Low-slung Savaterre vines

The owner and winemaker of Savaterre, Keppell Smith, set up shop in 1996, spitting distance across the road from famed Beechworth producer Giaconda. This migrant from the financial world said “all I want is a wine with personality” and this ‘simple’ wish had seen him search high and low across Australia’s wine regions for the perfect spot he says he’s found on the south facing slopes of the Beechworth hills, with their decomposing granite and clay soils. Of  his now home-turf Beechworth’s wines he said “I couldn’t understand why one of the best wineries – Giaconda – was here.  His was the first [Australian] wine with a European bent that I’d tasted – there was so much perfume, elegance, structure.”

So Smith planted chardonnay and pinot noir at around 460m above sea level, “six rows alternately because I didn’t know which would do best.  But all do well” he said.  He added shiraz to the vineyard in 2005, bringing his plantings to five hectares.  The vines are trained low on cordons, because, Smith said “the humidity here in summer is very low, and there is twice the humidity closer to ground” which he says helps keep the aromas in the fruit. The vines are planted at a dense 8,000 vines per hectare, which he said “is important for pinot noir here, you get the best intensity, structure and aroma from close planting.”

In 2010 work was well underway on an imposing new winery, with cement fermentation vats.  “I was using stainless steel” he said, “but it let out too much heat, too fast.” In the winery Smith says he’s just babysitting “I leave it alone, no yeast, no bacteria, I add sulphur, occasionally a little acid.” But there is no complacency in this minimal approach. “The attention to detail” is crucial, he said “every 1% you muck up, it’s cumulative.”

He does leave wines on the lees for a long time, about a year, “not stirred or anything” to add a creaminess to the texture.  On the reds, he said “lees really help the wood marry with the wine. It’s the gravy between the peas and the roast, the juice that brings it all together.”

His first vintage was in 2000, just two barrels of chardonnay. It must have been an auspicious beginning, because, just a decade later, in the 2010 issue of Langton’s classification, the Savaterre chardonnay jumped into the distinguished category of emerging classics.

As to the Savaterre name, it is the name of Smith’s father’s property in Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, USA – “a piece of low-lying swamp land”, he said. There is no similarity.

Tasting notes, in situ, October 2010

Savaterre, Chardonnay 2008
50% new French oak. 13.5%
Deep lemon colour. Creamy, leesy/yeast, hint buttery – not a fruit-based aroma, though some dry lemon toast notes on the palate, smooth, linear texture. Sweet-savoury yeast flavour going on in a serious and sophisticated, multi-layered wine.

Savaterre, Pinot noir 2008
13.5%. Pale cherry colour. Smoked cherry, savoury, smooth texture, dry spice and dry-sweet texture, savoury-sweet combo, delightful texture. Dark cherry fruit emerging, dry baked and layered. Texture is fine and refined.

My research visit to Australia in October 2010 was sponsored by Wine Australia.

Mornington Peninsula

Pinot noir is effectively a proxy for cool climate, and in the Burgundian model, where pinot noir does well, chardonnay is sure to follow. Perfume, brightness of fruit and vivacity of body should be hallmarks of cool climate wines, so when Wine Australia held a tasting in London during November of wines from Victoria that are available in the UK, these are the two varieties I stuck with, and I still didn’t manage to taste them all.

Australia, with many of the top examples coming from Victoria, has revolutionised its approach to these two grape varieties in the last, less-than-a-decade. Practitioners who are making classy pinot noir have often worked vintages in Burgundy at high profile domaines, and are bringing back to Australia the philosophy and practicalities around site-specificity required by such a capricious grape variety.

Attitudes to chardonnay, traditionally in Australia the winemakers’ malleable friend, are also revolving to much less active involvement. Instead, minimal intervention and more fruit-caretaking are leading to more refined, linear, even austere, expressions of this grape.

In Victoria, specific sites within such places as Mornington Peninsula, Geelong, Gippsland, Yarra Valley and Macedon Ranges are all making some outstanding examples.

Tasting notes, London, November 2011

Chardonnay

Crittenden Estate, Estate Chardonnay 2008, Mornington Peninsula, ~£18
Sweet leesy cream nose and palate with tropical fruit, and I feel a bit of an alcohol kick though it’s a pretty standard 13.5%.

Crittenden Estate, The Zumma Chardonnay 2008, Mornington Peninsula, ~£25
Creamy lemon on dry brown toast to nose, verging on the buttery sweet, which detracts a little for me. Sweet, unctuous sort of style, has good backbone, but a bit full-fat for my preference.

Dexter Wines, Chardonnay 2010 Mornington Peninsula, ~£25
Mealy and a hint reductive in that leesy, crème fraiche sort of way. Lovely sweet texture that’s not overpowering and with an acid frame that keeps everything fresh and tingly.

Kooyong Estate, Clonale Chardonnay 2010, Mornington Peninsula, ~£15
Light and leesy – meal, brioche, with sweet notes amid citrus fruits. Uncomplicated.

Kooyong Estate, Farrago Single Vineyard Chardonnay 2005, Mornington Peninsula, ~£26
Fatness and slippery broadening texture of some age, vegetal would be a bit strong, but still with savoury, leesy lines (as opposed to sweet lines), bread and dry biscuit notes, hints of sweet texture come towards the back. Lovely balance.

Stonier, Chardonnay 2009, Mornington Peninsula, ~£12
Sweet lemon cream nose and palate in quite a sharp lemon-syllabub sort of tartness. Softens on the palate into a good example at the price. Balanced, uncomplicated.

Stonier, Reserve Chardonnay 2008, Mornington Peninsula, ~£18
Weightier that the straight chardonnay as you’d expect, with some aromatic tarriness on the nose. Everything in the right place, but can’t quite get excited.

Ten Minutes by Tractor, 10X Chardonnay 2010, Mornington Peninsula, ~£24
Closed nose, in reductive style of slight sweat / flinty element, mealy notes amid just-ripe peaches on the palate attack, rich-linear profile of good intensity. Good personality and dimension. Some nice sophistication here, very good.

Ten Minutes by Tractor, Estate, Chardonnay 2009, Mornington Peninsula, ~£35
Wafting wood smoke is the first nose, slippery-textured attack, very smooth and richly concentrated. ‘Nice’ biscuitiness, almost unctuous-dry texture with linearity and clarity.  Vg.

Ten Minutes by Tractor, McCutcheon Chardonnay 2009, Mornington Peninsula, ~£45
Cream, leesy gentle toastiness, richness and creaminess are the themes, sweet-dry textured.  A huge wine, but finely balanced and sweetly balanced for that. Seductive and blanket-wrapping cuddliness at the same time. Vg.

Yabby Lake, Red Claw Chardonnay 2009, Mornington Peninsula, ~£15
A bit gunflint and austere, lean lemons and acacia-steel sort of stuff.  Good volume of that apple tart fruit, with a bit of leesy cream alongside. Good at £15.

Yabby Lake, Single Vineyard Chardonnay 2009, Mornington Peninsula, ~£26
Lees, meal, lemon cream, steely/metallic note on the mid tongue. Austerity, or, at 12%, just not quite ripe?

By Farr, Geelong Chardonnay 2008, Geelong, ~£34
Meal, white peachiness, huge intensity of ripe, near tropical fruit amid that leesy, toasty refinement, erring to full body, in quite muscular style, and with backbone of defining acidity. Not a particularly elegant wine but has a well-proportioned balance.

De Bortoli, Reserve Release Chardonnay 2008, Yarra Valley, ~£20
Lees and crème fraiche. Sweet texture and purity of fruit without huge complexity, but packs a lot of those lovely, sweet-line chardonnay characters into a straight down the line wine.

Pinot noir

Crittenden Estate, Estate Pinot Noir 2009, Mornington Peninsula, ~£18
Crunchy black cherries with attractive hessian notes, nicely balanced with fresh core. Good intensity.

Crittenden Estate, The Zumma Pinot Noir 2009, Mornington Peninsula, ~£25
Fresh and juicy, with very nice concentration of primary fruit. Good.

Dexter Wines, Pinot Noir 2010, Mornington Peninsula, ~£20
Pale colour, bright, sweet red cherry fruit, juicy succulence, enticing density of fruit with sweet lines. Lovely drinkability.

Kooyong Estate, Massale Pinot noir 2010, Mornington Peninsula, ~£16
Rich, round sweet footballs of juicy red plums and redcurrants. Sweet balance and uncomplicated juiciness. Focuses on the primary fruit, with the backbone of acidity, so not a fruit bomb.

Kooyong Estate, Haven Single Vineyard Pinot Noir 2005, Mornington Peninsula, ~£28
Developing a nice feral forest floor on the nose, dark berries, sweetened and fattened with ripeness, with a savoury spear of structure keeping the whole in its pure lines. Some nice sophistication of texture and dimension here. Vg.

Paringa Estate, Peninsula Pinot Noir 2009, Mornington Peninsula, ~£25
Warm herbal and earthy note on the nose, supple fruit with firm defining acidity, medium full body of huge intensity. Richly textured and layered with light bramble fruits and graphite earthiness. Vg.

Stonier, Pinot Noir 2009, Mornington Peninsula, ~£13
All quite light and with a faint hint of bitterness. Not hugely liking this one.

Stonier, Reserve Pinot Noir 2009, Mornington Peninsula, ~£20
Pale colour, redcurrant spiciness nutmeg and allspice. This is nice in a good ’solid’ unexciting way. Sound, but at a high level of soundness.

Ten Minutes by Tractor, 10X Pinot Noir 2010, Mornington Peninsula, ~£28
Bright, sweet red cherry and redcurrant, big hit of fruit delineated by freshness that gives it form. Perkily balanced with nicely toned lines. Vg.

Ten Minutes by Tractor, Estate Pinot Noir 2009, Mornington Peninsula, ~£38
Smokiness an added note of complexity here, amid dark cherries and hint of dark chocolate, in a full, rich, nutmeg infused whole. Fine grains of new oak still to meld in, as are youthful notes of silkiness. Vg.

Ten Minutes by Tractor, McCutcheon Pinot Noir 2009, Mornington Peninsula, ~£55
Smoke with hint of charcoal, on the nose, smooth, super-fine grained tannin in rich, lush (dry) palate sensation. Is a seductive, strong and slinkily built wine. Filling out on the palate nicely. Long finish. Vg.

Yabby Lake, Red Claw Pinot Noir 2009, Mornington Peninsula, ~£22
Pale colour, spicily toasted redcurrants, medium weight, bit of austerity here too, certainly less fleshy than some other examples. Gentle, modest texture.

Yabby Lake, Single Vineyard Pinot Noir 2009, Mornington Peninsula, ~£29
Sweet red cherry/redcurrant compote on the nose, enticing and cuddling. Perfectly proportioned tonality with intoxicating fruit/acid balance and volume of fruit/ nutmeg spiciness on the palate. Vg.

By Farr, Tout Près Pinot Noir 2008, Geelong, ~£65
Aromatic smoky with a hint of graphite on the nose. Sun-dried cherries attack the palate sweetly and freshly, warming into a full bodied, big style for pinot noir. Succulent, juicy, and with retaining frame that keeps the whole thing tastily proportioned. Long finish. Vg

William Downie, Gippsland Pinot Noir 2010, Gippsland, ~£35.00
Earth, dry compost and high-toned raspberries on the nose, an intriguing combination. Full steam ahead on the palate, rich, tongue-tingling, fresh dried raspberries and strawberry pieces; savoury, not quite earthy/graphite core. Hints of tannic grip, just enough to intrigue and critique, without losing the pleasure of tasting/drinking. Just young. Vg.

Julian Castagna

Ex-film director Julian Castagna, who learnt his love of wine in 1970s London – when the classics were affordable – bought his vineyard land in Beechworth, Victoria, in 1997, planting shiraz, sangiovese and viognier, with nebbiolo following in 2001 ‘because it is one of the great wines of the world’, he said.  His reason for planting sangiovese is equally poetic “I walked on the land [at Beechworth] and thought I was in Montalcino, Tuscany.”

Before taking the plunge, Castagna had gained several years’ hands-on experience with illustrious and iconic immediate neighbour Rick Kinzbrunner at Giaconda. His first vintage was in 1998, using bought-in fruit, and 1999 marked the first of his estate wines, which are single vineyard wines, biodynamically grown. He is not certified, but is a member of the Return to Terroir / Renaissance des Appellation group, a collection of nearly 200 certified and non-certified biodynamic producers from all over the world.

The four hectare vineyard is northerly-facing, and Castagna plans to reach a maximum of six hectares. Soils are granitic loams with quartz crystal particles, and Castagna said “when the [biodynamic] preparations are used correctly, they allow the vines to access stuff that in the soils.”

In 2010, Castagna took delivery of some concrete egg-shaped vats, with which to experiment.  He said “the eggs allow the wine to move” without getting any ‘dead’ areas as can be found in rectangular shapes. The plan, he said, was to put Genesis-destined [his flagship wine] shiraz and viognier into the eggs. “I expect another layer of complexity from them” he said “Aat the level of wine that we make, to try and increase quality by even 1% is worthwhile.”

Castagna always says he’s an intuitive winemaker, not a scientist, but his reasons for experimenting are sound “I can’t give a scientific reason, I do it because it tastes right.” No arguments there.

