The so-called first families have more than 1,200 years of winemaking experience between them and they own just over 3% of the national vineyard, though they also buy in fruit from contract growers.  Their wine portfolios span 16 regions across Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.

Aus. First Families Masterclass

They launched their group in October 2009.

To kick off the tour, and introduce a few of the younger generation to some of the key markets, a two-dozen wine tasting was put on.  And if gravitas of personnel is anything to go by, the list of men, all men, should be enough to make the most recalcitrant of Aussie wine lover think again: the august panel lining up to show their wares comprised Peter Barry (Jim Barry), Ross Brown (Brown Brothers), Colin Campbell (Campbells), Chester Osborn (d’Arenberg), Steve Webber (De Bortoli), Stephen Henschke (Henschke), Jeff Burch (Howard Park), Doug McWilliam (McWilliam’s), Alister Purbrick (Tahbilk), Bruce Tyrrell (Tyrrell’s), Mitchell Taylor (Wakefield) and Robert Hill Smith (Yalumba). When guys of this calibre roll into town on the same wagon there’s bound to be a show.

Alister Purbrick set the scene, saying “the ‘first families of wine’ started its journey four years ago when a small number of people, now all members, started to formulate what we might be able to do s a group in the Australian category, lifting the image of the category.  We set a very high bar on membership criteria, for example the ownership of icon brands, aged vines and vineyards. Not so obvious is environmental credentials and industry service over generations. Of the 2,400 hundred [producers], 16 met the criteria, and 12 saw the merits of what we’re proposing.”

He added “we’re not saying we’re the best winemakers in Australia. We are saying we make wines that are representative of the best.  There are many producers making exceptional regional wines.” 

But what they are trying to do is overcome a loss of favour in some export markets, and a glut of wine at home, by bringing some of the old razzamatazz back.  Purbrick said “the global markets are as competitive as any of us can remember. We’re getting on to the front foot to get Australia back into sustainable shape, i.e. profit.” Though he admits both winemakers and brands need to disappear to get the Australian industry back into balance, suggesting up to 30% of the vineyard area needs to go.

Read here for an interview with Bruce Tyrell, November 2009.

Tasting notes, and producer comments, London May 2010. 

There was no clearly discernible theme to the tasting, other than perhaps to show the diversity of style and price, and each company put up two wines. All very egalitarian, but it rather suggests these guys are still at a fairly early stage of thinking about strategy. Nonetheless the wines were plenty interesting, from sparkling through to fortified.

Both iconic, unique Aussie styles were in the line up: Hunter Valley semillon, and Rutherglen muscat.  More cabernet sauvignon than shiraz was shown, despite shiraz being Australia’s ‘thing’.  Shiraz accounts for nearly half of all Australia’s red grape plantings, and are not quite double those of cabernet sauvignon.

Brown Brothers Patricia Sparkling Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier 2004, Whitlands, Victoria, ~£22
Creamy, yeasty, toasted nuts (5 ½ years on the lees), with fine bubbles, and perceptibly dry (dosage 5g/l). Savoury, steely note, some layered spiced white flowers, with dry baked lemon. Quite a delicate style.  Good.

Brown said “for most sparkling wines three years on lees is the most you’d see, commercially.”

Tahbilk Marsanne  2007, Nagambie Lakes, Victoria ~£9
Creamy, smoked white nuts, hint lanolin, toastiness, quite complex notes coming through on the palate, modest acidity, medium full palate. Bit of steeliness, decent balance.

Purbrick said his marsanne starts with “lime, citrus and tropical fruits. After 2-3 years, toastiness, and honeysuckle flavours start to develop.”

Henschke Julius Riesling 2006, Eden Valley, South Australia, ~£18
Petrol, lime, galvanised steel, intense lime pith, lots of youthful fruit. Quite full bodied, and round alongside edgy, steely acidity.

Henschke said “Clare Valley is more floral and forward; Eden is more restrained, with better ageing; and Adelaide Hills riesling has tight, citrus blossom aromas.” 

Tyrrell introduced the three semillons, saying: “there are three sources [for semillon]: Western Australia, which are lighter, more cut grass, more sauvignon blanc than sauvignon blanc when young. Barossa, with higher alcohol, 12-13% and wood. Hunter Valley is the real home of a unique style that can’t be mirrored anywhere else in the world.” 

McWilliam’s Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Semillon 2005, Hunter Valley, New South Wales, ~£10
Lemon toast, lanolin complexity coming through; rich, warming fruit, and layered. Lemon toast core and long finish.

McWilliam’s Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon 2005, Hunter Valley, New South Wales, ~£25
Citrus and white flower perfume, fresh, lifted, good degree of elegance. Lemon pith and zest combo yet to develop a lemon toast complexity.  Youthful, balanced, intense, with attractive concentration. 

Tyrrell’s Vat 1 Hunter Semillon 2002, Hunter Valley, New South Wales, ~£25
Lemon curd on toast, with toastiness just coming through at back palate; dense, with massive concentration. Tart acidity cleans the end of the palate. Long finish.

Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier 2008, Eden Valley, South Australia, ~£9
Intense nose jumps out of the glass, peachy, perfumed, aromatic, glycerol smoothness, hit of warming alcohol on the finish, but it doesn’t detract too much. It is a big mouthful of a wine with good varietal definition.

Hill-Smith said of viognier: “there’s a cacophony of flavours once you go past 13.5% ripeness. We try to harness all that, restrain it and not neuter its personality. We use neutral casks and natural fermentation.”  

MadFish Gold Turtle Flint Rock Chardonnay 2009, Great Southern, Western Australia, ~£13
Light nectarine, very clean white fruit. Hint of oak touch. Fairly simple on first tasting, somewhat innocuous rather than enticing.  Don’t think I’m being harsh.

De Bortoli Yarra Valley Reserve Release Chardonnay 2007, Yarra Valley, Victoria, ~£20
First peach, white flowers, smooth attack, stony note, aromatic smoke, smooth texture, some restraint, attractive long internal length, light-fresh-cream notes, light and elegant and with good density of layered fruit and texture.

Tyrrell’s Vat 47 Chardonnay 2006 Hunter Valley, New South Wales, ~25
Fresh cream and aromatic toast, some lanolin texture akin to semillon, with oak nicely integrated. Perky freshness and linear palate intensity. Long, rich aromatic spicy finish.  

