Book review — Great, grand and famous Champagnes

23 November 2011Book reviewChris Shanahan

Great, grand and famous Champagnes
Jane Powell, Fritz Gubler and Dannielle Viera
Arbon Publishing, Sydney, 2011
$79.99

“We can’t all be like Marilyn Monroe and fill our bathtubs with 150 bottle bottles of Champagne”, declares the accompanying press release. But neither the press release, nor Great, grand and famous Champagnes, reveal the sequel to this intriguing romance: did the winemakers really fill 151 bottles from Miss Monroe’s tub? We’ll never know.

The Monroe story sets the tone for a colourful, if uncritical, portrayal of the romance, glamour, mystique, history, hard-nosed commerce and science underpinning the wine world’s greatest luxury brand. If, like me, you rate the best Champagnes among the world’s greatest wines – and feel that even Gruen Planet couldn’t improve the marketing proposition – then the book’s as easy to swallow as its topic.

The third in Fritz Gubler’s series of ‘great, grand and famous’ books (after hotels and chefs), Champagne appears, like its topic, to be a clever, even sparkling, blend (or assemblage) of information from a wide range of sources.

After being drawn by the press release to the Marilyn Monroe snippet (page 168), we return to the cover. Here, Scott Cameron’s evocative close up of a crystal flute – teeming with the famous, tiny bubbles – reinforces brand Champagne and prepares us for the richly illustrated 240 pages that follow.

We all look at the pictures first. And in Great, grand and famous Champagnes, it’s eye candy from cover to cover – starting with Champagne sipping Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca, 1942) and finishing with a couple of art nouveau postcards of women drinking Champagne (circa 1900).

Every spread in between illustrates Champagne across the ages, capturing its history, commerce, followers and strong brand marketing. The latter includes several reproductions of unique art deco posters, including a classic for Champagne Joseph Perrier, created by Jean d’Ylen in about 1920.

The early part of the book, tracing Champagne’s intimate connections with French royalty and power brokers, portrays some of its great patrons, including luxuriously robed Pope Urban II, the Sun King, Louis XIV, and his mistress Madame de Pompadour.

In the book Jane Powell writes that de Pompadour, “had strong family links to the Champagne region and already understood the difference between sparkling and ordinary champagne. She loved Moet’s wine and soon became one of his most valuable customers, ensuring that Moet’s champagne was served at every important function at Versailles”.

A full-page image of Champagne’s famous wine priest, Dom Pierre Perignon (1638–1715), from a relief at Hautvilliers Abbey, depicts the cellarmaster holding a bottle of the then new-fangled sparkling wine.

Other famous Champagne tipplers portrayed in the book include Sir Winston Churchill (with Odette Pol Roger), Salvador Dali, Robert Redfern with Mia Farrow, Elizabeth Taylor with Montgomery Clift, Sean Connery, and Ingrid Bergman with Cary Grant.

Numerous vineyard and cellar photos give a feeling for Champagne’s landscape and production techniques. But I wonder why we still see shots of blokes hand-riddling bottles in wooden racks. Surely we’re grown up enough to see the less romantic gyro pallets that took over from hand-riddling thirty years ago (the book actually describes the modern technique).

The book lists three authors – Jane Powell, Fritz Gubler and Dannielle Viera. Gubler appears to be the driving force behind the book, pulling together its many components. Powell wrote much of the content, including the early chapters on Champagne’s history and commercial success. And Viera contributed to profiles on various Champagne houses and personalities.

Powell begins her chapter, “Growing the market”, with this quote from British writer, Nicholas Faith, “Champagne is a luxury brand made and sold by a hard-headed, hard-working, rather cold-blooded bunch of people, fully aware that no one needs to drink Champagne”.

Powell summarises the long winemaking history of Champagne, the region’s at-first tentative move away from table wine production to sparkling wines, the emergence of the first great Champagne houses in the early eighteenth century, their consolidation and growth in the nineteenth century and the emergence of dry Champagne in the late nineteenth century.

She covers the at-times bitter tensions between growers and Champagne houses early in the twentieth century, culminating in the statute of champagne in 1927 and the formation of a central body (the Comite Interprofessionel du vin de Champagne) representing the interests of the industry and regional as a whole.