Castagna's vineyards

Many of the wines coming out of Beechworth show delightful flavours, which can partly be attributed to the cooler climate. The region’s heat degree days (HDD) range from 1240 to 1687, with it’s mean January temperature (MJT) ranging from 19.9°C to 20.4°C, which puts Beechworth across Amerine and Winkler’s Regions I and II.  Castagna said “cool climate Australia is where great wines will be made. We’re still working out who we are and what land works best and why. But it truly is about the land.”

The Beechworth vineyards also have the benefit of being around 500m above sea level. “Obviously,” Castagna said “we’re not as cool climate as Tasmania, parts of the Yarra Valley, the Macedon Ranges, but we get cool nights during the ripening phase. During the day it can be as high as 30°C to 35°C, then it drops to 10°C and sometimes less [at night]. Vines love that.”

Tasting the wines I found a silky fineness to the tannins, which Castagna explained as being “in the vineyard. At 13.2% there isn’t enough flavour, the tannins aren’t ripe. At 13.5% they are. Generally at 14.5% they’re fat,” adding “I make shiraz the way most people make pinot noir. We only pick ‘til 11am. The fruit is always cold when it comes in. I do a cold soak of up to 6 days pre-fermentation, with whole bunches and whole berries.”

His aim, he said is to make “wine that plays with your brain. I think our wines have an energy, a spirit of their own. And this life comes from the vineyard.”

Castagna’s son Adam is the assistant winemaker, who also makes his own label, Adam’s rib, from both estate fruit and bought-in fruit.

Tasting notes, in situ, October 2010

Adam’s Rib, White 2008, $35
14%; chardonnay 70%, viognier 30%. On lees for 18 months with a little stirring.
Dry honey note, sweet melon, nice leesy texture. Tropical fruit, with apricot, nice density.

Castagna, Ingenue 2008 $55
14%; viognier
Vibrant pale gold, reticent peach and apricot blossom nose, smooth textured attack, fine oak texture which supports the fresh and full body, with defining acid core. Not an ounce of flab on the wine. Has an elegance along with linear profile and lovely balance.

Castagna, Allegro 2009 $30
14% syrah rosé.  Same fruit as use in Genesis.
Pale, salmon colour. Warm strawberry nose, followed on palate with attractive weight, and slippery texture in fully dry style. Has a certain restraint, which opens up in the mouth.

Adam’s Rib, The Red 2008 $35
14%; nebbiolo (60%+), syrah
Medium pale colour. Aromatic cherry fruit on the nose, quite enticing. Something dark and herbal at the back of the nose. Palate gently spiced red cherry, sweet-sour, smooth, fine-layered tannin, fresh core. Nothing fleshy and fat but all nicely ripe. Elegant balance, and really tasty in a medium body which integrates the alcohol completely in layers of tannin. Very good.

Castagna, Genesis 2008 $75
14%; 98% syrah; 2% viognier.
Medium deep ruby red. Aromatic tar, plum and dark perfume. Smooth, dark, silky palate attack, just sweet fruit, in cool spectrum of silky black fruit. Dense fruit layers, hints of graphite retronasally, a delight to hold in the mouth and let flavours emerge. Long finish. Dry and youthful.

Castagna, Un Segreto 2005 $75
13.5%; 60% sangiovese, rest syrah.
Herbal cherry and plum nose. Bright and perky cherries in medium bodied wine whose tannins have a sweet-chalky grip. Dark fruit, berries, dark spices,with sweet core of fruit, as well as freshness. Complex and layered with, with not a sign of age, and a fresh finish.

Sam Plunkett

Plunkett-Fowles arose as a merger of two family wine businesses in 2005, both located in the rather rugged, granitic region of Strathbogie Ranges, remote even though it is only around 130km north of Melbourne. The business is run by chief winemaker Sam Plunkett, and CEO Matt Fowles.

Strathbogie is one of Australia’s cooler growing regions. With an HDD 1460 and an MJT of 20.7°C (James Halliday, Wine Atlas of Australia, 2006) it is little wonder that riesling is a favoured grape variety, and producers such as Domaine Chandon have a vineyard in the area, growing chardonnay and pinot noir, much going to their sparkling wine.

In one of those quirks of Australian viticulture, shiraz is also making a more than respectable name for itself.  Plunkett summed up his region thus: “Strathbogie is a 400 million year old mountain range. It’s two key features are firstly elevation, and secondly, granite.”  Elevation certainly plays a cooling role, with vineyards from around 200 to 600m above sea level, amidst granite tors and boulders.

Plunkett added “a lot of cool climate Australia is coastal – maritime, with high rainfall and the mould and disease pressure” that that brings, but “Strathbogie has less rainfall, it’s continental.  We get things ripe because there is less [disease] pressure to pick.” And in terms of ripening, Plunkett said Strathbogie is 1-2 weeks behind the Yarra Valley.

Strathbogie Ranges

The soils are infertile though, Plunkett said it’s mostly “timber land and sheep farming.” But in 1968, Plunkett’s father planted 30 grape varieties across three acres of their farm, though commercial plantings had to wait till 1980.  Now, the two wineries have 500 acres (200 hectares) of vineyard, and also make wine under contract for around 20 clients, half of whom grow grapes in Strathbogie Ranges. In any given year, Plunkett said “we crush between 2,300 and 4,500 tonnes.”

Plunkett-Fowles are also the makers of the quirkily-named Ladies Who Shoot Their Lunch range of wines, available, in the UK, through wine merchant Naked Wines for around £15 a bottle, for riesling, chardonnay, shiraz.

Plunkett is a firm believer in getting his wines to express the site as best they can: “we don’t use yeast which will influence the flavour, and we don’t use too much new oak which will mask the place.” Though he added “it will be a decade and more before we get a sense of what Strathbogie Ranges is” in terms of site expression.

As well as ‘Ladies Who Shoot Their Lunch, which Plunkett regards as something of branding phenomenon, the winery makes the ~AUD$25 Stone Dwellers range (granite boulders in the landscape), the ~AUD15 490m (the altitude of the farm), plus flagship wines The Rule and The Exception.

Tasting notes, in situ, October 2010

Plunkett-Fowles, Stonedwellers sauvignon blanc 2010
Grassy, aromatic, herby. Residual sugar was a bit too high for me (5g/l), I thought it made the wine a bit loose.

Plunkett-Fowles, Stonedwellers riesling 2010
However, in the riesling, 6g/l of residual sweetness created the perfect balance, with pithy lemon zest; light, bright, and with intense apple and lime. Vg

Plunkett-Fowles, Stonedwellers riesling 2008
Lime and petrol combo, with some nice weight developing. Light, steely, with gentle savoury notes, and good intensity.

Plunkett-Fowles, Ladies Who Shoot Their lunch riesling 2009
A third in old oak for texture, plus a tiny amount of gewürztraminer.  This was not my style, petrol development on the nose, fuller and fatter style.

Plunkett-Fowles, Stonedwellers Shiraz 2007
Black pepper spice, dense and gravelly, then with smooth, supple attack and texture. Dark brambly pepper, dense, sweet fruit, smooth, characterful and good.

Plunkett-Fowles, Ladies Who Shoot Their Lunch Shiraz 2008
Spicy plum and red fruit aromas, hints of new oak aromatics in a rounded, supple, less complex wine, undoubtedly more wide appealing for that.

Plunkett-Fowles, The Rule Reserve Shiraz 2008
Deep, smooth texture, very fine tannins. Fine, sophisticated, new oak absorbed completely in ripe, perfumed, dark, black gravelly fruit. Vg

My research visit to Australia in October 2010 was sponsored by Wine Australia.

Owner Fred Pizzini emigrated from Alto Adige, with his parents, sister and brother in 1956. They very soon settled in the King Valley. Fred’s property is located at the higher altitude, southern end of this north-south orientated valley, where vineyards verge onto the foothills of the Southern Alps, the highest at around 860m, though many are around half that altitude, some 300 to 400m.

With encouragement and grape contracts from Brown Brothers, whose home is still at Milawa at the north end of the valley, near Wangaratta, the Pizzinis, who were quickly becoming ex-tobacco farmers as that market collapsed, planted their first commercial vines in 1978 – riesling and chardonnay, for Brown Brothers.  Stalwart grape varieties cabernet sauvignon, shiraz and sauvignon blanc soon followed, and over the next decade they also introduced Italian varieties, planting some of the first nebbiolo, along with sangiovese, pinot grigio and arneis.  Fred said it was in 1991 that they had their first barrel of nebbiolo.

Fred and wife Katrina now have 70 hectares of vineyards on their 280 hectare farm “and still quietly planting” said Fred, adding that while there are many micro-climates in the King Valley, the “climate is suited to medium bodied styles that are more delicate in style. While the north [of the valley] is warmer and dry, the south is cool at night in the growing season.” It’s just one and a half hour’s south to the snow, he added.  And while growing season temperatures may be in the mid 30s°C during the day, Fred said they can get down to 14-15°C at night, which helps keep the grapes’ natural acid.

Their wine business is a real family affair. Eldest daughter Natalie is in charge of marketing, wine events and the wine club, while son Joel is winemaker. He includes four vintages in Italy on his CV, including at top Chianti producer Isole e Olena. And Katrina runs a cookery school in an expansive kitchen area adjoining their smart cellar door tasting rooms.

The King river

In good Italian style, the family make more than a dozen different wines, and it’s the Italian varieties – pinot grigio, sangiovese and arneis, plus their nebbiolos, that make up a big chunk. Fred puts down part of the success of his wines from Italian grapes to “the drinkability of the grape varieties.”

Not that all the vineyards are the same, and Fred is clearly proud of one patch of sangiovese which he said “is particularly good – it has a slightly different gradient, the soils carry less rock, it’s tighter grained.  It’s more of a clay loam than volcanic soil and the wind is different.  It might see a bit more sun, and it produces consistently good fruit.” In contrast he said, the vineyard on his north-east facing slope has “deeper clay, more volcanic soil, which is more robust, more powerful.”  And his nebbiolo vineyard, which tops out at 400m above sea level, he said “is 2.5°C warmer at night than the valley floor, and 2.5° to 3°C cooler during the day than the valley floor.”

Such detail shows an admirable terroir-istic grasp of his vineyards.

Wine tasting, in situ, October 2010

Pizzini, Pinot Grigio 2010, King Valley
12%. Apple, pear, melon, intense fruit attack of sweet fruit. Dry wine, fresh, intense, thoroughly decent.

Pizzini, Arneis 2010, King Valley
13.5%. Apple skins and lime grass. Very clean, nicely fresh, more backbone than the pinot grigio. Really tasty.

Pizzini, Verduzzo 2010, King Valley
Whole bunch pressed, and a portion barrel fermented, rest in stainless steel on lees.
Lovely creaminess of texture, with the focus all on fresh white fruits, with tight structure and good backbone. Good.

Pizzini, Sangiovese 2009, King Valley
13%. Medium deep colour, brick rim. Bright cherry, cinnamon, bright sweet fruit, has chalky dry tannins, and with sweet fruit. Medium bodied, firm backbone, good ripe fruit, nicely balanced. Rich balance of good fruit weight. Good.

Pizzini, Nebbiolo 2005, King Valley
14.3%. medium deep, brick rim. Warm, spicy fruitcake, baked cherry pie, rich, sweet and fine-grainy attack. Quite full bodied, mouth-filling, dry, chalky fruit savour. Nicely structured with depth and fruit concentration. Vg.

Pizzini, Nebbiolo 2006, King Valley
Medium pale, brick rim, black tea leaves on nose. Dry baked cherry crumble. Sweet fruit core dissected by web of fine, structured tannins.  Savoury black olive notes. Vg.

Pizzini, Rubacuori Sangiovese 2004, King Valley
Meaning stealer of hearts. Deep colour, spicy, brambly and savoury in a gamey vein, followed by dense, sweet fruit, darkly spiced, and richly textured.

Pizzini, Il Barone 2006, King Valley
Cabernet sauvignon, shiraz, sangiovese, nebbiolo, a blend that was put together nearly a decade ago.  Dense colour, flavours of spice and dark fruits; dense, youthful, and with a big balance.

Pizzini, Coronamento Nebbiolo 2004, King Valley
Meaning crowing achievement. 14.5%. Medium deep with brick rim. Perfumed, smoothly structured, with sweet baked cherry notes, fine-knit tannins, warming feel and long, integrated, finely balanced palate. Vg.

My research visit to Australia in October 2010 was sponsored by Wine Australia.

Having graduated in 1991, his CV includes stints at Coldstream Hills and at Knappstein where he was involved with the first two vintages of Lenswood pinot noir from the Adelaide Hills. He is now the winemaker at Yabby Lake in Mornington Peninsula, where he moved in 2008 after a 12-year sojourn at Yering Station in the Yarra Valley. Amongst all of this he has worked five vintages in France, a couple in Champagne and three in Burgundy, most recently, in 2000, with Bernard Moreau in Chassagne Montrachet.

Carson said what he learnt in Burgundy was “respect for the land and the vineyard. The time-honoured wealth of knowledge in Burgundy is something you can’t pick up in a four week vintage. It comes from generations of farming.  But it puts some perspective on what we’re doing in Australia. We can’t rush it.”