De Bortoli Yarra Valley Reserve Release Pinot Noir 2007, Yarra Valley, Victoria, ~£23
Showing some warm development, hint of grip, elegant perfumed strawberries in a leaner style, with crunchy redcurrant fruit. Just 12.8% alcohol.

Webber said: “People are now looking for beauty and perfume, there’s a growing up in terms of style … we taste green, we taste green, we don’t taste green, we pick.”

d’Arenberg The Ironstone Pressings Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre 2006, McLaren Vale, South Australia ~£26
Iron filings and haemoglobin on the nose, some grip of attack, with smooth baked strawberry fruit, with quite a hot back palate. Tannins clench the palate a little, but fruit carries through the finish. 

Henschke Lenswood Abbotts Prayer Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, Adelaide Hills, South Australia, ~£36
Hints capsicum on the nose, lush attack, plummy, soft, not getting massive complexity, though it could just be this is very easy to appreciate. Good quality merlot with fine varietal definition, no mean feat in Australia, blended into cabernet sauvignon.

Henschke said: “merlot is a big pussycat of a variety. It soaks up rain like blotting paper. It shrivels in sunshine. The best merlots in Australia are now coming out of cool climates. As merlot ripens it goes through intense mulberry spice, then into plummy, and if it’s in a warm area, into fruitcake.”

Wakefield Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, Clare Valley, South Australia, ~£9
Simple, juicy plum nose, and palate. Sits proudly in the value spectrum, supple, soft tannins, nicely balanced and flavoursome.  

Howard Park Leston Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, Margaret River, Western Australia, ~£17
Green blackcurrant leaf, capsicum nose, dry chalky tannins on attack with lush, sweet fruit underneath and rising to surface. Fine tannins, and quite dry. Good length, with almost mint leaf greenness.

Tahbilk Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Nagambie Lakes, Victoria, ~£11
Ripe, sweet plum nose, supple attack then bit of grip mid palate, warmth mid palate, bit spiky and edgy.

Wakefield St Andrews Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, Clare Valley, South Australia, ~£30
Cinnamon spice and warm, aromatic nose, hint of aromatic tarry fruit just beginning to rise. Supple, sweet fruit core to palate, supple grainy tannins, appealing with attractive hints of complexity and length.

Brown Brothers Patricia Cabernet Sauvignon 2000, Victoria, ~£22
Almost no age showing on rim. Blackberry fruit, dark and brooding, tarry, not really showing much development, still showing sweet berry fruit. Fine tannin structure, firm acidity perception, balanced and integrated. Long finish.

Yalumba The Signature Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2005, Barossa, South Australia, ~£28
Sweet plum, spice, and strawberry. Juicy, with plentiful tannins yet of beguilingly light texture. Elegant body, lush and toned at the same time. Quite seductive. Alcohol there yet held in check.

Jim Barry The Lodge Hill Shiraz 2008, Clare Valley, South Australia ~£10
Elegant, smooth, currant and plum. Fine, light tannin texture, with juicy flavours and hint of grip at the end. Good value.

Jim Barry The McRae Wood Shiraz 2005, Clare Valley, South Australia ~£19
Menthol and blackcurrant, spiciness, big, powerful palate, succulent, spiced, mulled berry fruits, sweet lush core. Lush and overtly seductive.

Campbells Bobbie Burns Shiraz 2007, Rutherglen, Victoria, ~£13
Bright crunchy red berry fruits, sweet, medium body, quiet and soft approachability, light, sweet tannins. Good value. Alcohol held in check.

Campbell said: “we’ve produced this wine since 1970. I believe in fruit flavour, and not overpowering the wine with oak.”

d’Arenberg The Dead Arm Shiraz 2006, McLaren Vale, South Australia, ~£26
Rich, spicy, smoky nose, open knit, grainy textured tannins, in a spicy spectrum, with fruit back-up, layered, within structured tannin frame. Earthy element, balanced, wholesome. Long finish, with warm alcohol note at the end.

Campbells Rutherglen Muscat, NV, Rutherglen, Victoria ~£10
Amber with ochre sheen. Intensely aromatic, caramel, toffee, honeysuckle. Smooth, sweet, honey-caramel. Dense, and mouth-coating. Lush and plush. Baked marmalade and dry roast fruits, early nuttiness providing complexity. Long and lovely.

Campbell said: “We’ve produced a classification of muscats: Rutherglen, Classic, Grand, and Rare. They get darker as they get older, and tend to lose fresh fruit and become more integrated, with rancio characters.”

The Tasmania wine industry is very much in its infancy, despite the oldest bottles of Tasmania-made bubbly being recently discovered in Hobart, reputedly dating from the 1840s. But Tasmania has already become the source du force for Aussie traditional method sparkling wine production. About 25% of Tassie’s entire grape production goes into bubblies.

East coast Tasmania

Of ‘native’ producers it’s people like Claudio Radenti of Freycinet and Stefano Lubiana who have lead the way for Tassie sparklers. By all accounts the extremely modest Radenti took some persuading to put his name to the Freycinet sparkler.  He said:  “Tas is a great place for sparkling, it’s so similar to the champagne climate it’s not funny. The temperature, humidity and sunshine of Champagne and Tassie line up pretty well.  There’s lots of potential to make the best nationally.”

Dr Andrew Pirie is another long-time talent who has arguably done more than anyone to plough the furrow for all Tasmanian wine. Now heading up Tamar Ridge, as well producing his own wines under the Pirie label, he said: “Tas sparkling pinot has a natural mid-palate fruit sweetness and richness which seems lost in warmer areas and seems to be one of the features of true cool climate sparkling fruit.”

The new Pirie NV sparkler will be released later in 2008, the aim for which he said is to be a “complex, soft and rich 50/50 chardonnay/pinot noir, with mid-palate fullness from good Tas pinot noir, and taut, but not aggressive, acidity from the chardonnay.”

The big boys on the mainland were not slow to realise the potential of Tasmania’s ‘true cool climate’. Domaine Chandon ’s winemaker, Matt Steel, said: “We have been sourcing from Tasmania since 1992 to use in our vintage-tier sparkling wines. It is part of our philosophy of building wines of complexity through regional diversity of fruit supply. We source base wines from regions such as Macedon, the Whitlands plateau, Strathbogie and Tasmania. The Tasmanian base wines generally exhibit a flinty aromatic, fine structure and very long length of flavour.”

