Buring, Matthew Lang group to its Penfold, Kaiser Stuhl, Tollana, Tulloch, Wynns, and Seaview brands.

After acquiring Penfolds, SABH merged it with Seppelt (including Hungerford Hill and Woodleys) under the new banner, The Penfolds Wine Group. With, by my estimate, 32 per cent by volume of the Australian wine market, Penfolds is the country’s largest maker.

In June this year Thomas Hardy and Sons Pty Ltd merged with Berri Renmano Ltd (itself an earlier marriage of two Murray River co-operatives). Under its new name, BRL Hardy Ltd, the group accounts for about 20 per cent of the Australian wine market. The portfolio includes brands earlier acquired by Hardys: Chateau Reynella and Stanley Leasingham.

BRL Hardy hopes to raise $70 million when it lists on the Australian Stock Exchange later this month.

BRL-Hardy’s 20 per cent is just a tad ahead of the 18 per cent market share enjoyed by the Orlando Wyndham Group. Orlando was acquired by the British group, Reckitt and Coleman in 1970, and passed briefly into local ownership under a management buyout in the late eighties. Shortly afterwards, the management team relinquished control to the French Group, Pernod Ricard. The French joined Orlando to Wyndham Estate and its brands, Montrose, Craigmoor, and Richmond Grove in February 1991.

Next of the big four is Mildara Blass Ltd formed in mid 1991 by the merger of Mildara Wines with Wolf Blass. By volume, its market share is just 6 per cent. But as it is not involved in the cask market (sticking entirely with bottled product) its share by value is in the order of 12 per cent. Mildara’s most successful brands are Yellowglen champagne and Jamieson’s Run.

Three family companies…McWilliams, Yalumba, and DeBortoli, rank next in size. It’s anyone’s guess as to their market shares, but combined they produce around 15 per cent of Australia’s wine. My best guess puts McWilliams at 5.5 per cent, Yalumba at 4.5, and DeBortolis at 5.

Where did DeBortolis come from? This little Griffith-based family company, barely known a few years ago as a bulk producer, made its mark amongst connoisseurs and judges with its brilliant late-picked dessert semillons. As well as making wine in Griffith, the family is now the biggest processor of grapes in the Yarra Valley and handles sizable tonnages from Victoria’s Strathbogies region as well. Dean DeBortoli and his winemaking son, Darren, are proving themselves vigorous and imaginative operators.

Let’s hope they’re efficient as well! Because even with an apparent renewed growth in domestic wine consumption, a recession-induced margin squeeze is forcing makers to look at ways of reducing costs. This has been one of the great precipitators of amalgamations as one of the best cost savers for big operators has been shutting down wineries and consolidating production in fewer centres.

This time last year big producers were about ready to shoot themselves. Ray King, head of Mildara Blass, tells me that March, April, and May 1991 were disastrous for sales of bottled wine across the industry. Now he sees a ray of hope. Sales began to show growth late last year and seem to be continuing. And the feeling seems to be that the big winners amongst producers are BRL-Hardys, Orlando-Wyndham, and Mildara-Blass.

But the biggest winners of all are we wine drinkers. It seems to me wine sales are moving up in response to price wars sparked by the recession and last year’s short, sharp slump in sales of bottled wine.

With better-quality-than-ever-before grapes going into our wineries (some 600,000 tonnes this year) and immense pressure on producers to keep prices down, it seems we’ll be drinking well for some time. Red drinkers beware though. The Penfolds Wine Group tips a shortage of good red material. And they should know.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 1992 & 2007

In Tuscany last year I was fortunate to taste many tank and barrel samples of wonderful 1990 Chiantis. Next to the lighter 1989’s they were deep, fragrant, and voluptuously fruity.

Chianti Classicos were richer and fuller in flavour again, as were Chiantis from the hills of Florence and Siena, the only other delimited areas we had time to visit. The first of the basic 1990 Chiantis reached Australia late last year and tasted almost as good here as in Tuscany.

Chianti can be a profoundly good wine…one to decant, sniff, savour and discuss with a grand meal, but most falls into the category of simple good quaffing, especially with food.

Delightful as Chianti is with food, it seldom makes its way onto restaurant wine lists, unless the establishment happens to describe itself as Italian. Even most of these offer second-rate Italian wine and distinctly un-Italian food. They’d have us believe all Italians eat is pasta smothered in creamy sauces or mean, thin, dried out veal wallowing in tomato paste.

In Tuscany you’re more likely to be served a fabulously rich, week-old stew of wild boar or a big, juicy slab of ‘bistecca alla Fiorentini’ (Florentine T-bone…you must try one if you thought only Australia and Texas knew about steak) with your Chianti.

Canberra, however, is poverty-stricken in regard to Italian restaurants and wine lists. So, to enjoy the delights of Chianti it’s down to the local bottle shop and back home to cook. Unless, like me, you stumble into Roberto’s Trattoria at Manuka.