Thus he speaks of prospects and future in Australia, saying the Yabby Lake site “has huge potential, it seems the foundation of quality is high” and he’s just itching for the vines to age to see what they are capable of in maturity. But already he said “the wines are really precise, detailed, they have presence, purity and integrity.”

In finding those sites of potential, Carson discusses the four parameters of acid, sugar, phenolic ripeness and flavour, likening them to four clocks, saying “if they’re all running in the same time zone and at the same rate, if they all intersect at this nice point where you harvest the fruit, then you have wine that’s inherently balanced,” adding “when you have the site right, the components of the fruit seem to work in synch. As it reaches ideal ripeness, acid falling at a slow rate, the balance, the flavour is there.” It’s only when the clocks work out of synch that the winemaker needs to do something to bring back the balance.

But when the clocks are in synch, “the sites that can produce fruit that has this inherent balance, then the wines need virtually no winemaking except judicious care to be able to produce wine that reflects where it’s grown, and its balanced.”  He makes it all sound so easy. 

This is probably why he also said “the best wines I’ve made are the easiest. When it’s right in the vineyard and we’ve picked at what we feel is the ideal moment, they look good on vine, and every time you look at them they look good. There’s very little manipulation or invention winemaking. They tend to look after themselves.”

This is not to say that minor adjustments “at the edges may be required in some years because of the marginal climate.” It’s the cool-marginal climate that offers the opportunities to synchronise the clocks, but it doesn’t happen every year, because cool marginal can be rather unpredictable, which is why the wines reflect the vagaries of each vintage.  Carson said “we haven’t added acid to chardonnay for years. With pinot noir most years we don’t, and some years we may need to add a very small amount.  Like in Burgundy, usually they don’t need to chaptalise, but sometimes you need to add a tiny bit of sugar.”

Carson is deliberately seeking that reflection of vintage, of season, saying “we want the wines to reflect different personalities from the site, and primarily from the season. Of all the great wines we talk about, it’s the season that has the biggest impact on flavour, texture, weight and balance.”  

And to this end, Carson needs to change the business model of the Aussie winemaker. He said “the future is the vineyard – a combination of winemaker, viticulturist and site.  It’s more of a vigneron feel, with the winemaker as a piece in the puzzle, not the game changer.”

At least he’s not completely alone in this gargantuan task, there’s a growing band of admirably tall poppies in this vanguard.

An HDD 1460 and an MJT of 20.7°C (James Halliday, Wine Atlas of Australia, 2006) put this region towards the cooler end of the wine growing spectrum, so it is no surprise that the likes of Domaine Chandon have a vineyard in the area, growing chardonnay and pinot noir, much going to their sparkling wine.

Elevation also plays its cooling part, with vineyards varying in altitude from 200 to nearly 600 metres above sea level, in a striking granite landscape.  Grant Taresch said “Strathbogie is a renowned cool growing region. You could never grow wheat or corn.  The soils are well-drained, infertile, and rocky, on a granite base.”

And it’s a windy region, which may explain why the estate has a 30m tall, 150kw wind turbine on the property. Grant said “we generate two times the electricity that we need in the winery.  So we supply the national grid.” They say they are the first winery in Australia to be fully self-powered by renewable wind energy.

But this couple don’t just generate electricity. Their whole ethos is geared toward maximising the sustainability of their farm. Suzanne said “Grant built the winery on sustainable practices. We started in 2001, ahead of the game, and it took five years to get the wind turbine project.  It started rotating in 2007.” The winery was ready for the 2004 vintage.

Elgo Estate water treatment lagoons

Elsewhere, Grant said “we compost all organic waste and re-use it in the vineyard. The liquid waste is treated in a series of lagoons, to a point where it can be reused in the vineyard,” before explaining in more detail “the liquid waste is aerated at night for aerobic bacteria, which break it down quicker and [without] smell. The sludge – organic solids – falls down and is composted again. And the winter storage lagoon is pH neutral and can be used in the vineyards.” The three lagoons mean water is in them for up to two years before being re-used in the vineyards.

But the pair is deliberately avoiding an organic certification, as Grant said “with organic, there would be more tractor time, so more diesel and more compaction.  We do use glyphosate weed killer.  If we didn’t use it, there would be more tractor time, which means our carbon footprint on the environment would be bigger if we were certified organic.

“We run sheep in the vineyards in winter. As spring starts, we take the sheep out, the grass grows a bit. We keep the mid rows covered with grass, and we add one spray immediately under the vine row to kill the grass and get a band of bare soil there, which sets us up for the year.  If there was grass up against the trunks, we’d get water competition.” The 4,000 grazing sheep reduce tractor trips and fuel usage.

In addition, 80 hectares of the property are ring-fenced for wildlife sanctuary, and they have created 6 km of wildlife corridors, planting around 10,000 native trees and grasses this millennium, with more to come.  In total the farm extends over nearly 900 hectares.

In the winery, the carbon dioxide from fermentation is recycled to protectively blanket bulk wine against oxidation.  Marc is put back into the vineyard. And said Grant “we watch what we use in the winery too.  No waste is carted away apart from card and plastic.”

About 10,000 cases are made, entirely from fruit grown on the 60 hectares of vineyard, lying across three sites at different altitudes, which give different fruit expressions. The lowest, Tarcombe Valley, is around 320m, planted to cabernet sauvignon and shiraz.  Upton Hill vineyard is at 530m, where the winery and wind turbine are also situated, and Lake View vineyard, at 480m, they bought from Hardy’s in 2004.

Two ranges of wine are made, Elgo Estate, and the easier drinking Allira range, so named after the indigenous word for quartz, which is common in the region. Suzanne described the Allira style as being “on the edge of having a glass by itself, or needing food with it.”

Wines, tasted in situ, October 2010

Allira  Sauvignon Blanc 2010
Peachy on the nose, full bodied, and attractive, in tropical style

Elgo Riesling 2006
The current release. Petrol, lime, zest and juice. Good intensity, fresh and pure fruit. Attractively balanced, with good density, and lovely varietal definition. Vg.

Allira Shraz 2008
Dense plummy, sweet nose, sweet attack, with fresh, attractive balance, and black peppery notes, with fresh fruit behind it all. Full, sweet body.

Elgo Shiraz 2006
Smoky and black spiced, with savoury hints among the dark, fresh fruits, with plush, nicely dense fleshy fruits.

My research visit to Australia in October 2010 was sponsored by Wine Australia.

He kicked off by suggesting more attention should be paid to the time and place from which wines originate, saying “I think people judge a wine on quality in Australia without a reference for where the wines are grown. But to really understand Australian wine better, you have to put it in the context of terroir, of where and when the grapes were grown and harvested.”

He built his theme by adding, that at the top end of Australian wine, “wines are a little piece and moment in time, and from a particular place” and that people need to take this next step in their pursuit and understanding of Aussie wine. “The best wines for me” he said “are those with the purest expression of their moment in space and time, uncluttered by winemaking.” Carson’s aim is to “make wines that are unique of where they’re grown [to show] the purest, uncluttered, seamless, precise, fine expression of purity.”

For this tasting seminar, he selected mostly wines from the 2009 vintage, the year of the deathly bush fires in Victoria which killed 173 people, when temperatures on ‘black Saturday’ reached over 47°C with 120 km/h north winds.  For the vines, which recovered after the heat, Carson said “it was generally a slightly cooler than average season. There was a heat spike in southern Victoria in late January, three days in a row which broke all previous records – 43.5°C, 44.5°C, 45.5°C at Melbourne weather station. But previous to that spring was quite mild, winter was okay in terms of rain, but we were still in the midst of a severe drought since 1997, with 13 years of consecutive lower than average rainfall figures.” There was a lot of sunburnt fruit, and vines shut down.

Kooyong

Of the first six chardonnays tasted, they saw fairly similar winemaking.  Carson said there is “a movement where Australia is now making finer, more balanced chardonnay, with lower oak, not too high in alcohol, and better balanced acidity.” These wines have been here in the cooler areas of Australia, but until now, they didn’t have too much of a voice. For example, at Yabby Lake he said, the fruit “is hand-picked, whole bunch pressed and crushed fruit with full solids and natural fermentation. There’s no malo in ours; it’s been on lees for 11-12 months, just 8-10% new oak, in 500 litre barrels, so you get the framing of new oak but not the full whack of new barrique.”

Part of the movement to cooler zones and more site expression is the choice of clones.  Carson said “a lot of Aussie chardonnay is made from clones promoted in the early 1980s – the I clones, I10, V1, V3 and V5 – where the idea was if it yielded a lot, it was a good clone.” Reflections of European viticulture in the 70s are all too apparent.  Carson’s preference is for Penfolds 58, which he said dates to the first shipment of vines to Australia by James Busby, and the Mendoza clone, “which has a lot of hen and chicken, it’s low yielding and retains natural acidity well.”

Other winemaking themes that are occurring at this level are a “steering away from overly stirring wine [on its lees], and a pulling back on the malo” which lowers acidity.  What might be needed in cooler Chablis and Burgundy, might not be needed in Australia.

For the pinot noir, Carson adopted a similar focus on mainly 2009. He said that while “pinot noir has a long history in Australia, it’s been there since the 1830s Busby cuttings, it was not till the 1970s that people started getting serous about it, planting it in regions where it would perform well.”  In Mornington Peninsula, Main Ridge first started pinot noir in 1975, Bannockburn in Geelong in the ‘70s also. With his tongue in his cheek, Carson added “we getting up towards a 40-year period, we just have 1,960 years to catch up on the experience of Burgundy.”

Not, he emphasised, that Bugundy is a point of comparison “but as a reference point as to what’s possible with the grapes.” Aussies are definitely making Aussie pinot noir. And what’s exciting Carson is “we have all this clear space to go on a journey with particular vineyards and see how they progress. [Even] over a five year period we see a quality improvement.”

We might only have been tasting wines from three regions around Melbourne, but both the Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula are sizeable regions. Yarra elevations range from 80-90m on the valley floor, up to 500m.  “There can be five weeks difference in picking time for the same variety” Carson said, with the style being richer than Mornington Peninsula, with more stone fruit.

Mornington Peninsula, surrounded on three sides by water, has clear distinctions between the northern and southern ends. Carson said “the northern end is 60-100m [Yabby Lake, Kooyong, Mooroduc] and the southern end [Ten Minutes By Tractor, Eldridge Estate] goes up to 250m on red volcanic soils”, adding “the south is a bit more fine, elegant, [while] there’s more power in the north.” The style, he added is a bit more reserved [than the Yarra], more flint and minerality and more floral.

Wine tasting, blind, London, July 19, 2011

A couple of ringers in this line up – chardonnay and pinot noir from both Burgundy and New Zealand were included in the line up. Though we were only told half way through.

Themes worthy of note

A lightness of alcohol in almost all the wines marks part of a newish trend in Australia to find areas where fruit ripens before too many sugars have accumulated in the berries.  The fruit is generally more elegant, and more aromatic as heat hasn’t blown off the aromas from the fruit. But one of the risks of harvesting with lower sugars is that of leaner fruit and acidity, which is a bit of a strange new thing to get to grips with when trying to understand Australian wines.

A lowering of new oak regime. No longer are Aussie wines 100% fermented in 100% new oak. Judicious use of oak, new and older, or bigger, is becoming more widespread, especially where winemakers are looking to craft a wine that is representative of the place it comes from.

Eldridge Estate, Chardonnay 2009, Mornington Peninsula
13.3%. Creamy, honeyed toast, rich and quite fat on the nose, followed by scents of melon and butterscotch. Fine, lean attack, then alcohol makes itself felt.  A disappointing palate after the build-up of the nose. Quite skinny on the palate, citrus, melon, hints of tar, and that warmth at the back. The oak is still integrating, it’s a bit raw, to pick nits.

Kooyong, Faultline Chardonnay 2009, Mornington Peninsula
12.5%. Steely, leesy, enticing nose. Gentle attack, smooth and focused. Lemon, sweet ripe melon, with some attractive succulence. Fine and integrated. Good.  Tastes ‘cool’.

Yabby Lake, Chardonnay 2009, Tuerong, Mornington Peninsula.
12%. Dark brioche, toast and plenty of aromatic tar.  Attack is lean, acidity verging on tart, which disappoints, though it does open up in the glass. Still overly skinny for my palate.

Shadowfax, Chardonnay 2009, Victoria
13%. Blend of fruit from Macedon Ranges, Gippsland, Geelong, Beechworth
Wafting smoke, dried honey, peaches and creamy lees. Citrus and white peach in the mouth with a smooth and integrated palate texture. Silky components coming in here. Rich in intensity, with attractive complexity and layering. Very good.

Kumeu River, Hunting Hill Chardonnay 2009, Kumeu, Auckland, New Zealand
12.5%. White nectarine, with smoke and aromatic tar on nose and palate. Honeyed toast with hints of charcoal, making it a bit too smoky for my palate.

De Bortoli, Estate Grown Chardonnay 2008, Dixon’s Creek, Yarra Valley
12.5%. classic peaches and cream, combined with rich, leesy weight on the palate attack.  Smooth textured and integrated with warm and enticing embrace. Good.

Yering Station, Estate Chardonnay 2009, Yarra Valley
White peaches and fresh citrus in a light and elegant nose.  Palate is citrus, mealy even, with sweetness of juicily-dripping melon and fresh, white peach fruit on the palate. Nicely balanced, with long finish. Good.