The region now produces over 300 million bottles of Champagne annually and vigorously defends its brand at all levels – from the ground breaking Perelada case that stopped “Spanish Champagne” in its tracks fifty years ago, to the more recent action by Veuve Clicquot to stop tiny Tasmanian producer Stefano Lubiana using an orange label. This is the hard-nosed phenomenon Nicholas Faith referred to.

The book also has a terrific section on Champagne’s famous women, including Louise Pommery, Nicole-Barbe Ponsardin Clicquot and Lily Bollinger.

It’s a good introduction to Champagne, blended from many sources, including the classic Champagne: The wine, the land the people, Patrick Forbes, 1967 and Christie’s world encyclopedia of Champagne and sparkling wine, Tom Stevenson, 2003.

Wine review — Paxton, Toolangi, Pikes, Yealands Way, Port Phillip Estate and Yalumba

23 November 2011Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Paxton Quandong Farm Shiraz 2010 $21–$30
Quandong Farm, McLaren Vale, South Australia
David Paxton’s biodynamic management of Quandong Farm, located in McLaren Vale’s Seaview Road, focuses on “soil health, bio-diversity and non-chemical weed control”, he writes. All of which he directs at producing excellent grapes – with the flavours displayed in this beautiful shiraz. It has pure, vibrant fruit, great depth, distinctive McLaren Vale savouriness and plush ripe, soft tannins that complete the red wine picture. This is a wonderful, generous warm climate shiraz that seduces rather than overwhelms.

Toolangi Chardonnay 2009 $25
Dixon’s Creek and Yarra Glen, Yarra Valley, Victoria
Garry and Julie Hounsell own the Toolangi vineyard but also source grapes from other Yarra sites controlled by their own viticulturist. They outsource the winemaking, in this instance to Willy Lunn at nearby Yering Station. It’s a fine, restrained, delicious example of modern cool-climate chardonnay – with the focus on white-peach-like varietal flavour subtly adorned with the structural and flavour inputs of barrel fermentation and maturation.

Pikes Traditionale Riesling 2011 $20–$23
Polish Hill River, Watervale and Sevenhill, Clare Valley
Pikes is another outstanding 2011 riesling, characterised, writes winemaker Neil Pike, by “amazing natural acidity and excellent varietal definition of the fruit. The only time in my 30 or so vintages in Clare that we did not have to acid adjust the musts”. The natural high acidity accentuates the intense mineral and lime-like varietal flavour and adds delicacy and length to the clean, dry finish.

Yealands Way Premium Selection Pinot Noir 2010 $19–$21
Marlborough and Central Otago, New Zealand
Last week’s feature story mentioned the growing availability of good, modestly-priced pinot noirs rolling in from New Zealand – wines like Yealands Way. The 2010 vintage, combining material from Marlborough and Central Otago, provides pleasant, medium-bodied drinking, with plummy varietal flavours and a tight backbone of fine, savoury tannins. It’s available at Jim Murphy’s, Candamber, Canberra Cellars and Local Liquor, Hughes and Kingston. Yealands belongs to Peter Yealands a pioneer of mussel farming and a successful large-scale deer farmer before venturing into wine production.

Port Phillip Estate Pinot Noir 2010 $38
Red Hill, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Winemaker Sandro Mosele sources this from a single estate vineyard planted in 1988. He de-stems the fruit (many pinot makers include stems) and allows the wine to ferment spontaneously before moving it to French oak for 16 months. The resulting wine displays vibrant red-berry varietal flavour with a unique, earthy, pinot undertone. These flavours come through on the palate and, with aeration, the flavours and texture expand under the tight framework of fine pinot tannins.

Yalumba The Strapper Grenache Shiraz Mataro 2010 $18–$22
Barossa, South Australia
Yalumba really nails Barossa wine styles now – capturing the distinctive, generous, ripe fruit flavours, while avoiding over-ripe porty character or the over-extracted, over-oaked styles that predominated for a while. In this classic blend, made by Kevin Glastonbury, we’re seduced by fragrant, floral grenache high notes, then satisfied by the full, juicy, slurpy palate and dry but soft, earthy finish. Shiraz fills out the palate; mataro (aka mourvedre) delivers the earthy tannins.

Hops on the hill

23 November 2011Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

In 2005 Karen and David Golding established hops at Red Hill on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. This satisfied local regulations requiring would-be liquor licence holders to be primary producers.

They harvest the four varieties – Hallertau, Tettnanger, Golding and Willamette – around March each year for use in their Red Hill Brewery products.