I won’t be taking any Italian visitors to eat there, the food’s just alright. But they’ve a wine list with prices close to what you’d pay in a retail store. And included in the selection is a one litre Chianti Colli Senesi 1990, from the maker Chigi Saracini, for just $14.95. Three of us made short work of a litre flask with delicious char-grilled quail. I think it was the best value-for-money wine I’ve ever had in a restaurant.

That Chigi Saracini wine demonstrates just how much better Chianti is now than it was ten years ago and what a wonderful vintage 1990 was for the region.

The Consorzio del Gallo Nero, a producer consortium enforcing quality control in the Chianti Classico area, wrote in the November edition of Decanter magazine, “1990 is not simply a good vintage but one of the best vintages in the last twenty years.”

In those twenty years the vineyards and wines of the Chianti Classico zone (the heart of Chianti country between Florence and Siena) have undergone massive changes for the better.

In 1972 the zone’s 11,840 hectares of vines produced 17.8 million litres of Chianti Classico. Of those plantings, 3914 hectares were specialised, freestanding vineyards. The remaining 7,926 hectares were in cultura promiscua or promiscuous culture…a leftover of the feudal, labor-intensive land occupancy system where olive trees, vines, and other seasonal crops were all thrown in together.

Although vineyard figures are not available, wine production reached an impossible 45.9 million litres just seven years later in 1979. Little wonder Chianti Classico won a reputation for feebleness which it is still shaking off.

Government regulation under Italy’s denomination of origin (DOC) and, later, DOC and guarantee (DOCG) laws, combined with vigorous work by the Gallo Nero consortium saw the region transformed. By 1988 the area of vines under promiscuous culture had fallen to only 480 hectares with specialised plantings at 6,358 hectares. That total of 6,838 hectares produced 30.1 million litres of Chianti Classico in 1988.

Of course, there’s more to Chianti than Chianti Classico. The classico zone covers the central production area and what many regard as the only true Chianti. Surrounding the Classico zone, large areas may make Chianti, which is generally lighter and simpler than Classico.

And pretty well completely surrounding the Classico zone the law defines six sub regions which may append their names to Chianti. These have strong historical claims to making wines distinctive to their areas.

The regions are Chianti Colli Fiorentini, Chianti Colline Pisane, Chianti Colli Senesi, Chianti Colli Aretini, Chianti Montalbano, and Chianti Rufina.

Chianti is in a state of flux, and I’ll explore the major issues in a later column. In the meantime, watch for the 1990 Chiantis. And stand by for the phenomenally good 1990 Classicos when they hit retail shelves late this year. And next year we can look forward to the even better ‘Riservas”.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 1992 & 2007

Wine drinkers associate premium wines with particular grape varieties from particular areas. Thus, in Australia, some of the natural doubles are cabernet and Coonawarra, semillon and the Hunter Valley, rhine riesling and the Clare Valley, and shiraz and the Barossa Valley.

Our biggest source of grapes, long stretches of the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers, churn out thousands of tonnes of fat, juicy, sweet, grapes. These make everything from bubblies to fortifieds. But the district of origin seldom appears on labels for the simple reason that most of the tonnage, while capable of making sound wines, bears no distinguishing aromas or flavours.

Yet the ‘Riverland’ as this vast grape resource is called, is far from homogenous. A couple of degrees variation in latitude, as the system snakes its way westwards, creates many climatic…and, thus, quality differences. Seppelts, for example, grows broad acres of chardonnay at several points along the Murray. Far from being flung into one vat and branded ‘Riverland’ the various batches head in different directions.

In an interview a few years back, Ian McKenzie, Seppelt’s Chief Winemaker, said there was a two degree latitude difference between the company’s Qualco (South Australia) and Barooga (NSW) vineyards, both on the Murray. As a result, grapes ripen several weeks later at Barooga. And the fruit makes far superior wine.

Barooga, while not a exactly a household name like Coonawarra, Padthaway, or the Barossa Valley, is one of the few exceptions to anonymity along our major waterway.

Perhaps the most reviled of all stretches of the riverland’s grape growing districts was the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, with its centre at Griffith, N.S.W. Here is planted huge amounts of semillon and shiraz, both workhorses of the Australian wine industry.

A decade ago, wine quality from the area was seen as a joke within the industry. And having seen many extremely poor examples of bulk wine from there in the late seventies, I admit to a strong prejudice against MIA wines that lasted in my own mind until only recently.

Better vineyard management and the arrival of state-of-the-art winemaking equipment now means that much of the area’s output of bulk wine is as good as you’ll find anywhere. Taste, for example, McWilliams revamped Hanwood table wine range for a very pleasant surprise.

If the area does prove simply too hot, as seems likely, to make premium dry table wine, first de Bortolis and now others have exploited the hot, humid ripening conditions in developing fabulous sweet wines now winning the palates of consumers and show judges alike in recent years.

De Bortolis were not the first to make a ‘sauternes’ style in the district, but they elevated it to a higher level than anyone else before them, and paved the way for a little niche, both at home and abroad, for Griffith late-picked semillon.