Sparkling fruit

Hardy’s bought the Bay of Fires winery in 2001 having sourced fruit from Tas for several years prior to this.  Bay of Fires sources fruit from all over Tasmania for their three labels of sparkler: Arras, Bay of Fires and Tigress. Ed Carr, Hardy’s group sparkling winemaker, said: “Tasmanian grapes have a greater level of minerality than the mainland. The wines exhibit a structural elegance, suppleness and longevity which is essential for the production of premium sparkling wine. These characteristics allow the wines to be aged to a high level of flavour maturity and complexity and yet retain a freshness and brightness that is only seen in world class sparkling.”

Whilst Jansz was one of the first sparkling wines from Tasmania, it’s fortunes have been blooming since the purchase, in 1998, by the Hill Smiths of Yalumba. Robert Hill Smith said “while Australia is seen as the home of robust big reds, sparkling winemakers in Tasmania are quietly producing wines that give most genuine Champagnes a run for their money in quality and price.”

That most of the big producers have already invested in Tasmania fruit illustrates the excitement generated for the quality of its bubblies. Hill Smith said: “Jansz has a single-minded focus to be among the best in the world.”

What makes cool climate Australia so trendy all of a sudden? If you believe much of the marketing blurb it seems that any region other than the Murray Valley is suddenly ‘cool climate’. It’s time to and pin down cool climate to some identifiable locations, whose wines attributes that differentiate them from wines from warmer areas.  

The temperature map of Australia in the new edition of the World Atlas of Wine shows only a few spots of potentially cool climate, and they are south of the Great Dividing Range, where January (July in the northern hemisphere) surface temperature is below 20°C. The theory goes that cooling Southern Ocean winds creep into part of the south-facing slopes of the mountains, helping moderate temperature. As soon as you’re over the top of the mountains, things warm up considerably – you’re on your way to the interior.

Macedon Ranges

This is perfectly exemplified by the Macedon Ranges/Heathcote boundary in Victoria. The Macedon Ranges, about an hour northwest of Melbourne, are acknowledged as the mainland’s coolest wine-growing region. It sits atop the south facing slopes of the Great Dividing Range. It is gaining reputation for its sparkling-wine fruit, chardonnay, and cool climate talisman pinot noir. Acclaimed Michael Dhillon, of Bindi, makes his wine in the Macedon Ranges, as does Phillip Moraghan at Curly Flat. Moraghan spent 18 months searching cool-er climate Australia before settling in the Macedon Ranges, having become empassioned about ‘pinot grief’ as he says, in Switzerland.

Immediately north of Macedon is reputed shiraz-territory, Heathcote, which is already atop the north-facing slopes of the Great Dividing Range, and considerably warmer.

Temperature is generally acknowledged as being the primary determinant of climatic suitability for viticulture. See below for the nitty-gritty.  But cool defining climate is much trickier as so may other parameters come into play: exposition, proximity to bodies of water, wind (speed, direction, temperature, humidity, timing), evapotranspiration, cloud cover, annual rainfall patterns, ripening-season rainfall, altitude. Vintage variation is a given.

Why is it important? 

Cool climate has become shorthand for high quality. There’s an anecdotal association with longevity in bottle. Though, if Bordeaux is deemed cool climate, it’s only too well known there’s poor quality there, but there’s also the best.

North Tasmania

Scale is factor. No cool climate region is large and homogenous.  As Chris Smith, viticultural manager at Tasmania’s Cloverhill, said:  “when in a cool climate, vineyard practices have to be very precise”.

Claudio Radenti, of Freycinet Vineyard in Tasmania, said: “go a few kilometres and things change. For us site selection is very important, shelter from the westerly winds” and for pinot noir keeping the yield down to grand cru levels. Though yield and attention to detail are commercial considerations, benefits include individuality of expression, complexity, finesse, and a higher return per bottle through a necessarily higher price.

Even the new Aussie industry strategy, Directions 2025, pays attention to the status of wines of place.  Having ruled the roost for a decade and more with inter-regional blends, the industry wants to exploit the points of difference offered by cooler climate: different flavour profiles, higher price points, a focus on cool-fruit sparkling wines, grape varieties more expressive of the terroir, though heaven forfend the Aussies would use such a word.

Cool climate from the wine up

A warmer climate seems pretty easy to identify: lower acidity, higher alcohol, fuller body, sweeter, jammier fruit, overt alcohol, high extract easily achieved.  

Too cold is pretty easy too: the grapes don’t ripen.  Which makes cool climate ‘just warm enough’ to ripen fruit before the cold of autumn sets in.

Pirie Tasmania’s Dr Andrew Pirie, a cool climate specialist, postulates true cool climate  as “regions with a mean January [or July] temperature equal or less than 19.0°C or 1150 day degrees (see below). It corresponds with the ability to ripen pinot noir, pinot gris, traminer, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc, but not semillon, merlot  or cabernet franc except in exceptional locations.”  This would include Tasmania, Macedon, parts of Mornington and parts of the Yarra Valley.

Tasmania is undoubtedly Australia’s coolest climate, and it is reclaiming its main defining characteristic under the banner ‘true cool climate wines’.  A look at Tassie’s key grape varieties – chardonnay, riesling, gewürztraminer, pinot gris, sauvignon blanc, and pinot noir – pretty much confirm Pirie’s thesis. Sparkling wines are a forte.  

East Coast Tasmania

Francine Austin, winemaker at Hardy’s Tasmanian Bay of Fires winery is very clear: “cool climate is a combination of two things: finesse and elegance. A tightness of wine combined with power from a high concentration of aromatic flavour compounds.” For this, she said “high sunshine hours and lower temperatures are needed which retain delicate aromatic compounds. Acid degradation is slow, and ripening season day time temperature does not exceed 25°C.”

The science stuff

Drs. Amerine and Winkler (1944) defined five regions of California using a temperature index. Using a seven month growing season, they calculated the ‘degree days’ above 10°C (at which temperature vines generally start growing). Mean monthly temperature less 10 (degrees) multiplied by the number of days in the month, and totalled for the seven months.

They came up with five regions, which still form the bedrock of viticultural climatic data. Their system has been variously refined, amended and critiqued, but not abandoned.

Region I is the coolest.  Each region can be matched to the mean temperature of the warmest month (MJT) – January or July. From the regions that fit into the model, typical grape varieties can be identified.

Source: paper by Dr. Andrew Pirie – ‘Defining Cool Climate’. Stratford’s Brave New World seminar, London, September 2007

Dr. John Gladstones developed the model for Australia. Drs. Peter Dry and Richard Smart developed a homoclime approach, using a range of climatic measures including radiation, rainfall and relative humidity. Pirie brought in growing-season rainfall and humidity to the blooming algebraic calculation, to account for low vine-moisture stress during growing time.