Giant Steps, Sexton Vineyard Chardonnay 2009, Warramate Ranges, Yarra Valley
Carson: “This vineyard on the valley floor, an exposed site on steep north facing slopes, a warmer site in the valley.”
Peaches and meal, with enticing rich, leesy nose, erring to full body where the previous have been medium bodied, and still with fresh core and rich frame.  Attractive immediate and with the gravitas of something more serious. A more overt oaky expression here – overt, but not excessive. Good.

Yabby Lake, Block 1 Chardonnay 2009, Tuerong, Mornington Peninsula
A blend of P58 and Mendoza clones. Only 1,000 bottles made.
Leesy, with hints of aromatic toast and tarry attack, then I find the acid a bit lean on the mid palate. It’s looking for restraint, but I find this a bit mean.

Domaine Philippe Colin, Chassagne Montrachet 1er Cru Les Chenevottes 2009, Burgundy
13.5%. Tropical, yellow peachy nose and palate attack. Ripe with gras, a bit of weight and good proportion. Warm, embracing texture (not heat from alcohol), and erring to attractive lushness. Long and really very good.

Oakridge, Chardonnay 2009, Yarra Valley
13%.  White peach, lees with steely backbone running through the core. Fresh and bright with sweet stone fruits and enticing brightness. Nicely balanced, proportioned and long.  Tasty and good.

Coldstream Hills, Chardonnay 2010, Yarra Valley
13%. Something a bit herbal and leafy on the nose of this one. Still a bit leafy on the palate, fennel and sage, palate opens up into savoury notes. Then the finish is warmer (alcohol) than the nose suggests it might be, resulting in something a bit disjointed for me.
Addendum: perhaps the wine, being 2010, is yet to settle into its skin?

De Bortoli, Estate Grown Pinot Noir 2008, Dixon’s Creek, Yarra Valley
13%. Brick red, ageing rim. Perfumed, with baked red cherry pie. Wild strawberries and minute-roasted raspberries on the nose. Dry with savoury core and elegant backbone. Very good, fully mature wine.
Addendum:  mature too soon?

By Farr, Pinot Noir Tout Pres 2008, Bannockburn, Geelong
Medium pale, aromatic, with crunchy perfume and black tar. Hints of tomato leaf on first nose, then fruit quite lush on palate. Smoky and tarry, in big muscley style.

Eldridge Estate, Pinot Noir 2009, Mornington Peninsula
Bright, almost purple hue to the rim, in pale depth. Bright palate attack, not so pinot noir-like, more extracted, heavier, maybe, thought still appropriately pale colour. A bit more like red wine rather than pinot noir, and nice red wine for that, but varietal definition is missing for me.

Stonier Wines, Reserve Pinot Noir 2009, Mornington Peninsula
Crunchy and dark berry fruits, core of fresh tannin, again less elegant/filigree that I would expect of pinot noir. Quite big, toned rather than muscley, hint chewy even. Good for all of that, a different (warm?) style.

Ten Minutes By Tractor, McCutcheon Vineyard Pinot Noir, 2009, Main Ridge, Mornington Peninsula
Crunchy, with tiniest hint of VA. Warm and baked red cherries and raspberries, erring to immediately attractive lushness on the mid palate. Heading to a full-bodied wine with warm alcohol. Rich with framing new oak and fleshy fruit. Plenty going here, and I like this multi-levelled style.

Yabby Lake, Pinot Noir 2009, Tuerong, Mornington Peninsula
13.9%. Delicate nose, fresh aromatic strawberries and cherries. Balanced and smoothly textured with savoury, graphite line through the core, showing some sophistication and seamless integration. Youthful. Good.

Yabby Lake, Block 2 Pinot Noir 2009, Tuerong, Mornington Peninsula
14%. Slight, lifting VA along with dark cherries. Almost full bodied, fully dry, rich and finely textured. Dark berry fruits, with elegance, intensity and breadth. Very good.

Domaine de L’Arlot, Vosne-Romanee 2009, Burgundy, France
High vanilla oak and dark berries, with overt youthful oakiness here, meaning tannins are to the fore and still a bit grippy for the cherry fruit.  An obviously different style of wine not quite gelling with the rest of the line up.

Moorooduc Estate, The Mooroduc Pinot Noir 2009, Morninton Peninsula
Juicy, crunchy, berry fruits giving sweet-fruited attack. Dark berries, succulent core, smooth, with freshness. Long sweet finish. Good.

Felton Road, Bannockburn 2009, Central Otago, New Zealand
14%. Elegant sweetness of red and black cherry, with restraint and spiky berry notes, and some attractive lightness of being on the mid palate. This is elegant, sophisticated, layered, focused and seamless. Very good indeed.

Kooyong, Ferrous Pinot Noir 2009, Mornington Peninsula
Big, deep, almost blackcurrant, and almost full bodied attack.  Big red wine, with attractive perfume and black cherry flavours. Young and still a hint grippy.

Coldstream Hills, Pinot Noir 2010, Yarra Valley
Juicy, sweet black cherry nose. Supple, red cherry fruits. Sweet, still-fermenting sort of flavour, then mid palate a bit muted.
Addendum:  is that the 2010 again?

Helm Wines

They are made in Murrambateman, in the Canberra District of ACT, about 30 minutes from Canberra itself.

Ken Helm set up the winery in 1973, planting vines at Nanima Creek, and was one of the first commercial wineries in the district, coming from the crop of ex-CSIRO researchers who kick-started wine development in Canberra.    

That Helm is a descendant of German origin may or may not have affected his choice of varietal focus on riesling, but he is a fourth generation Aussie grape grower.  He is also the founder of the Canberra International Riesling Challenge, a competition that has been running since 2000.  

Climatically it’s not a particularly cool spot, so it’s not classic riesling territory.  Helm said “we were warmer than Germany, so thought we could grow riesling, which responds to climate; it needs a low temperature overnight and hot temperature during the day.” Not, he added “that we’re trying to produce German riesling. We’re making Aussie riesling and are becoming unique.

“We get very hot summers, 39-42C”  he said, before adding that springs are cool and wet, and autumns are also cool, resulting in picking starting around early March with the chardonnay and riesling.”  One argument goes that the Canberra climate is continental, and riesling is grown in Germany in a continental climate.

Helm said that despite the ocean being about one and half hours east, “Bateman’s breath [an easterly sea breeze] comes in nearly every day in the summer around 8pm, dropping night temperatures to around 15°C.” Such a drop in temperature would help retain riesling’s natural aromatics, and the breeze also brings moisture which reduces a bit of stress in the vineyard. 

Helm Wines

The aim for his rieslings, Helm said, is that they are “clean, fresh, they exhibit characters of the vineyards, with a ferruginous minerality from the volcanic ironstone, and that no element stands out, they are all in balance.”

Some of Helm’s fruit come from the neighbouring Lustenberger vineyard at 650m asl, which Helm said “is north facing, with an east-west row orientation that maximises fruit protection from the sun” The soil is a conglomerate volcanic ironstone.

Two rieslings are made: classic dry is a blend across vineyards, and premium is made from single vineyard sites when grapes are perfect.  All of which makes the 2010 vintage Helm’s 34 riesling vintage, and only his 6^th vintage of the Premium riesling. He’s been using screwcap since 2002.

Helm said because he wants to express the vineyard, he doesn’t work with the lees, and doesn’t like the vines to be stressed either by too much crop or from not enough water.

He only uses free run juice, and he controls the fermentation so that must ferments 0.7 Baumé per day. Then towards the end of fermentation, he turns off the cold and lets the ferment finish itself. Which means he might end up with 3 or 5 g/l residual sugar.

His rieslings swim in a flood of awards. In the last five years Helm has won 23 trophies and 28 gold awards.

Wine tasting, in situ, October 2010

Helm Wines, Classic Dry Riesling 2010 $28
11.5%, tropical fruit, with sweet apple, full and rich fruit, with a long fruit explosion at the end, followed by long finish. 

Helm Wines, Classic Dry Riesling 2009
11.7%. Salty lime nose, with approachable attack within taut framt, intense, zesty and long. Vg.

Helm Wines, Classic Dry Riesling 2008
12%. White pear, apple, zest and pith, structured and linear. Beginning to blossom a little.  

Helm Wines, Premium Riesling 2010 $45
11%. Max 5g/l RS. Vines around 15 years.
Creamy, stony, very smooth texture, intense and with volume of fruit, taut and with flesh. Citrus and lime pith, might use stoney-mineral. Seriously good, with huge intensity.

Helm Wines, Premium Riesling 2009 $45
12%. Lime pith and zest, slatey, and wet stone, savoury/stony complex. Full and rich while still being steely. Pithy citrus back note, big fruit intensity, long.  Has flesh to support the tautness.

Helm Wines, Premium Rieslign 2008 $45
12%. Fresh, lime pith, zest and focused. Intense, rich fruit in a delineated profile, with apple and lime citrus. Less stony than the 2009, but full and rich in a focused manner. Long. Vg

Helm Wines, premium Riseling 2005
11.2%. Pith, steel, hint of dry citrus toast ageing characters coming through, yet still retains its freshness.

My research visit to Australia in October 2010 was sponsored by Wine Australia.

No-one seriously disputes that Tasmania is properly cool climate, but a slightly more confusing picture is emerging on the mainland.  And with ‘cool climate’ wines being cool, trendy and of different flavour profile than ‘warm climate’, it’s too easy to let the moniker roll off the tongue without paying due regard to proper climatic data.

Canberra District, ACT

HDDs and MJTs still form the backbone of broad analytical data (see chart below), but part of the confusion in the Australian industry about cool climate may partly be due to a fairly long-standing AWBC reference to ‘warm inland’ regions, namely Riverina, Murray-Darling-Swan Hill and the Riverland, accounting for some 50% of total production, and what became known, as a matter of convenience, as ‘cool’ regions, meant to be the ‘non-warm inland’ regions, being the other 50%. 

But this internal industry distinction is not an official definition and has nothing to do with climate data, and more to do with a splitting out of high cost versus low cost.

It has been modified slightly as Peter Bailey, senior analyst at AWBC explained: “We don’t use the term ‘cool’ anymore because of the confusion surrounding temperature but use ‘cool and temperate’ when the sort of high-level industry supply and demand analysis is conducted.”  Given than climatic temperature zones have a scientific basis which affects viticulture and wine style, producers may mistakenly use ‘cool’ as having an official meaning.

Such internal industry nomenclature notwithstanding, there are patterns in cooler climate Australian viticulture via an enmeshed combination of climate, variety and resultant stylistic expression.

The marginality of ripening  

The limit of ripening for grapes is often used as a measure of climate. What’s cool for shiraz is warm for pinot noir. And pinot noir is useful proxy of cool climate because if it’s grown somewhere too warm, it becomes, hot, blowsy, and just another red wine. To have any varietal character the aromatics and delicacy need to be retained.  

On this measure, some of Australia’s most acknowledged pinot noir/cooler climate areas are coastal and maritime: Geelong, Gippsland, Mornington Peninsula, Tasmania.

Diurnals

But this is not the only story.  High diurnal temperature variations, found at higher elevations, are also crucial for retaining aromatics and delicacy. Where this is combined with the 0.6°C reduction in temperature for every 100m increase in altitude, cooler climate styles emerge.

Orange region, New South Wales

At Brangayne, in Orange, owner David Hoskins said “January can go below 10°C at night. An average day time would be 26°C; a hot day here would be 32°C and really hot is 35°C.” The advantage of this, he said is that “the growing season is long, and fruit is on the vine longer, which means post-veraison flavour development is not rushed by heat. And sugar accumulation here is slower” so resulting alcohol is not so high as in warmer areas. 

Added to which said Hoskins, who has vineyards at 870m and 970m, “we notice it’s worth more than 0.6C between our two properties. The lower vineyard is more open, worth at least a degree more [warmth]. On its western slope, buds burst and grapes ripen earlier than the north-east slopes” of the higher vineyard.  Hoskins reckons the lower vineyard gets more warmth from the prevailing westerly weather.

In Canberra District, which varies from 300m to 800m elevation, Richard Parker of Long Rail Gully Wines said “we’re not Tassie cool, but we’re cool. We have a big diurnal, 25°C in the day to 10°C at night. Our peak summer temperature is around 32°C. These really cool nights maintain our acid. The warmer days give us a riper type character, but cooler nights bring us back.”  He added the cool style is lighter in body, with more finesse and restraint of fruit character with more spice [shiraz], and alcohols held around 13.5%. 

Greater natural acidity

For Phil Sexton of Giant Steps/Innocent Bystander in the Yarra Valley, those cold nights are critical to “drive low pH and therefore keep total acidity high.”  As they are for Richard Thomas of Mayfield Vineyard in Orange, whose vineyards reach 870 to 920m. He said “the high diurnal[s] in the growing season maintain a natural acid backbone, which enhances flavour through gradual flavour development.”

The acidity, or acidification, question is an interesting one from a European perspective, where de-acidification is the permitted norm in EU cool climate regions.