De Bortolis achieved the impossible in having their botrytis semillon acknowledged so widely. The market for dessert table wines in Australia is small and very crowded as every winemaker nurtures a yearning to make the definitive Aussie sweet white. Indeed, there are so many late picked semillons and rhine rieslings around, that few make any impression at all on consumers.

The de Bortoli product, though, could not be ignored. Pick up a bottle, look at the back label, and you’ll see why: the list of trophies and gold medals is longer the original ACT ballot paper (more interesting, too).

De Bortoli’s success prompted a number of other Griffith companies to blow the dust off slumbering brands or develop new ones, many of which already boast outstanding show successes. Stephen Chatterton’s Wilton Estate and the Miranda family are just two Griffith wine makers now winning impressive tallies of show medals for their sweeties.

April 19th, 1992

Griffith lies just four hours drive west of Canberra. It’s a bustling, busy city, population 15,000, appearing remarkably prosperous after whizzing through the depressed hamlets and towns dotting the route from Canberra.

Here twenty per cent of Australia’s wine grapes flourish on vines nourished by water diverted from the Murrumbidgee River about thirty kilometres away. In the intense summer heat, Griffith’s grapes swell and ripen quickly producing masses of sweet fortified wines, bulk table wines, pop wines, and a sprinkling of high-quality, immensely sweet and luscious dessert wines.

This last category, sourced mainly from late picked, botrytis infected semillon grapes, gives Griffith a strong claim to being a fine wine producer: vintages 1982 to 1990 of the style won the area 42 trophies and 170 gold medals.

Whether or not the Griffith sweetie is unique or simply a clever product reproducible wherever hot and humid grape growing conditions prevail remains to be seen. But no other area in Australia presently shows any sign of doing it as well as Griffith does.

At a “famous sweet wines of the world” dinner in Griffith last Friday night, Robert Geddes, head of the Wines of the Riverina Promotion Committee, pitted the local sweeties against the European classics. It wasn’t intended as a competition so much an opportunity to compare different styles and perceive just what the Griffith sweet personality is.

There’s certainly a personality there. It was easy to pick the local wines from the imports in a series of masked line-ups of three and four wines.

The Griffith wines varied considerably, but the shared characteristics were enormous sweetness with an intense underlying caramel flavour, softness and roundness on the palate, a recognisable semillon flavour, and a strong aroma and flavour of “apricot” and “orange” peel imparted by the botrytis cinerea (a grey mould growing on the skin of the late picked grapes, reducing water, concentrating acids and sugars and implanting its own distinctive flavour).

No two of the imports were alike. A Vin Santo from Tuscany made the perfect aperitif and fooled even the local fortified experts who saw in it the characteristics of amontillado sherry. But its gentle, sweet mid-palate fruit and slightly-too-low alcohol said it could not be sherry.

A botrytis chenin blanc from the Loire Valley, 1989 Chateau de Ricaud Coteaux du Layon’s delicacy, pale colour and high acid contrasted starkly with the sweet opulence of the local wines. It was a lovely wine and a first-class example of its style.

Chateau Gillette 1955, from Sauternes in France, showed there’s much more to sweet wines than sugar. Intensity of flavour, a mouth gripping structure, and a drying astringency add up to a great and satisfying drink.

A German 1976 Trockenbeerenauslese, made from the obscure grape varieties optima and ortiga, displayed some of the amazing weight and richness of that great vintage but lacked any real class. And a 1968 Hungarian Tokay Essencia showed only hints of the glories the style achieves.

Of the local wines, Robert Fiumara of Lillpilly Wines makes an attractive noble muscat of Alexandria. But I’d classify this more as a “terrace” wine with its tangy, fresh, sweet muscat flavour. It’s very original but not, in my view, a dessert wine as it lacks the body, structure, and sweetness.

I think it’s more the botrytised semillons making the Griffith name. Of these, two that were served at the dinner leapt out.

De Bortoli Botrytis Semillon Sauternes 1987 takes the style to its most polished form. While this vintage has won at least 4 trophies and 14 gold medals, it’s the sixth in a line who’s tally is 20 trophies and 113 gold medals.

Winemaker, Darren De Bortoli, modestly declines to take full credit for the wine, but says it bears his thumbprint. While very late picked, botrytis infected semillon is at the heart of the wine, its elevation in the winery is all-important. The very expensive and labour-intensive processes of fermenting and maturing the wine in small, new French oak barrels is essential.

Whatever magic Darren works in the winery makes his wine head and shoulder above others from the district, especially in its ability to age slowly. His 1987 looks, smells, and tastes younger than 1990’s from the other wineries.

The only exception I’ve noted is McWilliams. Winemaker Jim Brayne makes outstanding sweeties as we saw in a very young looking 1988 served from half bottles. It may not have the depth and weight of the DeBortoli product, but it is a high quality dessert wine by any measure and bears the Griffith personality.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 1992 & 2007