Selection of locations to show MJT and degree days

Sources:
Wine Atlas of the World, sixth edition. eds. Hugh Johnson, Jancis Robinson
Wine Atlas of Australia.  James Halliday
Viticulture and Environment. John Gladstones
NB: values from different sources may not be directly comparable.

Caviste £18.95 per 37.5cl bottle

Hobbs Grenache ('07 label)

On the nose your senses are enveloped by sweetly stewed fresh, aromatic strawberries. This light and elegant perfume feeds through to the palate structure, which is intense and concentrated alongside the lightness. This is outrageously delicious. It’s a light, lush, rich, well-balanced, sweet-yet-fresh digestif over which to put the world to rights. It has an unadulterated purity of fruit that finishes very long.  

The wine is made in a ‘passito’ style: the grapes are laid out on racks to dry in air conditioned sheds.  Over time this evaporates a proportion of the water, which leaves all the fruity and structural bits in the grape beautifully concentrated.  The juice yield from these partially desiccated grapes is less than a third that from grapes pressed immediately after harvest.

There’s plenty of residual sweetness to this wine, which is delicately balanced with just 9% alcohol in what is a really refreshing dessert wine.

Two members of the newly-formed Australia’s First Families of Wine (AFFW) have been in the UK creating awareness for the new group of family-owned Aussie wine producers.  There has been a decent amount of interest among the press, and I took my slot and had a chat with Bruce Tyrell, of Tyrell’s Wines. Robert Hill-Smith of Yalumba was off elsewhere.

Tyrrell Family

Bruce hit the nail on the head when he said the world has been waiting for some good news to come out of Australia. It’s been doom and gloom for Australia for a while: glut and prolonged drought at the same time, exports dropping in key markets, the big companies offloading Aussie assets, other companies going to the wall etc. 

The new AFFW project has a touchy-feely aspect where members of the owning families will be on the road to promote their wines, to promote Aussie regionality and wines with personality. Tyrell said: “After the last twelve months, a lot of people don’t trust the big organisations, but a family operation is easier for consumers to get hold of, to hang onto, and trust what they say.” 

One of the criteria for membership of this family of families is having two generations working the farm.  Tyrell said: “the younger generation will be getting into marketplace and doing what we did 25 years ago.” And he added “If we bring the next generation together we’ll have been successful“.  Many members of the senior generation are evidently good friends as well as competitors.

The organisation has been a while in the making, with the first discussions taking place in 2005.  And after their first formal meeting at the back end of 2006, Tyrell said: “the wineries sort of fell into place, though not everyone who was invited wanted to join.” Twelve would seem to be the perfect vinous number, but he said it’s not locked into, so there could be more members. Given the positive reception the group has had, one can imagine the odd winery regretting their decision to decline the invitation.

The national organisation that promotes Australian wine – Wine Australia – already has a strategy to promote what it calls ‘regional heroes’. This is exactly the place where some of the wines of the AFFW fit.  Tyrell was keen to emphasise that the families are committed to Wine Australia, but “wanted to add to it; to do more things at the better end of Australian wine. We want to expand the coverage, especially of regional heroes, so we can get a better share of that market.”

So, while some of wineries are really quite sizeable, indeed five of them are in the top 20 biggest wineries in Australia, Tyrell iterated the focus will be on regional styles of wine, as well as each family’s icon wines.  These latter he loosely defined as “wines that have a long term show record, they’re on the Langton’s list; wines that are recognised in the trade and market as icon wines.

“It either is or it isn’t.”  he said.  Which makes sense in a way – standout examples include his own Tyrell’s Vat 1 Hunter Semillon, as well as Henschke’s Hill of Grace, McWilliams’ Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon and De Bortoli’s Noble One. And a joining criterion is having 20 years of icon wines available for tasting.

The group is next meeting at the end of November to finalise plans for 2010, with the first big splash likely to be at the London Wine Trade Fair (trade only) in May.  As part of the campaign, Tyrell said to expect some long verticals, though he didn’t say if trade, consumers or both would benefit.

Mac Forbes

Australian pinot noir has evolved beyond recognition in the last five to ten years. Cooler sites are being exploited and greater varietal definition and purity are emerging as a result of this, and producers’ growing expertise at managing the fruit/acid paradigm of balance rather than the more typical, for red wine, fruit/tannin paradigm. Inevitably this means a lower perception, and reality, of new oak influence on the fruit from this delicate grape variety. And cooler sites do their part to help preserve more natural acidity in the fruit.

The regions of Australia currently producing some of the best expressions of pinot noir include Tasmania, plus Gippsland, Mornington Peninsula and the Yarra Valley, all in Victoria.

Mac Forbes of Mac Forbes Wines, in the Yarra Valley, led a blind-tasting seminar, in London this month, of Australian pinot noir from these regions. He said: “It’s terrific when there’s excitement in the local industry. From producers’ perspectives, we’re in the midst of an exciting time in history, certainly from a cool climate perspective.”

He emphasised that the Aussies are at the beginning of their learning curve for pinot noir, saying “the questions are far bigger than the answers. We’re asking questions on soils and clones and canopy management. And we’re coming to grips with our own frontier. I’ve never seen so much energy and focus with varieties like pinot noir, as well as pushing the boundaries with other varieties such as shiraz. We’re making a lot of trials, and having a lot of failures.”  Not to mention some enormous and encouraging successes to build on.

Another reason for pinot noir being at the beginning of the curve in Australia is that much of the existing planting material was planted in the wrong (warmer) place, with many of the wrong clones. And said Forbes: “a big chunk of pinot noir problems in the past is because they were situated in places where the night time temperatures are too warm. So there’s a loss of aromatics.”  In fact, Forbes reckons “the picking date is the most important thing. The acid is dropping, fruit vitality is dropping, so we have a pretty small window to pick.  We’re dealing with some fundamental differences in fruit behaviour compared to Europe.” This from a chap who also works in Austria, so he’s able to make direct comparisons with authority.

Victoria

Part of the ongoing challenge is for Australia to identify a style of pinot noir it can claim as its own.  New Zealand’s Central Otago has done a fantastic job in this regard. But Australia is so big it’s not going to have just one style.  Already Mornington Peninsula is talking about sub-regional styles, and Forbes is pushing Yarra Valley the same way. 

For the time being, it’ll be a good job for Australia just to be recognised for producing some proper pinot noir. 