These include three beers produced year round (Golden Ale, Wheat Beer and Scotch Ale) and seasonal specialties like the upcoming releases, Bohemian Pilsner and Christmas Ale, reviewed below, and Temptation, a seriously good strong Belgian blonde style.

Wheat Beer shows the classic fruity esters of this delicate style with a subtle, lovely tang of estate-grown Tettnanger hops.

Golden Ale delivers complex, refreshing, full flavours, cut through with the delicate flavour and soft bitterness of Hallertau and Tettnanger hops.

And big, bold, chocolaty Scotch Ale benefits from a lick of goldings and Willamette hops.

Red Hill Brewery Bohemian Pilsner 330ml $5.50
Red Hill takes a distinctive approach to this classic, full-bodied, hoppy, Czech style. It’s a little stronger than normal at 5.9 per cent, it’s unfiltered (and therefore has a yeast haze) and utterly delicious. From nose to finish, pungent hops wrestle with opulent, sweet, malt flavours, finishing strong, bitter and alcoholic.

Red Hill Brewery Christmas Ale 330ml $7
This ale salutes Chimay Red, one of the great Belgian abbey beers. It combines full, malty body with high alcohol (7.5 per cent) and a strong aroma input from hallertau and tettnanger hops flowers. It’s a sip and savour style, its opulence and silky texture a good much for Christmas cake or pudding.

Wine review — Evans and Tate, Heartland and Jacob’s Creek St Hugo

20 November 2011Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Evans and Tate Classic Margaret River Shiraz Cabernet 2010 $13–$15
Now part of McWilliams Wines, Evans and Tate Classic offers big-company reliability, correctness and value – if not excitement. The wine’s aroma reveals a floral, sweet-fruited side of shiraz. This bright fruitiness comes through, too, on the palate. But here a little cabernet astringency kicks in, adding not only grip, but an elegant structure suited to this medium-bodied style. This is an extension of the “Classic” range, a term originally used in the eighties in conjunction with light, crisp, blended white wines. Notable early adopters were Wolf Blass and Evans and Tate.

Heartland Wines Langhorne Creek Dolcetto Lagrein 2010 $19–$22
Good fruit and very clever winemaking here from Ben Glaetzer, produces unique flavours and enjoyable drinking. It’s a blend of the northern Italian varieties dolcetto and lagrein – the former noted for its aromatics and brilliant colour, the latter for its sometimes-intimidating tannins. The blend is highly perfumed and mulberry-like on the nose with a peppery note; the vibrant fruit and pepperiness continue on the generous palate before the savoury, persistent tannins assert themselves in the finish. Heartland is the creation of Ben Glaetzer, Grant Tilbrook, Scott Collet, Geoff Hardy, Vicki Arnold, Gino Melino and John Pargeter.

Jacob’s Creek St Hugo Barossa

Shiraz 2008 $49.99
Grenache Shiraz Mataro 2010 $49.99

Half a decade ago, partly in a nod to regionality, parent company Pernod Ricard moved several upmarket Orlando wines, including St Hugo Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon, into the Jacob’s Creek range. Now they’ve extended the St Hugo range with these two magnificent Barossa wines – the aromatic, savoury, earthy blend and the opulent, soft, classic shiraz. At these prices, though, I can’t help thinking they should be more specific about fruit sourcing, especially regarding components from the company’s significant holdings in the vicinity of Jacob’s Creek (yes, it really exists). This was the birthplace of Orlando, creator of the Jacob’s Creek brand.

Pinot takes off

16 November 2011WineChris Shanahan

Australian wine drinkers are taking to pinot noir in ever-greater numbers. And they’re prepared to pay far more for it then they do for other varieties.

Pinot noir, once a footnote in Australian red-wine sales figures, accounted for six per cent by value of retail red wine sales in the year to September 2011, according to Nielsen data.

Vintage Cellars liquor executive, Grant Ramage, says the same Nielsen data reveals pinot as “the fastest growing of the major varieties” at 21 per cent for the year, compared to nine per cent for shiraz (which accounts for 26 per cent of red wine sales) and five per cent for cabernet sauvignon.

The figures also reveal that we pay more, on average, for pinot than for shiraz or red in general – $17.50 retail a bottle for pinot, $12.50 for shiraz and $8.49 for red wine overall. (Not directly related, but of interest, is the premium we paid for sauvignon blanc ($11.60) compared to chardonnay ($8.34) – indicating Marlborough’s huge dominance of the sauvignon blanc market).