Added to which sunshine, and its management in the vineyard, in the southern hemisphere is different to the northern, as Ron Laughton of Jasper Hill, explained, for his Heathcote region “it’s not only about heat, it’s the quality of the sun. Summer here is radiant, without so much heat – we needed a blanket on every night last summer.  Shiraz needs some sun and warmth to ripen. There are some cooler areas within Victoria, where shirazes show more elegance than mine, but also less ripeness.  Here we get ripe flavours and elegance.  The best indicator for me is not extreme sugar ripeness, but full tannic ripeness, full flavour ripeness, and full acidity still.  In 30 years I haven’t adjusted acidity.  That’s the single biggest indicator that this area is great for shiraz.”

Heathcote may indeed be cooler marginal for shiraz. But it is not ‘cool climate’ by the numbers (see chart), and is a modest 200m above sea level. 

Elevation and aspect – high country    

Altitude is needed to get those high diurnals, but as though in recognition that the cool climate moniker is becoming muddied, ‘high country’ is becoming a term of increasingly common parlance. Indeed Orange is the only GI defined by altitude – vineyards falling over 600m.

King Valley, Victoria

One of the recent pioneers to plant in Orange was Philip Shaw, when he was working at Rosemount. He said “I was flying over here when I was looking, for Rosemount, for somewhere to plant pinot noir and chardonnay. I planted my own back in the 1980s,” at 900m. He added “At 600m it was looking something like southern France, Spain and Italy. Higher up it was looking more like Champagne.”

The King Valley also reflects such dramatically changing climate by altitude. Its 150m altitude north end is notably warm at Milawa, while the 800m Whitlands plateau at its southern end, just some 25 km distant, nudges the foothills of the Australian Alps. Brown Brothers long ago saw the potential of this higher altitude, establishing the Whitlands vineyard in 1982 specifically for fruit for sparkling wines, of which there were none in their range at that time.

The significance of altitude was recognised last year by one of Australia’s three ‘cool climate’ wine shows.  The entry requirements for the International Cool Climate wine show in the Mornington Peninsula state “wines must be made from grapes grown either: south of latitude 37.5 degrees south, or north of latitude 37.5 degrees north, or from a property in the southern or northern hemisphere which has an average January/ July (whichever is applicable) temperature below 19° Celsius, as confirmed by the nearest Bureau of Meteorology site, or vineyard site is above 800m in altitude.” 

The 19°C limit is stricter than Winkler Region I, but, said Meg Brodtmann MW, of Southern Cross Wines, who chaired the competition in 2010 said “the altitude was introduced in 2010 as they were missing out on a lot of cool climate wines based solely on latitude and MJT.” She emphasised “newer regions of Australia are cooler once you go up a bit.”

Another benefit is that the growing season is delayed, so that grapes are not ripening at the hottest point. Alan Cooper of Cobaw Ridge, with vineyards up to 635m, in the Macedon Ranges said “shiraz can be around six weeks behind central Heathcote, yet you can drive there in 25 minutes” before explaining “cool climate shiraz is black pepper spicy, savoury, minerally, earthy, graphite. It could be spicy on the nose and peppery on the palate, or the other way round.”

Similar cool climate style comments are replicated in Canberra District, where Brindabella Hills’ Roger Harris said of shiraz, cool climate brings “an attractive perfume of violets, in a style that is not heavy and weighted down with a load of tannin; it’s not relying on weight and power, more seductive. You want to have another glass of it.“

Lower Yarra Valley

And in the Lower (higher altitude) Yarra Valley an extra couple of weeks are required for ripening compared to the valley floor 230 to 250m below.  The advantage, said Mac Forbes of Mac Forbes Wines, of “picking at least 10 days later, is that the cooler sites have a slower ripening, with a greater retention of aromatics”, another one of those experientially defining parameters for cooler climate.  In addition, Forbes gets his chardonnay from southern slopes (facing away from the sun), to “retain freshness and line” he said.

A southerly aspect was an important decision for Savaterre’s Keppell Smith, a specialist in chardonnay and pinot noir, whose chardonnay has been listed in the latest Langton’s. He said his Beechworth “vineyards face south on sloping ground to avoid the frosts, which fall down the slope.” But, he added “the sun’s still strong, so I have at least one layer of leaves.”

Beechworth vineyards stretch from around 400m to 550m. Slopes are important as frost is an issue, and it is the more altitudinally-forgiving chardonnay that has excelled in this region of passion-driven individuals, where Giaconda’s vineyards are at 400 to 420m, on the opposite side of the road to those of Savaterre.

Whether the drive is towards the Antarctic or into the high country, cool and cooler climate results in wines significantly different from Australia’s previous models.  Mayfield’s Thomas sums it up as “cool climate has less density, it has more fruit expression, more elegance and finesse, it’s less overpowering and more complimentary with food.”  Do we begin to arrive at nuance, not a word yet commonly encountered in a Pom’s caricature of Aussies?

Source:  Wine Australia

Gippsland Vineyard

Having lived and worked half the year in Burgundy for five years, Bill Downie set up by himself, in Victoria, in 2003, with his first Yarra Valley pinot noir, under the William Downie label.

His main focus is on regional expression of pinot noir, and he later added a Mornington Peninsula, and a Gippsland pinot noir to his portfolio.

Gippsland represents a return to his childhood roots.  He has now (2008) planted a vineyard there at high density, between 10,000 and 11,700 vines / ha.  He said with “lower bunch numbers per vine, I am more able to make the wine I aspire to make.  You get better phenolic maturity at lower sugar, and a different structure, more precision, more detail.” His 2011 vintage, from all his fruit sources, will be made at Gippsland too, in a new winery.

Many would agree that Aussie pinot noir is now making a success on the international stage. Downie said “I feel the level of sophistication we’re at is to make very good expressions of Yarra Valley, Gippsland, Mornington Peninsula.  That’s enough.” For the moment.  Other producers are working with single vineyard expressions, and these may come to light as the world gets to grip with regionality of Australian pinot noir. He added “in a few generations it might be worth digging a little further [though] we’re still a few steps away from doing that to a high standard.”

Part of this challenge is that the owner of good sites and the winemaker are often different businesses, let alone different people. Downie said “there’s not a history in Australia of thinking in way of single vineyard site and ownership” as there is in the old world.

He also said “the single greatest limiting factor” is not controlling the site to express the site, adding he’s found it challenging, though not impossible, to find good growers who work in the way he wants to work. “It’s an evolving process” he said.

Bill Downie (L) as part of the Yeastie Boys, with Paul Bridgeman (M) of Yarra Yering and Mark O'Callaghan (R) of Yarra Burn. On drums is Stuart Proud, Downie's viticulturist

Downie’s work at Domaine Fourrier in Gevrey Chambertin and Hubert Lignier in Morey St Denis has inspired him to pursue precision and place. And he happily admitted “the closer I get to the type of wine I aspire to, the further it gets from Burgundy, and the more reflective it is of place, with the least impression of the hand of the winemaker.”

Oak is used to “add an extra dimension to the red fruits, to enhance the expression of place.” And one of the things that have become important to Downie is to fill the barrel as soon as possible after it’s been toasted and constructed.  He uses 40-50% new French oak from a Burgundy cooper, made by an Aussie cooper who imports the pre-seasoned staves. He said “I can fill a barrel within 24 hours of it being made … who wants to eat a cold piece of toast?” Of the immediacy of filling newly made barrels, he said “they opened up the wines in a way I hadn’t seen in Australia before.

Tasting notes, Yarra Valley, October 2010.  

William Downie Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2008, ~£35
Savoury and sweet combo. Forward, mellowing warmth behind it.

William Downie Gippsland Pinot Noir 2008 ~£35
Deeply aromatic, violet, parma, rich, ‘light’ tannins, full and appealing. Quite sumptuous. Darker fruit.

William Downie Mornington Peninsula Pinot Noir 2008 ~£35
Sweet, lush red fruits, perky. Full sweet savoury profile. Super lifted red fruits, takes a while for the substance of the wine to come through.

My research visit to Australia in October 2010 was sponsored by Wine Australia.

Canberra District

Shiraz from around Canberra is proving to be a little gem, alongside its other jewel, riesling.  The region has long had its icon wine, Clonakilla Shiraz/Viognier, Langton’s listed since 2005, coming from the oldest vineyard and winery in Canberra District, and others are aspiring to greater things.

Murrambateman is the main grape-growing area where much good shiraz is found, on granite, around 500 to 600m above sea level, in the warmest of the sub-regions.   

While the likes of John Kirk, of Clonakilla, who started planting shiraz in the 1972, and Roger Harris of Brindabella Hills, both ex-CSIRO scientists, started planting early, the current crop of young guns attribute the newly emerging phase of Canberra District in no small part to the investment by Hardy’s (sold in 2011 by Constellation Brands to an Australian private equity investor), and in a bigger part to the exit of Hardy’s, leaving many growers with vineyards coming up to a decade old – just entering their youthful prime.

The Collector – I imagine a dashing, urbane, man à la 60s/70s TV series ‘The Saint’, but this man is quiet, reserved, thoughtful and precise in that analytical manner of one who’s made careful and conscientious decisions each with a desired micro-cumulative effect on his wine, and no less dashing – is one such winemaker who is taking advantage of small parcels of high quality fruit coming onto the market from growers who are less keen to run the risk of creating their own label. The brand is actually named after the nearby township.

Also known as Alex McKay, he grew up in Canberra, and having studied at Adelaide, thought “I’d never come back to Canberra to make wine.”  Then “Hardy’s invested, and I’d worked for them in South Australia and then here [in Canberra].  They’d taken the punishment, and the vineyards are starting to come into balance. I thought it’d be good to do something here.”

So McKay doesn’t own vineyards, but, he said “I work hard on the relationships to make sure I get the control I need” in order to make a reserve style shiraz and a blend from a range of vineyards, “I’m in the vineyards a lot.  They are tuned to a high level, they’re balanced, and they’re ripe even before they’re 13 Beaumé. Most finish out around 13% alc.” His first vintage was in 2005.

Climate

This is modest alcohol for full ripeness in the usual Aussie paradigm, which suggests that shiraz is clearly happy here. Nick O’Leary, of Nick O’Leary wines said “It doesn’t get too stressed, and nine out of ten years we get pretty good vintage consistency.”  And McKay added “we’re relatively continental, compared to a lot of Australian regions. We have a short growing season. Riesling comes form continental Europe, shiraz from one of the more continental parts of France. They need that type of season.”   

Canberra District falls into Winkler region II, having 1410 HDD and an MJT of 20.2°C.

It’s not all rosy though, as Nick Spencer, the winemaker at Eden Road Wines, cautioned, saying there are “classic, genuine terroirs where the summation of everything seems to work – specific sites where shiraz does well. But there is poor shiraz here too.”

Canberra cooler

Spencer, who doubles as the president of Canberra District Wine Industry Association, was keen to distinguish the local wine from the heartland of shiraz in Australia. He said “I see Canberra [shiraz] as bony and structural, with silky gravelly tannins, and five spice aromas.  We couldn’t make a Barossa style shiraz here. We get as much fruit flavour –dark fruits, but in the Barossa they’re into dark fruits and chocolate.”

O’Leary took the distinction further, saying Canberra is “more spicy and elegant than Barossa and Clare. And mine are lower in alcohol, only 13.5%.”

There are several things that set Canberra District apart for Harris: “one is perfume, of violets. Shiraz is not heavy and weighted down with a load of tannin. It doesn’t rely on weight and power, it’s more seductive, and you want to have another glass of it. There’s such a lot of Aussie shiraz that’s appealing for the first glass but you don’t want to drink much more.”

The perfume is an important defining character for McKay too. He said “we’re up high here. We get more violet aromatics, perfume characters” adding there’s a “tightness of structure, and more red fruit, when done properly.”

The original Clonakilla cellar

A bit of viognier helps to accentuate perfume in shiraz, and this Côte-Rôtie concept was pioneered in Canberra by icon winery Clonakilla.  Tim Kirk, son of founder John Kirk, travelled to the Rhône valley in the early 1990s, spending time with Guigal to see what viognier was doing.  He returned to experiment with the viognier that had been planted in Canberra in 1986, making the winery’s first vintage of Shiraz/Viognier in 1992.

Byran Martin, Clonakilla’s assistant winemaker said they “experimented with 1-2%. We went as high at 15% in 1997, but it dominated [the wine].  In 1998 we got it right with 5-6%.”

McKay said his “viognier was up to 5%” having been just 2% in his 2009s. And O’Leary also co-ferments a bit of viognier in his shiraz.   

Hilltops hotter

Canberra wineries are increasingly taking fruit from Hilltops (Winkler region III, with HDD of 1880 and MJT of 22.5°C), a region about 100km from Canberra, in New South Wales.  It’s some 100m lower than Canberra District, and notably warmer. 

Wines are made either exclusively from Hilltops fruit or blended with Canberra fruit. Martin, whose Clonakilla Hilltops shiraz has a firm following, said the Hilltops fruit “comes in two to three weeks before we pick the fruit in Canberra District. It has a harsher climate, and we’re picking in February or March when the temperatures are hot” adding “from veraison to picking it’s about a month. In Canberra District that takes 10-12 weeks.“

O’Leary added “Hilltops is more mainstream, you don’t get the spice you get in Canberra. They can ripen cabernet sauvignon, they’re warmer [than Canberra]. Hilltops is a bigger style.“

Wines tasted, in situ, October 2010

Brindabella Hills, Shiraz 2008, Canberra District
Black fruit spectrum on nose, rich dark fruits, quite open and approachable. Richness and density of black fruits, with smooth, fine, open-knit texture and spicy notes. Quite a big wine and holds the balance of that well. Nice. 