Tasting notes

All the wines were from the 2008 vintage, some of which had not yet been released onto the market at the time of tasting. They would be expected to put on a bit of weight, and fatness, in bottle (a good thing in this context)!

Ten Minutes By Tractor, McCutcheon Vineyard Pinot Noir 2008, Mornington Peninsula
15 months in oak, 27% new.
Pale ruby garnet. Aromatic strawberry, heady perfume. Fresh, light elegant attack with piquancy of alcohol (13.8%) in mid palate, bit of dark plum mid palate. Could have a bit more mid-palate density, but very good varietal definition. Hint of the savoury, with long finish.

Kooyong Haven Pinot Noir 2008, Mornington Peninsula
18 months in oak, 30% new.
Medium deep ruby. Rich blueberry aroma, sandalwood spice of new oak peeking through the aroma, not obtrusive. Medium full body, lush sweet fruit (in a dry wine), good slug of slippery glycerol adding to palate texture, fruit slightly hollow mid-palate, and finish a little disappointing on first tasting, but fills out a bit in the glass and palate has lengthened after time in the glass.

Stoniers Windmill Vineyard Pinot Noir 2008, Mornington Peninsula
11 months in oak, 45% new
Medium ruby. Nose a bit closed, hint of blackberry stems/leaf, and a faint note of tannin grip early on palate. Quite full bodied with sweet texture and redcurrant fruit. Decent length. Quite crunchy (not wholly positive in this context).

Yabby Lake Pinot Noir 2008, Mornington Peninsula
12 months in oak, 33% new
Medium ruby. Wild strawberry nose, bit more warmth in comparison to the first three wines. Hints of savoury, earthy notes amid the soft red berries. The most structured of the first four wines, and attractive for that. Refreshing baked note to finish. Length could be longer. 14% alcohol completely balanced and integrated.

William Downie Gippsland Pinot Noir 2008, Gippsland
40% new barriques.
Medium ruby, with stewed red berries, and hints of tomato leaf and mint leaf. Bit stalky mid palate, with dark plum competing for attention on mid palate. Quite edgy just now. Might settle into itself.

Tamar Ridge Kayena Vineyard Pinot Noir 2008, Tasmania
12 months in 20% new oak.
Bright red cherry fruit, elusive perfume. Medium body with attractive acid balance and freshness of fruit. Softening crunchy fruit, decent length, piquant allspice note mid palate to complex the fruit a little; smoothly textured; wholesome.

Delamere Vineyard Pinot Noir 2008, Pipers River, Tasmania
15 months in 35% new oak.
Medium ruby; aromatic spice nose, not so much fruit aroma on the nose, seductive sweet red fruit undercurrent to the palate with noticeable tannin. Fruit wins out. Attractive slippery texture, sweet but dry fruit, nicely balanced fruit/acid spectrum with a bit of tannin muscle to soften in over the next couple of years.

Pirie Estate Pinot Noir 2008, Tasmania
12 months in barrel
Medium ruby with purple hint. Fresh purple fruit, crunchy, youthful, more simple at first nose. Almost blackberry/Ribena. Has gentle sensation of pinot noir with softer acid core; fruit opens up in warmth of mouth. Quite full bodied with youthful tannin frame, but  still succulent fruit. Nicely balanced; refreshing finish.

Stefano Lubiana Pinot Noir 2008, Tasmania
12 months in 30% new oak
Medium deep ruby; juicy dark plum nose and palate attack. Full sweet-fruited body, plum, dark cherry, good level of smoothening glycerol, very nicely balanced for longer evolution, and now. Seductive style with serious structure.

Shelmerdine Pinot Noir 2008, Yarra Valley
10 months in oak
Medium pale colour; wild strawberry, intense perfume nose, very aromatic. Light, sweet-fruited attack, strawberries and raspberries, definitely in the aromatic profile, still with slippery texture; elegantly structured; lightness of being with this wine. Tannins largely hidden; perfume persists through palate. Delicious now, not sure about keeping it for any length of time. Long fruity finish.

Mac Forbes Coldstream Pinot Noir 2008, Yarra Valley
11 months in 35% new oak.
Medium pale colour; crunchy cherry skins on the nose. Perceptive tart note to palate attack, quickly followed by youthful, primary fruit. No great complexity on first tasting; perkily balanced but not showing many personality traits, but does open up in the glass. Long finish though, so maybe understated. Light on tannins.

Yarra Yering Pinot Noir 2008, Yarra Valley
18 months in 40% new oak.
Medium ruby; smoky, almost mint note to the nose; warm, dry baked black cherry, medium full body, warm and warming on the palate, quite seductively textured with good intensity and volume of fruit. Richly balanced with expansive fruit, and sweet long fruit finish. Probably the most atypical of these wines. The 14% alcohol is integrated.

Mac Forbes Woori Yallock Pinot Noir 2008, Yarra Valley
11 months in 33% new oak.
Medium pale; toasted red cherry; medium bodied. Hint savoury mid palate; slightly subdued, but with focused acid core. Fragrant strawberry aroma mid palate; tight fruit; finish a bit shorter than I might have hoped.

But in recession-hit times the love affair is beginning to wear thin, so it wouldn’t necessarily seem like the best time for a group of wine producers to start a campaign focusing on posh Aussie wines from different parts of Australia, when most of what we’ve been used to is stuff from that ubiquitous catch-all location ‘South Eastern Australia’.

Australia's First Families of Wine group

Nonetheless, this is exactly what a dozen family-owned companies have done.  It’s true to say that Australia doesn’t just produce consistent, entry level wines for everyday drinking. Among the 7,000 or so growers there are plenty more than a handful making sometimes exquisite expressions of site and variety – though at a cost that most Brits have so far been rarely willing to pay.

This ‘bevvy’ of twelve families (twelve being the magic number in wine – one each in a case?) have come together to jointly market their wines, and show us exactly what makes them distinct from the modern-day versions of 70s fashion clinks ‘kanga rouge’ and ‘wallaby white’.

Proudly calling themselves Australia’s First Families of Wine (AFFW), these guys plan to spend at least AUD$500 million to show that Aussie wines can have real character and individuality, can express the place where they’re grown and made, and the varieties from which they’re made.

The French might have called this terroir, the Aussies call it ‘regionality’.

The aim is to create a whole new image on the global stage for the section of the Aussie wine industry for which such regionality provides a key marker in their winemaking ethos.