Ramage believes “a lot of New Zealand’s success with pinot noir was built on sauvignon blanc”. He says difficulties encountered by New Zealand pinot producers in some export markets forced prices down. Combined with the strong Australian dollar, this led to greater numbers of good, under-$20 pinots arriving in Australia.

Encouraged by the popularity of sauvignon blanc from the same producers, Australian retailers frequently promoted their pinot noirs. “This unlocked volume and interest”, says Ramage, probably converting many drinkers to a red style they’d not enjoyed before.

At the same time, Australian producers (they still account for the majority of pinot sales) had also got their act together. Several decades of growing pinot in suitably cool climates, and a huge amount of viticultural and winemaking effort, had lifted the quality of our best wines to a very high level (and priced accordingly).

A spinoff was the development of increasing numbers of convincing pinots at under or around $20 a bottle. This, along with New Zealand developments, set the scene for pinot’s, growth based on a unique “pop” market.

While several rungs down the quality ladder from pinot elites – like Mornington’s Main Ridge Estate, Gippsland’s Bass Phillip Estate or Central Otago’s Felton Road – these new, cheaper wines look, smell and taste like pinot noir. They’re recruiting new drinkers.

However, because good pinot’s more expensive to produce than good shiraz, the starting price is higher – around $20 a bottle versus around $10. But, as the Nielsen figures confirm, growing numbers of people seem happy to pay the premium.

In Australia, pinot noir remains a niche variety, accounting for a little under five per cent of our red grape harvest at 36 thousand tonnes in 2011. Take out the portion that goes to sparkling wine and pinot for red-wine production makes up perhaps four cent of our red output.

As a cool-climate variety, planting is concentrated in the far south and at high altitudes, notably in the Yarra Valley, Gippsland, Mornington and Bellarine Peninsulas, the Adelaide Hills and Tasmania – the latter with huge potential.

In New Zealand, it’s the dominant red-wine variety at around 30 thousand tonnes annual production, and third in volume – a nose behind chardonnay and a couple of laps behind sauvignon blanc (177 thousand tonnes in 2009). About one quarter of New Zealand’s pinot noir goes to sparkling wine production.

A portion of people converted by the lovely new, inexpensive pinots seem certain to move up the chain, tempted by the great diversity of styles now on offer. Anecdotal evidence says drinkers seem fascinated by the variety’s variability. They share the passion of producers for the many regional, sub-regional and individual vineyard wines now emerging.

While sales of the great wines of Burgundy are insignificant in volume and value in relation to the total market, they remain still the gold standard for Australian producers – in style, winemaking technique and the belief that individual sites should be allowed expression.

I’ve reviewed a couple of current-release examples below from one of Mornington Peninsula’s exciting producers.

Ten Minutes by Tractor Mornington Peninsula
10X Pinot Noir 2010 $32
A general Mornington Peninsula blend, largely from earlier ripening sites downhill from the company’s sites on Main Ridge. Features bright, red fruit character, medium body and fine tannins.

Ten minutes by Tractor Mornington Peninsula
Estate Pinot Noir 2009 $46
A blend from the later ripening Judd, McCutcheon and Wallis vineyards on Main Ridge – darker fruit characters, fuller body, rich texture and tighter more assertive tannins.

Ten Minutes by Tractor Mornington Peninsula
McCutcheon Pinot Noir 2009 $75
From the late ripening McCutcheon vineyard on Main Ridge – reveals a broad spectrum of pinot character: dark fruits, savoury and gamey notes, a touch of stalkiness and a particularly rich, velvety texture.

Wine review — Pizzini, Yering Station, Brown Brothers, Philip Shaw, Dandelion and Evans & Tate

16 November 2011Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Pizzini Sangiovese 2009 $26.90–$30
King Valley, Victoria
Several Pizzini brothers emigrated from Italy’s Trento Alto Adige region in the 1950s, ultimately settling in Myrtleford and growing tobacco. With tobacco increasingly on the nose, in 1978 second-generation Fred Pizzini planted vines in the King Valley, originally as a supplier to Brown Brothers. In 1994 Fred and wife, Natalie, launched their own brand. By this time they’d been growing Italian varieties for a decade. Son Joel now makes the wines, including this impressive sangiovese. It’s medium bodied with vibrant cherry-like varietal flavour and a deep, tasty savoury vein. The savoury, assertive, soft tannins combine with the fruit to provide a unique and rewarding drinking experience.