Brindabella Hills, Reserve Shiraz, 2008 Canberra District AUD$28
Sweet black plums, with allspice and star anise. Fragrantly aromatic, spices and violets, with smooth texture, and a rich/ripe combo of lush fruit with fresh core. Good.

Clonakilla, Hilltops Shiraz 2009, Hilltops AUD$25
Fresh and bright juicy fruit nose. Succulent plum and cherry juicy fruit of very good intensity.  Straightforward, with spicy hints, and just a little too easy to appreciate. 

Clonakilla, Shiraz/Viogner 2009, Canberra District AUD$85
Perfumed, aromatic nose of fragrant spice and allspice.  Very smoothly textured, ripe, complex, and seductively sweet-textured. Sweetly lovely mouthfeel. Long.  Vg.

Collector, Marked Tree Red Shiraz, 2009, Canberra District AUD$28
Allspice, cinnamon and red spicy fruit. Medium bodied, with smooth, lush sweet fruit and freshness from the backbone of clean acidity. All very nicely proportioned.

Collector, Marked Tree Red Shiraz 2008, Canberra District
Generous plum and strawberry fruit, juicy, fresh, elegant.

Collector, Shiraz Reserve 2009, Canberra District AUD$50
Fragrant strawberry bubblegum, with a spicy pink peppercorn nose, and violets.  Smooth palate attack, supple, juicy, with lift and retained backbone. Sweet, rich fruit, freshly balanced, with a long and refreshing finish. Vg.

Collector, Reserve Shiraz 2008, Canberra District
Smoky black fruit, warm and spicy. Smooth, rich, textured, lush strawberries and redcurrants, with backbone. Nicely structured with long finish. Vg

Eden Road Wines, The Long Road, Shiraz 2008, Hilltops
Warm juiciness, with aromatically spiced red berries. Supple fruit and oak. Soft-bodied, with some sweet, supple structure to support, rounded and fleshy rather than upright and backboned. (the warmer location?)

Eden Road Wines, The Long Road, Shiraz 2009, Canberra/Hilltops
Warm gentle plum, sweet fruit nose, then black acid core, more structured than the Hilltops 2008. Smooth, silky, completely integrated.  Blueberry and loganberry sort of spectrum. Dark black pepper finish.

Eden Road Wines, ‘Reserve’ Shiraz, 2009 Canberra District
Dark violet perfume, spiky attack, graphite backbone. Dark and lead-pencilly, with savoury dark berries. Rich concentration, silky texture. Good.

Long Rail Gully, Shiraz 2006, Murrambateman, Canberra District AUD$22
Slightly feral, pheromonal dark red fruit nose. Supple, sweet attack of dark berry fruits, with floral perfume mid palate. Smooth, lush mouthfeel without being super-ripe or hot. Rich density and sweetness, with a positive hint of warmth on the finish

Long Rail Gully, Shiraz 2008, Murrambateman, Canberra District AUD$25
Bright ruby colour, and bright cherry nose.  Smooth with fine-grainy open knit tannin, lush, ripe fruit, and good berry fruitiness. Seems a bit more elegant than the 2006.

Nick O’Leary, Shiraz 2008, Canberra District
With 5% viognier. Attractive bright berry fruits, supple attack, fresh, and fruit-focused, with depth and without heavy-bodied-ness.   

Nick O’Leary, Shiraz 2009, Canberra District
With 3% viognier. Sweet plum fruit and liquorice stick spice. Very smooth texture, rich, fleshy fruit, well toned, lush without being fat. Big sweet wine with some acid backbone and a fine texture. Taut finish. Good.

My research visit to Australia in October 2010 was sponsored by Wine Australia.

Emily and Ron

Ron Laughton is one of the quiet, precise, conscientious men of wine, an ex-food scientist who is making his 30^th vintage in 2011, having put in the first plantings in 1975/’76.  His daughter Emily is fellow winemaker for the estate.

The estate, 120 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, in Heathcote, Victoria, is named after the semi-precious jasper, a quartzite pressure rock found in black and red forms on the edge of the fault lines that run north-south.

Though seven wines are made in total, Jasper Hill’s two more famed wines are named after Ron and Elva’s daughters, Emily and Georgia.  Emily’s Paddock (Australian for a fenced field) is a 95% shiraz/ 5% cabernet franc blend, while Georgia’s Paddock is pure shiraz.

Heathcote shiraz is all about the Cambrian (500 million years old) soils which lie over basalt bedrock. Both the paddocks are at 320 m ASL.  Emily’s has a north-east aspect; Georgia’s an easterly aspect, with deeper Cambrian soils.  Pretty much everything else is the same, so Laughton argues any significant differences in the two wines must be terroir effects.  He said they were “planted the same year, with the same clone, same planting density, same soil, same viticulture, same winemaking, same everything.  They have a slightly different exposure, and Emily’s paddock is about 50m higher, and they are a kilometre apart.”

With heat degree days of 1490 (Winkler region II), Laughton doesn’t suggest that Heathcote is cool, but he does say “shiraz needs some sun and warmth to ripen.  And it’s not only heat, it’s the quality of the sun.  Summer [in Heathcote] is radiant, with clear blue skies, no cloud and fog.  And not so much heat.”

Here, he said “we get ripe flavours and elegance. There is a sweet spot of shiraz here.  There are some cooler areas within Victoria where shiraz shows more elegance than mine, but less ripeness.”  And he added “the single biggest indicator that this area is great for shiraz is that in 30 years I haven’t adjusted the acidity.  [We get] full tannic ripeness, full flavour ripeness, and full acidity still.”

“Because we have low yields [Emily’s paddock is around 15 hl/ha], the canopy is open to the sun, and the malic acid in the grapes is low.  After malolactic, the pH [therefore] hasn’t changed much, the tartaric acidity is still high.”

Red Cambrian soils

The tortured geology is important.  Two parallel faults fun close together in Heathcote which lifted and exposed the volcanic rock which formed the Cambrian soils – decomposed basalt high in iron.  “Minerals are mixed in the Cambrian soils, and the building blocks for the molecules of colour and flavour come from the ground” Laughton said.

So place is important, though “we only talk of terroir where it’s good terroir. And to maximise terroir I try to do as little as possible.” With his previous career as a food scientist, Laughton said “food flavours are fragile. Ten second too much and flavour is changed irreparably. So as a winemaker, all I can do is remove or reduce flavour, except oak.”

Laughton has settled on a 20% new oak regime, though he’s “deliberately using older and now bigger barrels, with thicker staves, for grenache, because it oxidises easily, and I don’t want too much oak flavour in the wine.” The oak is always French because “it’s more subtle, American oak is more in your face. I like to make elegant wines.”

Laughton also chooses a long, up to six weeks cuvaison, from harvest to pressing. He said “in six weeks the tannins change structure.  It’s not about extracting tannins from pips and skins, this plateaus. To my taste, after it plateaus, then the structure of the tannins changes in the alcohol solution so that they become more supple.  Tannins then start dropping off so you need to press.”  The downside of this is that a lot of fermenter capacity is needed, as such a long cuvaison means it’s used just once a year.

Though not subscribing to any certification, the vineyards are dry grown, without synthetic chemicals, and Laughton makes his own organic compost and has been following biodynamic rhythms of agriculture since the late 1990s.  However he said “I want you to buy my wine because it’s bloody good, not because it’s biodynamic.” 

I can attest to the former. And the two paddocks’ wines do taste different. Are those differences attributable to terroir effects?

Georgia’s Paddock 2009
Juicy plum, sweet fruit, enticing and fresh. Smooth and silky attack, dark black berry fruits. Sensuous, fine silky tannin texture, youthful and primary, long, linear palate length, richness without fatness.  Well toned, with spicy black pepper finish. Unbelievably smooth texture, layers of fruit emerge mid palate. Sophisticated.

Emily’s Paddock 2009
Balsamic red fruits, redcurrants, with perky attack and bright, crunchy red fruits, and a more open-knit mid palate texture. Rounder shape in mouth to the Georgia’s linear. Tannins gently gripping as with velvet gloves to their youth and to the crunchy red fruits. 

Georgia’s Paddock 2004
Inky, dark smoky; hint of lifting VA, rich, fat, delineated dark and big, sub-porty in a delicious way. Long

Emily’s Paddock 2004
Sill redcurranty and perfumed, more delineated; full, sweet, medium bodied still, with warmth of alcohol. Seems a tad fresher than Georgia’s Paddock, and showing less evolution.  

Georgia’s Paddock 1994
Warm, lifting, aromatic VA, smooth farmyard. Dense and dark flavours.

Emily’s Paddock 1994
Mahogany, with herbal-iodine complex. Fresh farmyard, warm brick. A little lighter than the 1994 Georgia’s Paddock.

My research visit to Australia in October 2010 was sponsored by Wine Australia.

Phil Sexton

At the Australia Trade tasting in January, Phil Sexton of Giant Steps/Innocent Bystander in the Yarra Valley, and Martin Spedding of Ten Minutes By Tractor in Mornington Peninsula, argued a strong case for an expression of place in Australian pinot noirs from the three regions of Mornington Peninsula, Yarra Valley and Tasmania.

Sexton said that while “pinot noir has been in Australia for quite a while, getting snapped up quickly in the Melbourne and Sydney markets, it’s new for us to be taking pinot noir into other parts of the world.” Only around a decade ago expressive Aussie pinot noir with great varietal definition would have been an oxymoron.

And whilst Tasmania is some way distant, the Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula are only an hour’s drive from each other. Even so said Sexton, we need to “re-orientate our thinking on Mornington Peninsula, Yarra Valley and Tasmania – there is a direct relationship between this part of Australia and the Antarctic; there’s nothing between us [and the Antarctic].” 

The Yarra Valley is a large, diverse region, some 70 miles across, and this makes it difficult to generalise about a Yarra style.  There are simply too many different aspects and mesoclimates.  Soils too, vary enormously, going from “the oldest soils known on earth in the Upper [cooler] Yarra to younger, deep red, friable soils in the northern [Lower] Yarra” Sexton said, adding this has an influence on yield with “1-2 tonnes/acre range on the older soils, and up to 3-4 tonnes/acre” on the younger ones.

Given this diversity of mesoclimate, Winkler’s heat degree days remain a blunt instrument. The Yarra Valley comes in “at 1354, which sits between Bordeaux and Burgundy” Sexton said.  But “in the Yarra Valley our diurnal variation, especially in summer is more important. We get hot days, hotter than Mornington Peninsula, especially in summer. And [Yarra Valley] evenings, especially in the higher vineyards, drop quite significantly at night time. This gives good natural pH, and high acidity.”

Of the Yarra Valley wines shown, Sexton said “they are similarly produced. We tend to see pHs in the range of 3.5. Total acidity is usually 6-7g/l, a magical number for us because generally it means we don’t have to mess with the acids.  All four were open vat fermented, with minimal plunging, trying to avoid extraction, and looking for floral fruit.  All four have some barrel fermentation, but one of the problems of going too far with barrel fermentation in our part of the world is you get some real bacon, charcuterie characters.  They were all out of oak within 12 months, and the most new oak at 20%.”

Martin Spedding

Viticulture in maritime Mornington Peninsula is small scale said Martin Spedding “all [~200 vineyards] are family owned, with the focus on cool climate wines expressing the unique characters of each site.”  Altitudes get up to 300m just a short distance from the bay, and “most vineyards are in the hills and on slopes getting cool air from the ocean and the bay”.

Soils are also varied, with sand-based sedimentary clays in the north, and basalt-derived red ferrusol soils towards the south.

As with the Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula offers different mesoclimates. Spedding said “it’s difficult to generalise. Ten minutes by car from Red Hill to Yabby Lake can be four weeks difference in harvest dates.” Which is a similar difference between the peninsula and the valley.

Stylistically though, Spedding said “spiciness is very much Mornington Peninsula. Asian spice characters, plus bracken and pencil shaving characters, along with potpourri, aromatic, violets and herbiness.”  Sexton said Yarra Valley pinot noirs are “more perfumed, elegant, you don’t get into those five spice, herbal hints and lovely concentration you see in Mornington Peninsula wines.”

Tasmania vineyards are concentrated around Launceston in the north and Hobart in the south. Though further towards the Antarctic, Sexton said don’t just “look at the latitude. It has a lot more to do with the relationship to the ocean. Both Tasmania wine areas are close to the ocean.”  And one of the advantages is “great natural acidity” added Spedding.

Tasting notes

Yarra Valley wines are 2008, as 2009 was the year of the bush fires and the problem with smoke taint was huge.

Mornington Peninsula wines were 2009, where, said Spedding “the extremes of the heatwave in 2009 didn’t have a large impact on us, except some parts of northern Mornington Pensinsula.”

De Bortoli, Reserve Release Pinot Noir 2008, Yarra Valley, ~£25
Pale cherry colour, pure and perfumed with wild strawberries and a sweet fruit attack which continues all through the palate. Light, elegant with full flavour intensity and length. Sweetness of fruit is the core of this, with a faint silhouette of supporting sandalwood under the horizon. Very good.

Giant Steps, Sexton Vineyard Pinot Noir 2008, Yarra Valley, ~£19
Pale cherry colour, only faintly aromatic, with medium body and spiced dark cherry notes.  Tannins are restrained, and fruits are rich and sweet. Warm and enticing.