Together the twelve own over 5,000 hectares of Australian vineyard, which is about 3% of the country’s total vineyard area. Between them they have over 1,200 years of winemaking experience.

The UK is the initial target market for First Families’ activities, starting in 2010, and I was interviewed about the UK market as part of an ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Radio package about the first families’ initiative.

Listen to the ABC Radio package (3 mins 45 secs):

A draft plan of action to increase awareness based on consumer sampling and education opportunities is due to be finalised in early November 2009.

The founding members of the AFFW are:
Brown Brothers (Victoria)
Campbells (Victoria)
d’Arenberg (South Australia)
De Bortoli (New South Wales)
Henschke (South Australia)
Howard Park (Western Australia)
Jim Barry (South Australia)
McWilliam’s (New South Wales)
Tahbilk (Victoria)
Taylors (South Australia) – called Wakefield in the UK, something to do with a Port company…
Tyrrell’s (New South Wales)
Yalumba (South Australia)

The Australians are not the first to create high profile joint marketing groups.  Primum Familiae Vini has been around for a number of years. More recently a group from New Zealand have joined together, as well as some key producers from Italy who make Amarone.  I’ll publish something about these other groups soon.

Windy Peak Pinot Noir

Closure: screwcap
Abv: 13.5%
De Bortoli
£8 to £9 at Sainsburys, EH Booth, Frank Stainton Wines, RS Wines

This is just the fab-est and best value juicy pinot noir I’ve come across in ages.  Parcels of fruit come from across Victoria – Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula, Geelong and Beechworth – to make a fresh wine with gentle strawberry aromas, medium weight and a pretty, elegant, silky texture for its price. It’s not complicated which is part of its juicy charm, and it has good varietal definition. There’s not a jot of oak to interfere with the purity of fruit.

Australia has been long derided on the international stage for the poor quality and varietal typicity of its pinot noir wines, and little wonder when Australian imagery has been vast, spectacular, beautiful, panoramic scenery, all of which is the antithesis of the capricious, site-specific, agoraphobic pinot noir. But the last decade has seen a step change in focus as passionate winemakers have been pandering to the variety’s prima donna needs, with some particularly sweet success.

East Coast Tasmania

It’s arguably not even as niche a product as pinot noir is in France. Perhaps it’s one of those weird statistical comparisons, but Australia, with 2.5% of its vineyard area dedicated to pinot noir, has nearly twice the proportion of pinot noir than Burgundy, which has a meagre 1.3% of France’s vineyard area. For the purists, the absolute hectarage is 4,400 hectares (ha) in Australia versus 10,700 ha in Burgundy.

A quick scan of auction house Langton’s latest classication reveals eight pinot noirs, up from two in the first edition. Langtons’ Andrew Caillard MW, said there had been “a genuine improvement of absolute quality over the last ten years … the top regions are really the Melbourne Dress Circle (e.g. Geelong, Macedon, Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula) and Tasmania.”  

Pinot noir plantings may be up only 6% since 2001, but it was also around this time that serious pinot noir producers were getting serious.  Noel Young, proprietor of Noel Young Wines, International Wine Challenge (IWC) Australia Specialist merchant of the year in 2008, which lists 23 Aussie pinot noirs said “progress has been rapid in the last four or five years with the right clones in the right locations, but it’s been happening in Tasmania and Mornington Peninsula since the mid-to-late 1990s as growers have done vintages in France” and experimented with different clones in different soils.

Cool Climate Chic

There’s no getting away from the fact that pinot noir performs to its most precise and perfumed best in cooler climates, and this factor oversees the recent themes of new clonal material, vines coming of age at about a decade old, the trend to site-specific and single vineyard plots, as well as the growing band of producers rocking and rolling with the pinot noir drum.  See table at the end for key areas.

Tasmania certainly has the edge here. “The major natural advantage for Tassie is the wonderful cool climate” said Claudio Radenti of Freycinet Vineyard, “Around the world all the great pinot noirs hail from cool climates. Pinot noirs from warmer climates can be a little heavy and jammy lacking finesse and the gorgeous velvety pinot noir texture.

“The quality potential in Tassie is enormous and exciting. Longer slower ripening conditions favours retention of delicate fruit aromas and flavours” and coolness of climate enables some of those classic, ethereal attributes to thrive.  According to the chief winemaker of Kreglinger Wine Estates (Pipers Brook, Ninth Island and Kreglinger sparkling) René Bezemer, “we retain more of our fruit-derivative components. I look for floral attributes, delicate perfume and distinctive fruit aromas – violets, darker berry fruit, dark cherry.  If I see blackcurrant it’s shrivelled fruit from too much sun. If see strawberry, it’s been picked too early.”    

Pinot Noir

Exploiting the trend to cool climate chic, Tasmania’s vineyard area has nearly trebled since the turn of the millennium, with in 2008, 45% of the yield coming from pinot noir.  In 2000, it accounted for less than one-third.   

Over on the ‘big island’, Mornington Peninsula is oft-cited as producing some really good pinot noir. And internally, Mornington Peninsula winemakers have been talking about sub-regions for some time already: three of them.  Pinot noirs from the north are bigger, more muscular, darker style.  The hill – Main Ridge – show delicate perfumes, floral, elegant notes. 

Ten Minutes by Tractor is one Mornington Peninsula producer doing very well, especially with their single vineyard wines, which can all be reached in ten minutes when travelling by tractor. Neil McAndrew, managing director of their UK importer H&H Bancroft, said: “For us Ten Minutes by Tractor have been the best pinot noirs we’ve ever found in Australia.  They are the bridge between Burgundy and Australia. They have some classic pinot noir characters, but they’re not trying to be Burgundy; they have a savoury character which I haven’t seen in the past from Australia. “The volumes are also Burgundian, and what Bancroft get flies out of the door, according to McAndrew, who also said Ten Minutes By Tractor is the sort of premium Australian wines the restaurant sector is looking for.  It sells in places such as The Square, Home House, Fortnum and Chez Bruce.

Kooyong is another highly respected producer in the Mornington Peninsula, planted as recently as 1996.. The managing director of their UK agent, Great Western Wines, said: “He’s producing great quality in terms of acceptance in the market.  The wines that really tell the story of Kooyong are the wines made from individual parcels, retailing at £25 to £30. But Kooyong also makes two other levels retailing at £15-£16 and about £11, and the acceptance for these has been very good, and remains so, with good success in the independent sector and in the on trade.”  The commercial groundswell is certainly beginning in the UK.