Yering Station Village Chardonnay 2010 $25
Yarra Valley, Victoria
Yering Station, first planted to vines by the Ryrie family in 1838, is today part of the Rathbone Wine Group. The group also owns Xanadu Margaret River, Parker Coonawarra Estate and Mount Langi Ghiran Pyrenees. Yering’s new ‘Village’ label salutes the Burgundian concept of wines from a general vicinity sitting one rung lower on the quality ladder than those from individual sites. Flavour (melon and grapefruit-like), finesse and elegance are the keywords for this appealing example of modern, cool-climate chardonnay.

Brown Brothers Prosecco 2011 $22.90
Banksdale Vineyard, King Valley, Victoria
The King Valley, with its strong Italian heritage, has become a hot spot for this delicate sparkling wine, modelled on the originals from northeastern Italy. The style emphasises lightness, freshness and delicate fruit flavour – in this instance reminiscent of tart, just-picked, new season granny smith apples. This pleasant tartness is an endearing, unique feature of good prosecco, making it an excellent but unobtrusive aperitif and all-round food wine.

Philip Shaw No. 89 Shiraz 2009 $50
Koomooloo Vineyard, Orange, New South Wales
Philip Shaw’s glorious, demure, slow-evolving wine, appears upstaged at present by its fruit-riot, precocious, $17–$20 sibling, “The Idiot” Shiraz, winner of three trophies at the 2011 Sydney wine show. With a little aeration, though, Shaw’s flagship reveals the intensely spicy fruitiness and heady aromatics of cool-grown shiraz – with layers of supple, smooth, fine, ripe tannin. The inclusion of one per cent of the white viognier in the blend no doubt contributes to the aroma and supple texture.

Dandelion Vineyard Wonderland of the Eden Valley Riesling 2011 $30
Colin Kroehn vineyard, Eden Valley, South Australia
What a wonderful story and sense of place lie behind this wine. It’s summed up on the back label, “Colin Kroehn has tended his Eden Valley riesling for 66 of his 86 years. Our [wine] is made entirely from his vineyard which was planted in 1912 and thrives to this day”. The “we” being a small group of wine people intent on presenting wines from unique vineyard sites. The wine shows varietal floral and lemony aromas – characters reflected on an intensely flavoured, dry palate of rare delicacy.

Evans and Tate Classic Cabernet Merlot 2010 $13–$15
Margaret River, Western Australia
Evans and Tate, part of the McWilliams family since 2007, offers tremendous value across its range – starting with this budget-priced, genuine Margaret River blend. Sourced from the central and northern parts of the region, it’s a medium bodied blend, featuring sweet, verging on floral, varietal red-berry aromas. The particularly vibrant berry flavours provide juicy, easy drink-now pleasure at a modest price.

Beer review — Wig & Pen and Tooheys

16 November 2011Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Wig and Pen Multigrain 285ml glass $5
We savoured the wholemeal goodness in the Wig’s new cask-conditioned ale, brewed from rye, barley, corn, oats and wheat. It’s a hand pumped beer, meaning less gassy fizz – an attribute that sits well with gentle, creamy palate and invigorating citrusy hops character. It’s another original, more-ish brew by Richard Watkins.

Tooheys Old Black Ale 375ml $16.99 6-pack
Pubs in Moruya and Batemans Bay continue to sell Toohey’s delicious, gentle dark ale, known simply as “black”. Also available in bottle it offers fruity ale notes and subtle, refreshing bitterness with distinctive underlying flavours of roasted coffee and malt. Pubs serve it too cold, but try telling that to the locals.

Craft brewers to join forces

16 November 2011Beer, PeopleChris Shanahan

Australia’s craft brewers are at last to have a national body to promote their product, liaise with government and advocate their interests.

Unlike the wine industry with its strong national promotional and representative bodies, craft brewers have been a fragmented lot despite their growing presence in the market.

Brewers behind the new national body (with state chapters) began working on the project in May and in July circulated a draft prospectus to the industry. In November they established Craft Beer Limited and called on brewers to join the association and participate in the election of a board.

The brewers behind the initiative are Brad Rogers and Jamie Cooke (Stone and Wood Brewing, Byron Bay), Brendan Varis (Feral Brewing Company, Swan Valley), Dave Bonighton (Mountain Goat Beer, Richmond Victoria), Miles Hull (Little Creatures, Fremantle), Owen Johnston (Moo Brew, Hobart) and Adam Trippe-Smith and Bruce Peachey (McLaren Vale Beer Company.