Mac Forbes, Woori Yallock Pinot Noir 2008, Yarra Valley, ~£33
Very pale cherry colour with crunchy red cherry, cherry sorbet which melts warmly and attractively on the palate. Sweet fruit core, with aromatic spice, intense, big fruit density for such a fragile looking wine. Fine-fine tannin texture, barely perceptible. Balance and precision with softness of mouth feel and long finish. Very good.

Yarra Burn, Bastard Hill Pinot Noir 2008, Yarra Valley
Smoke and aromatic spice. Tarry note mid palate, quite butch, the least pinot noir like of this line up.

Yabby Lake, Single Vineyard Pinot Noir 2009, Morninton Peninsula
Medim pale colour. A hint stemmy, in a complexing, peppery way, with smooth and medium-bodied black cherry sweetness. Rich and quite lush ripeness, glycerol texture, and just a bit of grip to the finish.

Kooyong Estate, Pinot Noir 2009, Mornington Peninsula
Rich, red cherry compote, warm and enticing on the nose. Quite full bodied and fat, with varietal flavours of tart cherries and fresh compost. Complex and rich, with quite broad shoulders for a pinot noir. Long finish.  

Stonier, Pinot Noir 2009, Mornington Peninsula
Aromas of cultivated strawberries, warmly spicy. Rich definition of bright cherry fruit, nicely balanced in a rounded way. Not massively complex, with good varietal definition.

Ten Minutes By Tractor, Estate Pinot Noir 2009, Mornington Peninsula
Lifted perfume of violets and sweet peas. Rich and flavoursome, in a medium to full body. Richly and elegantly proportioned with immense depth and volume of flavour, and a long finish. Very good.  

Domaine A, Pinot Noir 2006, Tasmania, ~£40
Deeply coloured with lifted and stalky nose, full bodied, with some of the more classic pinot noir characters absent. Rich, ripe, fat red fruit.   

Pirie Estate, Pinot Noir 2007, Tasmania, ~£18
Pale cherry colour. Bright and crunchy red cherries and crystallised strawberries. Medium to light, fresh and fragranced, body, Bright, linear and smooth, finely grained light tannins and attractive definition. Long finish.

Louisa Rose

When Negociants UK put on their ‘icon tasting’ in London in November 2010, their chief winemaker, the highly respected and supremely talented Louisa Rose, came over from Australia to be at the tasting. 

Having been with Yalumba for 18 years, it is Rose who has driven the company’s pole position in Australia with viognier, and her work with riesling demands similar praise.  It was she who created the Virgilius viognier.

She answered a few questions for me:

On Tasmania

The Hill Smith family own Jansz sparkling in Tasmania.  Rose said, as a matter of fact, they “wanted a great sparkling wine and it wasn’t going to come out of the Barossa.” [The home of Yalumba].  The family more recently (2007) bought Dalrymple, almost next door to the Jansz property.  The aim here, Rose said, is for “pinot noir table (still) wine.  We’ll probably look at chardonnay table wine down the track.”

On the Yalumba nursery programme

The Hill Smiths established a vine nursery in the 1970s to supply the wider industry with established varieties, and to develop and propagate new and emerging varieties and clones. Australia’s viognier is an alumnus of the nursery.

Rose said “we have new grape varieties in the nursery programme. We’re consolidating the work over the last 15 years, for example with viognier and tempranillo. We’re settling them down, making sure we’re happy with where they are.

“We’re planting verdejo this year in the Eden Valley, but it might do well in warmer regions as well.

“And we’re further down the track with vermentino.  The variety is doing well in warmer regions. So we’re not panicking about climate change, and we’re not focusing just on cooler regions.

“Tempranillo is really exciting. It’s similar to ‘normal’ red wine but different enough to be really exciting. It has juicy pH and all-encompassing tannins in a style without too much new oak.”

On the specific definitions of Barossa Valley, Clare Valley and Eden Valley

As Europe has appellations (AOC in France, DOC/G in Italy, DO/Ca in Spain etc), so Australia has GIs (geographical indications).  As with appellations these define and delimit areas by geographical extent. In Europe they’re associated with particular grape varieties, but not so in Australia. GIs just define area. 

There are three levels:  zone, region, wub-region.  So Barossa is a zone, which contains the regions of Barossa Valley and Eden Valley. And within the region of Eden Valley is the sub-region of High Eden.  Read here for a full list

“Barossa Valley is the low part, Eden Valley is the high part of [overall] valley. Traditionally there is a lot of blending from the higher and lower areas, for example, for the aromatics from Eden Valley.”  So blending Barossa Valley fruit with Eden Valley fruit would mean just the broader ‘Barossa’ goes on the label.  

“Clare Valley has nothing to do with the Barossa GI”, Rose said. In fact the Clare Valley region falls into the zone of the Mount Lofty Ranges.  This zone also includes the regions of Adelaide Hills (with sub-regions Lenswood and Piccadilly Valley) and Adelaide Plains.

On Clare Valley versus Eden Valley riesling

“Clare Valley riesling is driven with acidity and structure. They are acid-driven, powerful wines.  They have higher acidity, but not necessarily lower pH” than Eden riesling.

“Eden Valley riesling is softer, it’s more pristine and mineral, from low pH.  Eden Valley displays lime, lemon and dried herbs, while Clare Valley is more floral with stone fruit and pot pourri.”

Orange altitudes

The booklet is crammed with all the useful information and data to make a serious wine student’s eyes water with expectation: topography, geology, climate, weather, soils, and the effects of altitude (within Orange) on the flavour profile of the main grape varieties grown in the region. Viticultural consultant, proprietor of Hedberg Hill, and Charles Sturt University lecturer, Peter Hedberg contributed to the booklet.

He explained “There is a young – 12 million years old – cap of basalt, which overlays 400 million year old soils of gravels, shales, limestones etc. On top of it all is a deep, red friable soil.”  He said the area used to be 5,000m high “but erosion has exposed granite batholites”, adding “limestone breaks out to the surface at elevations of 600 to 700m.”   

Effectively there are different geologies approximately according to altitude. Above 800m are the young volcanic basalts under deep, loamy soils. Up to 800m are older volcanics covered by lighter loamy soils. And around 600m are ancient soils derived from those limestones, shales, greywacke etc.

Phil Kerney, winemaker at Ross Hill wines, and Orange-based contract winemaker for others, said that at the 1,000m Ross Hill site “we’re basalt-derived soils. But at the Ross Hill original block near Bloodwood, at about 780m, the soils are ancient, weathered granites.”

As part of the traditional model of terroir, it is the land, rather than the winemaker, that should speak. Mayfield Vineyard’s owner Richard Thomas said “we don’t want the winemakers’ fingerprints on the wines. We very much want an expression of the vineyards, a certain place, a certain time.”

However many, Mayfield included, send their fruit out of the region to be made under contract elsewhere. Small scale has been cited as a deterrent to setting up a winery and making one’s own wine. But the terroir model comes from Europe, where there are enough producers growing and making their own wines from just a few hectares of intimately-known vineyards, that this alone ought to inspire Orange folk to turn to on-site winemaking to gain close control of the product that bears their names.

It’s not to say that good wines aren’t already being made, just that they might be better by keeping tighter control of the whole process from vineyard to bottle. Indeed Mayfield were in my favourite wine selection from Orange.

Kerney said “I’ve worked all over the country and in Europe. My style is traditional winemaking with modern materials.” And in two short years, he’s beginning to overcome this resistance to a more vineyard-based winemaking for his contract clients, saying “we make wines to express the terroir of their vineyards. They pick when I advise. And they come out with a unique wine, but people still shy away from this, saying it’s too complicated.” It might be a bit complicated – in those two years, Kerney has made more than a hundred batches of wine, not necessarily large quantities, but winemaking on site is the only realistic option to be able to fully express vineyard site.

It jars somewhat that so many growers send off their fruit to contract winemakers, usually outside the region. To a European this is the antithesis of terroir. A primary tenet of the European model of terroir is the intimate husbandry of the land and of winemaking by one and same team, in order to coax the best expression of terroir from the fruit during winemaking.

Orange is inordinately young. As producers get to grips with the evident potential of their region, investment in own-winemaking facilities is bound to follow, possibly once the world begins to emerge from the global financial crisis, and capital investment no longer looks quite so risky.

My research visit to Australia in October 2010 was sponsored by Wine Australia.

Here is a selection of my favourite Orange region wines following on from my visit in October 2010, including approximate AUD$ retail prices.

Angullong, Sauvignon Blanc 2010, $17
General manager Ben Crossing said this wine is a combination of own fruit grown at 600m which “gets ripe tropical fruits, and fruit we buy from 970m which has lifted aromatics. And by putting the two together we get a wine with more dimensions.” 
Gunsmoke, citrus, and pink grapefruit, of punchy density and texture. Good flavour density, smooth citrus, nicely balanced and long. Very good.  

Belgravia, Riesling 2010, $22
12.5%.  Green tea, jasmine, citrus and lime pith illustrate good varietal definition. Decent intensity and density of fruit flavours with some elegance of style and a good finish.

Brangayne, Isolde 2009, $30
14%.  This is chardonnay. Creamy, nutty oak aroma, followed by a smooth palate of creamy-sweet, lush-sweet fruit, of elegant intensity. Fresh-peachy fruit, good weight and texture, nicely balanced. Delicious and fresh with long finish. Very good.
This one is a third new oak, and a third malo.

Brangayne, Tristan 2005, $30
14.5%. A blend of 55% cabernet sauvignon, 25% shiraz, 20% merlot. This is herby, with eucalyptus and sweet blackberry fruits on the nose, which all follow through on the palate. A mouth-filling wine of lush, nicely ripe fruit and old wood, tobacco leaf, complexity. The feeling is fresh with a super intensity of flavour. Very good. 

Faisan, Shiraz 2009, $23
Deeply coloured with warm plum aromas. Spicy lift to the palate of warm and bright plum and raspberry fruit, with rich, sweet-ripe, (not sweetly ripe), crunchy balance.  Fresh and good. 

Mayfield Vineyard, Riesling 2010, $28
This was only bottled the previous month. Lime zest and pith, good intensity of apple blossom. Some positive bruised apple phenols. Tight, with flesh to support, nicely weighted.  

Mayfield Vineyard, Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, $28
14% dense colour. Bits of spicy vanilla and chewy dense black fruit. Oak still needing to integrate, but plenty of soft, black fruit density and intensity to allow this. Alcohol is integrated. This is big and juicy, without being too powerful or cloying.     

Philip Shaw, No 11 Chardonnay 2009, $35
Philip Shaw said this “comes from older vineyards. It has a quick settle so we retain high solids, and goes to barrel.”
Fresh creamy, nutty, mealy nose, richly textured, quite full bodied, and smooth. The oak is beginning to settle nicely into a well-balanced wine of some refinement. Good

Philip Shaw, The Dreamer Viognier 2009,
Fragrant, peach blossom nose, with a clean, fresh, sparky palate, which is enticingly textured. Crunchy, fresh fruit, fresh peaches; really tasty and more-ish. 

Philip Shaw, No 8 Pinot Noir 2008,
Pale cherry colour with aromatic strawberry and raspberry nose in a lovely perfume. Smooth palate attack with silky tannins, sweet aromatic fruit, and very good varietal definition. Long finish. Everything is in the right place. Very good. 

Ross Hill, Jessica and Lily Sauvignon Blanc 2010, $18
13.5%. Fresh and clean, with soft grass, lemongrass, and pink grapefruit flavours, rather than in a super-zesty style. Six months on the lees add just a touch of dimension. Thoroughly decent.

Ross Hill, Chardonnay Pinnacle 2009, $27
13.5%. Cream, smooth white nuts, in a creamy texture which is both refined and balanced. Fresh and peachy-creamy; delicious. Hint of aromatic spice at the end.  No overt oak (even though a quarter of it is new), just a lovely texture. Very good.
Winemaker Phil Kearny said “it has full malo on its lees. We let it go till the butteriness goes.”

My research visit to Australia in October 2010 was sponsored by Wine Australia.

Canobolas in cloud

Locals also make a big deal about having four distinct seasons to Sydney’s ‘two-season subtropical’ climate. Indeed ‘Brand Orange’ runs four big promotional events a year – one to coincide with each season.

It helps that Orange town, lying at 850m, has some attractive ‘old money’ heritage and architecture in its gold rush origins. Streets are broad and wide enough for the turning circle of an ox and cart, which means parking is usually no problem.

Wine is the newcomer to Orange … the region used to be one of the biggest apple producing centres in Australia, and it still ranks nearly up there. The region is also a big pear and cherry producer, among the more familiar livestock and cereal production.

But no citrus.  Orange was named by New South Wales’ surveyor general, Thomas Mitchell, in honour of his friend, Willem (William), Prince of Orange. They had fought together in the Peninsular War (1808 to 1814) against Napoleon. Willem went on to become king of the Netherlands.

For wine, the Orange region, lying on the elevated central tablelands west of the Great Dividing Range is the only geographical indication (GI) in Australia to be defined by altitude – contiguous land above 600m around the extinct volcano that dominates the skyline, Mount Canobolas, at 1,396m. Vineyards below 600m fall into the Central Ranges zone.