Climbing, Climbing

Both Mornington Peninsula, and Geelong, noted for the likes of Bannockburn and By Farr – on the other side of Port Philip are low-lying coastal zones which garner cooling winds from the Bass Strait. Yet planting at cooler, higher altitudes is also beginning to reap rewards in places such as the Adelaide Hills, though the Macedon Ranges are arguably more successful.  It was in the Macedon Ranges, at 560m elevation, that Phillip Moraghan of Curly Flat settled, having eliminated both Geelong and Mornington Peninsula.  He explained his search was “all about pinot ‘grief’, looking for soil, cool climate, water” all issues for this fastidious grape variety.

But is arguably Bindi, 500m up at the southern end of Macedon that leads the field. The vines, which require straw buttressing in winter, have some age, having been planted in 1988, with 1991 the first vintage.  Owner Michael Dhillon said: “We see about 7-9 years as a real turning point for complexity and structure.”  

Yarra Valley

Steve Webber, winemaker at De Bortoli in the Yarra Valley, also cites vine age, as well as continuously improving quality practices, saying : “I think that with more care and attention to the manual practices [hand picking, hand sorting, whole berry fermenting], we have seen a huge shift in our own quality … I think pinot noir is a vine age thing. Generally our quality is improving with vine age. But poor quality old vine material is not good. I am just starting to make a single vineyard wine from a property that has pinot noir planted in 1990 and 1997″, adding that single vineyard is an important way forward for pinot noir.

A criticism of the Yarra Valley, making as it does, everything from sparkling to fortified, is that its pinot noirs don’t do so well in the warmer years, or indeed the warmer areas, so you need to be in the higher altitude, more southerly, reaches of the valley. But not everyone thinks like that. Rob Hall, winemaker at Mount Mary, just about 30m above the valley floor said: “you can still make very good pinot noir in warmer years, but may not be in the style you’d choose.  Normally we’d like a more delicate style of pinot noir, we’re not keen on tannin or wood. So you might get more tannin in a warmer year. But you can do something with the canopy to keep the fruit cooler.” He added “we’re purchasing south facing slopes for pinot noir and chardonnay to counter some of the warmer years. ”

Champion Clones

Along with site and vine age, newer, trendier clones such as 667, 777, 114 and 115 have been in Australia, also for about a decade. Pirie said there had been a “big impact of new clones and new sites leading to more refined pinot noir expression. At Tamar Ridge, up to 2006, wines were dominated by ‘old’ clones, plus MV6, an old introduction into Australia. These are robust clones but are lacking some of the high notes of true Burgundy.  In the last few years the Pommard clone and the ‘Bernard’ clones from Morey St Denis were introduced. A blend of Pommard and MV6 will be one of the Tamar Ridge reserve wines in 2008.  The Dijon clones, grown on the right soils, have the classic perfume of cherries and summer pudding berries.”

Creature Champions

But above all, human champions are at the vanguard of Aussie pinot noir’s lifting reputation.  Dhillon said: “15 years ago it was young vines, often in poor locations, little experience in the vineyard and winery.  Most [winemakers] did not have a philosophy based on understanding the international benchmarks.  Today, the vines are older, vine management better, yields lower, winemaking more appropriate and the best sites are proving themselves capable of expressing unique qualities.”

“We have inspired growers and winemakers who have a passion and a thorough understanding of benchmarking, using the correct clones and the right sites to grow this unique and challenging grape variety” said Dalwhinnie Wines’ winemaker David Jones, adding “the Mornington Penisnsula Pinot Noir Celebration [a bi-annual pinot noir fest with international flavour, which started in 2003] has been an iconic event and a great inspiration to reach even higher quality levels.”

Another such event is the Victorian Pinot noir workshop, a winemaker-only event, now in its 6th year, where more than 60 winemakers come together to discuss the grape and how to get better and more from it.  Having witnessed “a growing ‘collegiality’ amongst Victorian winemakers who venture down the love-struck path of growing and making pinot noir, more so in this state than I have observed elsewhere” the Victorian Wine Industry Association’s chief executive Joanne Butterworth-Gray thinks this co-operation has been “critical to the success of Victorian pinot noir on the world stage.”

The scale may necessarily be small for the best results, as indeed it is in Burgundy, and as Radenti said, “there are considerably more serious producers of pinot noir in the current decade than in the previous one. There is better understanding by these young professionals of what it takes viticulturally and in the winery to come up with the goods.”

Pinot noir plantings in Australia

A lot of areas are experimenting but a few core regions dominate higher quality production

Adelaide Hills                       391 ha

Geelong                                   170

Macedon Ranges                    58

Mornington Peninsula       252

Tasmania                                 625

Yarra Valley                          706

Sub total                              2,202   50% of total pinot noir plantings

Clare Valley, South Australia

After 200 years of viticulture are Australians beginning to find, or to want to find, a sense of place, an identification of terroir, in some of their wines?

The European model of terroir has evolved over centuries of experiential learning. Indeed that most famous of wine regions, of red wine regions, Bordeaux, was in a large part a white-wine growing region in the 16th century, when the Dutch wanted base material for eau-de-vie. Now it is 90% red, an evolution that began its turnaround in the 17th century, before Australia was even a twinkle in any European’s eye.

If terroir, or regionality, as the Aussies might call anything approaching it, has a recognisable taste-DNA in the glass, even the most hardened anti-terroirists would probably agree that wines such as Barossa shiraz, Hunter semillon, Clare riesling or Rutherglen muscat have a unique and identifiable flavour profile.  These  wines can’t really be from anywhere else. But what about Heathcote shiraz, Hunter shiraz, Hilltops shiraz? Is it just too early for the world to appreciate nuance and stylistic variety from Australia? 

“Most of the wine drunk on a daily basis necessarily drops below the requirement for terroir” said Andrew Pirie, CEO and chief winemaker at Tamar Ridge Estates “because consumers are not looking at complexity or individuality of flavour but rather the basics of flavour, balance and freshness. Australia has been prodigious in this category.”

But, he adds “that is not to say that your average daily wine drinker would turn up his nose at complexity and individuality- it is just a fact that wines with terroir influence are rarely affordable for the mass consumer because large brands and large blends that occupy the terrain of the everyday drinker normally need by nature the steadiness of a large inter-regional blend to be repeatable.”

Directions to 2025

A key thrust of Directions to 2025, the latest strategy document for the Australian industry, is to increase this awareness that there is no one style and price of Australian wine.