Wine review — Chrismont, Kingston Estate and Pizzini

13 November 2011Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Chrismont King Valley La Zona Prosecco NV $22
In 2007 Arnie and Jo Pizzini planted the Italian white variety, prosecco, in their vineyard at Cheshunt, in Victoria’s King Valley. With it they emulate the light, delicate dry sparkling wines made with the variety in northeastern Italy. La Zona starts as a still table wine matured on yeast lees for a few months before being blended with components from earlier vintages then undergoing a secondary fermentation in steel tanks. It’s a unique style – pale, comparatively low in alcohol, at 12 per cent, and with a light, delicious, pleasant, intensely tart, dry palate.

Kingston Estate Adelaide Hills Mount Benson Pinot Gris 2011 $13–$15
Proprietor Bill Moularadellis offers tremendous value in this blend from two South Australian regions – the Adelaide Hills and Mount Benson (in the vicinity of Robe and Coonawarra on the Limestone Coast). Winemaker Brett Duffin writes, “The 2011 vintage in Adelaide Hills saw lower yields than previous years, however, the fruit that was harvested experienced extended ripening which delivered vibrant acidity and flavour profiles”. This probably accounts for the wine’s two gold medals (Rutherglen and Riverina shows). The wine delivers pear-like varietal flavour on a particularly lively, fresh palate, with some of the beginnings of variety’s textural richness and viscosity.

Pizzini Victoria Arneis 2011 $22–$24
Once used to tame Barolo’s fierce tannins, this Piedmontese white variety now makes a unique dry white on its home turf. It also seems to have settled happily in Fred and Katrina Pizzini’s King Valley vineyard, offering an alternative to the familiar flavours of our usual white varieties. The 2011’s pale coloured, medium bodied and bone dry, featuring delicate, lemon and grapefruit-like flavours and a pleasantly sappy, savoury finish. For an illuminating account of the Pizzini family’s arrival in Australia in the 1950s and ultimate shift from tobacco growing to winemaking, see “history” at www.pizzini.com.au

Jimmy Watson trophy finally on track

9 November 2011People, WineChris Shanahan

The Jimmy Watson trophy is to wine drinkers what the Melbourne Cup is to once a year punters. We’ve all heard of it. There’s a buzz each year as the Melbourne show unveils the latest winner. And for the winner, especially if it’s a little known winery, victory can be a fast track to glory.

This year the coveted crystal and silver jug travelled to Tasmania for the first time, won by Nick Glaetzer for his Mon Pere Shiraz 2010, a blend from the Tamar and Coal River Valleys.

By my reckoning, it’s only the fourth wine in the trophy’s 50-year history to have been the final, bottled product at the time of judging. Until recently the line up was the domain of raw young reds not due for blending, let alone bottling, for many months. I detail below why this was so – and why it made the Jimmy Watson not only Australia’s best-known wine award but also its most reviled by critics, including me.

Even before recent changes to the class rules by the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria, and to the trust deed by the Watson family, bottled exhibits had represented an ever-greater proportion of entries. These had risen to 75–80 per cent of the total by 2009. The shift resulted from a run of earlier vintages, wines spending less time in oak, shifting the judging from July to October, and the show’s decision to admin two-year olds into the ranks.

This year, however, following sustained lobbying from within the industry and columns like this, the rules changed for the better. An RASV press release from June 2011 states, “New in 2011, the Jimmy Watson classes will accept bottled wines only and will continue to include one and two-year-old red wines. Wines entered into the Watson classes this year are eligible to be put forward by judges into other red classes, providing the wines with further opportunities to win varietal trophies”.

The latter change benefited Nick Glaetzer’s Mon Pere Shiraz, which went on to win a second trophy as best “Rhone style or shiraz”.

The trophy now rewards wines fundamentally different from those that triumphed in the early years – a shift from rewarding the big, bold and immature to the bright, fruity and approachable. It’s a natural progression. But it’s worth reflecting, too, on the trophy’s origins.

In 1962 Jimmy Watson, wine merchant, died. At his funeral, a hat passed amongst Watson’s loyal followers, raising funds to sponsor an annual “Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy” for the best one-year-old red wine at the Melbourne Wine Show.