And one of the strategy’s strands – ‘regional heroes’ – feeds neatly into the concept of terroir. Wines that focus on regional diversity, wines with ‘a clear association between region and variety and/or style’. This opens up opportunities for the Australian market to expand price points and add complexity to their offering by associating  ’region with style’ rather than grape variety with many styles, which, as Chile saw, can create a narrow perception of a country’s vinous offering.

‘Brand champions’ are still there as an integral core of the strategy which, at the high volume end of production, play to Australia’s original strength of inter-regional blending to produce sufficient volumes of consistently styled wine to meet any amount of demand. 

Macedon Ranges, Victoria

This ’sunshine in a bottle’ label has worked supremely well for two decades.  But in an increasingly competitive global market, playing at the high volume end all the time makes one vulnerable to predation from other countries. Also, Mike Rogers of Aussie retail specialists Philglas and Swiggot said “I see what has made Australia really strong up to now — loads of fruit, low acidity, sweet tannin — is becoming less seductive to consumers. I think many people have got into drinking wine because Aussie wines are so accessible. But I think they’ve got more confidence to say they want something a little less obvious, less powerful, more quirky, more subtle, with more individuality and character rather than something that’s consistently good.”

Directions to 2025 details exactly this.  The stated positioning challenge is to move from the ‘reliable, accessible, everyday’ to the high marking ’super-premium, diverse, individual’.

And none of this is touchy-feely stuff. The stated aim is to deliver an additional AUD$4 billion of wine over the next five years, taking total turnover up to AUD$30bn by 2011.  If only the French laid out some clear strategic marketing aims and put in place mechanisms for producers to plug into…

Paul Henry, general manager market development for the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation has some experience straddling the new versus old world divide. He said: “the concept or philosophy of an Australian sense of terroir has never been absent, just much overlooked. Indeed, many of our now internationally recognised fine wines are ‘built’ along this European paradigm that place, rather then process, is all: ‘distinguished sites’ was a preferred phrase that still endures today.”

GI blues

Like appellations in Europe, the Geographical Indication system is one that delimits geographical boundaries according to agreed criteria. But the long contested boundary disputes of Coonawarra, in South Australia, and, more recently, King Valley in Victoria, illustrate that GI has little to do with terroir, or a consistent, single regional identity.

Tasmania

Brian Lynn, director of Majella Wines in Coonawarra, said: “we’ve always known the very best grapes from Coonawarra come from the terra rossa soils.  The soil is very much the heart of the matter, so it behoves any consumer of Coonawarra wine to ask the provenance of any purchases – where were the grapes grown?  Who made the wine etc.”

In Victoria, producers in the upland Whitlands plateau of the King Valley wanted their own GI, but to no avail, despite a decade of legal wranglings. At up to 900m above sea level, Whitlands is garnering its reputation for cool climate sparkling wine fruit, and aromatic varieties for still wine such as sauvignon blanc.  They’ve argued that other areas of the King Valley are climatically distinct, allowing for example, the growth of fruit for fortified wines from much lower down the valley. 

The Victorian microcosm

 In the wider context Victoria looks hunky-dory to benefit from the regionality/terroir thing. With 21 different, diverse regions, the state of Victoria has some just claim to be Australia’s regional hero de force, and has adopted the “Wines from somewhere rather than wines from anywhere” strap-line.  

The state’s wine industry association is busy preparing a marketing document telling the stories of each region, for example the Alpine Valleys promote ‘wine and food in cool mountain air’ with Mt Buffalo and Mt Feathertop providing rugged sporting opportunities such as paragliding, microlight flying, bush walking, trail riding and mountain biking. Après-ski Aussie-style perhaps?

As you’d expect, pinot noir dominates the Mornington Peninsula theme.  Yarra Valley’s ‘love it all’ message sums up the sparkling base wine to fortified wine breadth of climatic diversity that exists in the valley. Trendy Heathcote focuses on shiraz and Cambrian soils.

The chief executive of the Victorian wine industry association, Joanne Butterworth-Gray said:  “If we accept the definition that terroir is an aggregated effect of soil, topography, climate and possibly geology, then we have a fascinating story to tell – one that is unique within Australia.”

It would be a hard person indeed who disputed the unique attributes of Victoria’s Rutherglen muscats, but durif, brought to this small region exactly 100 years ago, is making a small name for itself. Colin Campbell, winemaker at Campbells in Rutherglen, said “While durif is grown in other parts of Australia, they’re different from ours. It’s more earthy and spicy than the newer clones that have come in over last 30 years.”  It seems some of that old world experiential learning is rubbing off in double-quick time.

Henry’s earned the last word: “the latest marketing efforts of Wine Australia should be seen as seeking to introduce an additional level of detail in our category evolution – regionally distinct wine that has a credible and discernable sense of place. These aspects have always been here, they just haven’t always enjoyed an appropriate focus.” It’ll all help push up the average FOB price too.

Delimiting terroir

Terroir is oft-defined as a confluence of a myriad of factors in a specific geographical location, including climate, soil and vines. Within this, water relations, topography and man’s influence strongly feature.

For great terroir there have to be elements of taste-DNA in the glass that enable the taster to pin-point that greater or lesser geographical location.

Beyond the individual characteristics of grape varieties, some elements of place and climate are taken for granted: low versus high acidity; medium versus high alcohol; jammy, baked, stewed fruit versus crunchy, fresh, aromatic fruit.  All these funnel into largely cooler or warmer climes.

Viticultural guru, Richard Smart said: “any place that grows wine has terroir, it goes without saying. Wine has a signature of the place where it was grown. But in the new world we talk about regional styles. Different regions have different attributes: Margaret River and Coonawara produce great cabernet sauvignon, the Barossa produces great shiraz, Tasmania  sauvignon blanc, riesling and sparkling wine. Varietal suitability, the interaction of grape variety and climate it at the crux.” 

 ”Those who have drunk wines from great terroir never doubt the superiority of a site over the creation of a wine blender” said Andrew Pirie, adding “the uncopy-able nature of terroir is what makes it unique, exciting and a step above wine which is just good. What is also attractive is that the character of wine created by terroir is irreproducible.”

In the words of Jeff Grosset, of Grosset Wines in Clare Valley: “The quality and purity of expression of variety is about the site and the making; eg the Grosset Springvale Watervale Riesling and the Grosset Polish Hill Riesling – both are considered of similar high quality, yet they are distinctly different. Given they are made in an almost identical fashion this difference is essentially due to site.”