There are those who still remember Jimmy with fondness – none more so than his son Alan as he presides, with his son, over the Jimmy Watson Wine Bar founded by his father all those years ago.

But somewhere along the way, the trophy took on a life of its own – a farcical, commercial life far removed from the world Jimmy Watson inhabited during his lifetime.

Alan Watson remembers his father as a wine pioneer – a man who cheerfully weathered the sneers of some fellow Australians for nothing more than encouraging the consumption of table wine with food. In those days wine was just plonk.

Bill Chambers, maker of superb Rutherglen fortifieds and long-term chair of judges at the Melbourne wine show, once told me that he recalled Watson’s Wine bar in the late 1950s. There were bottles everywhere as a leather-apronned Jimmy, a great showman, worked with two rubber tubes to bottle a hogshead of red before lunch – an enviable feat in Chamber’s view, and one Jimmy Watson was proud of.

In those days Bill Chambers worked up in the Clare Valley with the Stanley Wine Company. He remembers Melbourne Wine Merchant, Doug Seabrook, buying hogsheads of raw young Clare Valley reds, many of which he sold to Watson. By all accounts it was these vigorous young reds, and not only those from Clare, that interested him most of all.

In an interview some years back, Alan Watson told me that his father’s business was not originally a watering hole as it is today, but a bottle shop where the owner selected and bottled everything himself. But Watson’s great enthusiasm attracted a ring of disciples. They soon began bringing food to the shop and adopting a liberal interpretation of licensing laws that permitted patrons to taste wine before purchasing.

The clientele, enthralled by Watson, showman and extrovert, came from all walks of life. But with Melbourne University just up the road from Watson’s Lygon Street premises, academics and students swelled his ranks of followers. Eagerly they swallowed his message.

“Dad tried to move the trade into another era”, reminisced Alan Watson. “He wanted wine to be seen as an everyday occurrence, something to be consumed with meals”. He also urged patience, encouraging customers to cellar the immature, purple, one-year-old reds that were the bulk of his trade.

Jimmy Watson was an educator of old and young alike according to Bill Chambers, long-time chair of the Melbourne show. “Students, professors, everyone brought their tucker down the road before heading up to Watson’s to drink wine. But he was a showman and I can’t remember him drinking much himself”.

Watson’s senior disciples, mostly academics and businessmen, gravitated to an upstairs room, eventually dubbed by Watson as “The House of Lords”. It was these most ardent and articulate followers who passed the hat at Jimmy Watson’s funeral, thus perpetuating his name in the Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy to be awarded to the robust, year-old reds he so loved.

For the next ten years the Jimmy Watson Trophy – now a household word amongst wine drinkers – remained unknown to wine consumers and of only minor interest to wine companies.

Bill Chambers judged in Melbourne from the early 1960’s. He recalls little fuss over the Watson Trophy until the Berri Co-operative’s success in 1973. Then, recalls Chambers, after an heroic celebration, winemaker Brian Barry boarded the plane carrying the Murray River’s first major trophy.

Perhaps we can link the trophy’s rise to fame more with Wolf Blass’s hat trick. He won it in 1974, 1975 and 1976 for his 1973, 1974 and 1975 vintages of ‘Dry Red Claret’. He renamed the wine Wolf Blass Black Label and used the Jimmy as its launching pad. He even proclaimed the triple victory on the neck label of his sparkling wine at the time.

Increasingly since then, to win the trophy was to harvest a windfall. For the hype surrounding each year’s winner virtually guaranteed a wine’s commercial success.

While no amount of hosing down seemed to quell trade or public clamouring for the winner, the fact remained that for most of the trophy’s history, the winning wine had not been the finished product.

This became the source of sustained and intense criticism, principally from those concerned with the integrity of show results. Awarding medals and trophies to unfinished wine simply magnified the chance of fraud, critics claimed.

Even the most meticulously honest winery blending a “representative” show sample across a range of barrels couldn’t say with certainty that what the judges tasted and what went into bottle were exactly the same.

The recent, welcome changes make this history and favour the continuing success of the fruity, easy drinking styles that’ve won in recent years. These are a long way from the wines that Jimmy Watson hand bottled in Carlton half a century ago.

While we won’t see inky, deep, raw wines like a one-year-old Penfolds Grange or Wolf Blass Black Label win the trophy again (as they have in the past), we can at last be assured that the Jimmy Watson winner we buy is the same wine the wine judges liked.