Mount Canobolas is to the south west of nearby Orange town, and just 20 kilometres west of the mountain, elevation drops away quite rapidly.

Cool climate

Orange falls into a cool climate classification. Halliday’s Wine Atlas of Australia (2006) cites heat degree days (HDD) as 1200 to 1309, with an MJT (mean January temperature) of 19.9°C. The HDD put Orange in Winkler and Amerine’s Region I, though the MJT just squeezes the boundary into region II, by as small a margin as is possible.

However, with vineyard altitudes ranging from 600m to 1050m, a wide range of meso-climates exist in the region. Official Orange literature cites MJT as ranging from 20.9°C at 600m to 19°C above 1,000m, so the upper reaches of the GI are pretty cool.

Mayfield Vineyard

It’s a tiny region with around 1,500 hectares (ha) of vines – less than 1% of the national total, and mostly planted to the usual suspects: shiraz, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, pinot noir, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and riesling, along with some tempranillo and viognier. Production is currently about 60% red, 40% white, and this looks set to reverse as this young region realises its potential for aromatic and semi-aromatic whites. It’s already beginning to produce some really interesting and notably classy wines.

There are around 50 vineyards, and mostly producers are small, with the notably exception of Cumulus, mostly owned by a Portuguese investment company with several wine investments. Cumulus has 500 ha , making it the 7^th largest contiguous vineyard in Australia.

Pioneers include Bloodwood, who first planted in 1983, and now have 8 ha of vineyard, and Canobolas-Smith, both of whom make wine on site.

Philip Shaw, while he was working for Rosemount, bought his Koomooloo site in 1989, some 900m above sea level.  He’d spent a handful of years looking for somewhere to plant pinot noir and chardonnay, and he now has 47 ha in total. The apple orchard status helped Shaw make up his mind about the vineyard, as he said “to get good colour in apple skins, you need a certain cold period,” which he explained was also important for grape growing.

Along with a couple of others, that was pretty much it for a while, until a relatively huge amount of vineyard started going in from the mid 1990s.

Altitude

Altitude is worn like a badge of honour in Orange, and Mayfield Vineyard, at 860 to 930m, claims status of ‘one of the highest and coolest vineyards in Australia’. Owners Richard and Kathy Thomas commissioned a thorough study before investing in the property, and planting it in 1998. Thomas said “there are not many days over 30°C in summer.” Even higher, with vineyards up to 1,000m, is Brangayne, where owner David Hoskins said “the January average is 26°C, and it can go below 10°C at night.”

Thomas said this high diurnal temperature variation “maintains the natural acid backbone. I think it enhances flavour through gradual flavour development.” Hoskins added “Fruit is on the vine longer. Post veraison flavour development is not rushed by heat. And sugar accumulation here is slower.“

Brangayne

Another consideration of such a wide variance in altitude over a short distance is that it rather dictates plantings. Pinot noir on the lower slopes struggles (too warm), as does sauvignon blanc, as does cabernet sauvignon on the upper slopes (too cool).

Phil Kerney makes some of the Mayfield wines at the Wallace Lane Wine Company, which was established in 2009 by Ross Hill wines, as a contract winemaking facility. An old apple storage shed was converted into a winery in an attempt to keep more Orange fruit in the region, rather than see it exported to contract winemakers further afield, which is the common current practice, as many growers are just that.

Kerney is also the winemaker for Ross Hill Wines, which was started in 1994 by Peter and Terri Robson, who originally sold fruit to the big boys. They bought the Wallace Lane property in 1998, and, as well as converting the apple shed, have planted pinot grigio, sauvignon blanc, and pinot noir here, at over a 1,000m.

Neighbouring Wallace Lane and the higher altitude Ross Hill vineyard, at 970m, is Brangayne, named after the handmaiden of Isolde in Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde, which had been a favourite opera of Hoskins’ grandmother, who had founded the property in the 1930s.

Brangayne’s vineyards lie on the north-east slopes of Mount Canobolas. It was not until 1994 that fruit orchards were replaced by vines. As befitting the altitude, the 26 ha are planted to chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, riesling, pinot grigio, pinot noir, pinot meunier, as well as cabernet sauvignon, shiraz and merlot on their lower vineyard, at 870m. Hoskins said “we’re still a young region, and we’ve been grappling with an ‘Orange style’.” For example, he said “it’s only in the last five years that people have cottoned to shiraz and cabernet sauvignon. We do them better than people thought”

Borrodell is another of the high altitude properties at 1,100m. It’s all basalt country on the top slopes, where aromatic whites do best. Hail is an issue, so the property’s cherry and apple orchards are netted for protection.

Apart from such smaller family holdings, and Cumulus at the opposite end of the spectrum, there are one or two medium sized operations, for example Angullong, owned by the Crossing family, where 220 hectares were planted between 1998 and 2000, on their much larger sheep and cattle farm. The vines occupy altitudes of 580m to 620m, so only those vineyards above 600m supply fruit for Orange-labelled wines. The same applies for Cumulus.

There is a lightness and elegance of style to many of the wines here, which sets them apart from warmer regions in Australia. And though, said Shaw, “it’s in the last three years that quality has increased tremendously, if we do get challenged it’s because our wines are not over-expressive at an early age.“ And more potential will be released as producers invest in their own wineries and winemakers, taking full control of not just grape growing, but also winemaking.

My research visit to Australia in October 2010 was sponsored by Wine Australia.

Savaterre's south-facing vineyard

A little bit of altitude has made all the difference for Beechworth. While Rutherglen sits around 170m above sea level, Beechworth varies from 300 to 700m.  This is enough of a difference, in just an hour’s drive, to move from the required heat of Rutherglen to the significantly cooler Beechworth, where the altitude of the Victorian Alps plays its part to the extent that slopes become an important feature to ameliorate the risk of frost.

It’s not to say that Beechworth is cool climate. Halliday’s Wine Atlas of Australia (2006) gives heat degree days of 1240 to 1687, which spans Winkler and Amerine’s regions I to III, though the mean January temperature of 19.9°C to 20.4°C is firmly ensconced in region II.  There is some diurnal temperature variation, which is important to preserve aroma in the fruit. Hot days of 35 to 40°C generally cool off during the night to around 20°C.  

More than two dozen growers work in Beechworth and vineyard holdings tend to be small, with the individual or family approach to viticulture being the dominant theme.

There were vineyards here in the 1800s with the gold rush. Indeed, the affluent Beechworth town is Australia’s oldest gold mining town and the centre retains much of that 19^th century provincial charm.  But the modern viticultural pioneer is Rick Kinzbrunner who set up Giaconda in 1980, and who has virtually single-handedly led the region to niche stardom.  It is only in the last decade that vineyards have started to expand as this delightful niche gains wider kudos. The acclaimed Langton’s classification acknowledged this with two new Beechworth entrants into their 2010 list.

Rick, and son Nathan, who joined the business full-time just two years ago, farm a total of 12 hectares, 4 ha on the Giaconda site, 4 ha on the Warner family vineyard where the Giaconda – Warner vineyard shiraz is made, and another 4 ha in a joint venture with Nathan’s cousin, Peter Graham (who is also the assistant winemaker at Giaconda), and Frenchman Michel Chapoutier, also planted to shiraz and a bit of nebbiolo, for the Ergo Sum label.  

Giaconda's maturation cave

The family is still excited about the cave recently dug under the hill below the winery, which has a steady 15.5°C temperature, and which now houses the wines maturing in cask.

The 2010 chardonnay was picked in several passages from the bottom of the cooler south-facing slope on February 19^th to the top of the slope on March 10th. A natural yeast fermentation followed in 40% new French oak, where, Nathan said, the wine will lay on its lees for about two years.  The chardonnay has long been among the top, exceptional, category of the Langton’s classification.

Immediately on the other side of the road, Giaconda acolyte Keppell Smith, set up Savaterre in the mid 1990s. An émigré from the financial world, Smith “couldn’t understand why one of the best wineries – Giaconda – was here, and no-one else was.”  He figured all that perfume, elegance and structure couldn’t all be due to the man, so the decomposed granite with clay soil must have something to add.  He planted 5 ha of pinot noir and chardonnay, along with some recently added shiraz, on a similarly south-facing slope. He said he’ll release his first vintage of shiraz, the 2010, if it’s up to scratch.

The idiosyncratic Smith uses some (non-certified) biodynamic techniques such as enriching the soil with bacteria. In the winery he insists he’s “just babysitting”, saying “I leave it alone, no yeast, not bacteria, I press in a basket press so I oxidise early, but I need a substantial piece of fruit if I’m going to sculpt” something remarkable.  But in leaving a wine alone, the attention to detail needs to be microscopic; he said “every 1% you muck up, it’s cumulative.”

Smith’s chardonnay jumped into the distinguished category of Langton’s emerging classics in 2010.

In both the Giaconda and Savaterre chardonnay, intense, multi-layered, sweet-savoury flavours from lengthy lees ageing give the wines added complexity and intrigue, with more of an ‘old world’ feel.  These are serious, sophisticated and sublime chardonnays.

Castagna

The Langton’s trilogy is completed by the second new entrant, Castagna, whose property neighbours Giaconda. Indeed, ex-film director and individualist, Julian Castagna worked vintages for Rick for several years as part of his winemaking training.

Castagna bought his land in 1997 and immediately planted vines, and shiraz is the tour de force here, and it is the Genesis Syrah which is also categorised as distinguished.  The vines are planted on north and east-west facing slopes, for greater warmth for the shiraz.

Castagna got his shiraz cuttings from original Aussie material – clones and selections from Barossa and McLaren Vale. He’s also planted sangiovese, viognier and nebbiolo, and the vineyards now take up 4 hectares.

Of his shiraz, Castagna said “I make shiraz the way most people make pinot noir, with great care. We only pick till 11 a.m. The fruit is always cold when it comes in. It gets a cold soak of up to six days pre-fermentation. And the fermentation uses whole bunches and whole berries.”

The Genesis has a couple of per cent of viognier in it. Sophistication and seriousness are the bywords again, along with fine, silky-smooth tannin structure, and savoury, graphite notes.

Giaconda, plus the Warner and Ergo Sum vineyards, and Castagna and Savaterre have sewn up the 400 to 500m altitude block on the approach road into Beechworth, like four proud corners of a box on either side of the road.

My research visit to Australia in October 2010 was sponsored by Wine Australia.

Yalumba

As owners of Yalumba they are members of Austalia’s First Families of Wine (AFFW), and they also own a number of other wines including Pewsey Vale, Heggies Vineyard, and Redbank Wines. 

A fellow member of AFFW, Jim Barry, owned by the Barry family, is distributed by the Hill-Smiths’ import and distribution company, Negociants.

They recently held a tasting in London of what they call the icon wines, i.e. pretty much the posh kit.  And well worth searching out it is too.

Tasting notes, London, November 2010

Jim Barry, The Florita Riesling 2008, Clare Valley, ~£24
11.5%. Intense lime juice and pith nose. Palate with exotic notes of quince and marjoram. Intense plentiful fruit, in dry, steely style. Purity of fruit, very clean and precise.

Jim Barry, The Armargh Shiraz 2006, Clare Valley, ~£90
15.5%. Dark, bitter chocolate-dipped roasted plums, savoury old wooded toasty notes. Savoury, tarry, dense, sweet, almost porty elements coming through. Butch and muscular.

Jim Barry, The Benbournie Cabernet sauvignon 2002, South Australia, ~£56
15%. Spicy with some fruitcake development on the nose; smooth tannins, nicely melded. Alcohol is well integrated, and the palate still has richly sweet primary fruit; not much palate evidence of bottle age. Big, soft, then a hint of savoury at the finish is the only suggestion of an older wine.  

Jim Barry, The First Eleven Cabernet sauvignon 2006, Coonawarra, ~£23 
14.5%. Reticent nose, then linear blackcurrant fruit attack, smoothly textured, warm big fruit, no great subtlety. Rather chewy tannins, and rather grippy around the edges.

Jim Barry, The McRae Wood Shiraz 2005, Clare Valley, ~£24
15.5%. Smoky, tarry, chewy nose, fine-grained almost velvety texture. Dark, rich plums, tar, sweet dark chocolate, lush, sweet, fruit, in a big, well toned body-built structure. Lushly smooth. Good. Everything well proportioned in a big frame and in the right place.   

Heggies Vineyard, Chardonnay 2009, Eden Valley, ~£13 
13.5%. Creamy, toasted vanilla nose, nicely done overt new oak with fresh, lifting aromatically spiced citrus mid palate. Linear, elongated in mouth profile, with fresh core and elements of elegant restraint. Good.

Heggies Vineyard, Reserve Chardonnay 2007, Eden Valley, ~£16 
13%. Smoky, dried citrus nose, with light caramel notes and fine-grained texture. A big wine holding itself in check with some aplomb. Ginger and cinnamon aromatics among the medium bodied sweet flesh of ripe, baked citrus fruits. Finishing with a light mocha note of complexity.

Jansz NV, Tasmania, ~£14 
Chardonnay dominated blend, with pinot noir. 12.5%.
Poached pears, and Nice biscuits, with smooth, fine mousse, fresh, and fruit-forward palate of pears, apples and allspice-infused citrus. Ripe fruits with a good density and intensity of fresh fruit, nicely balanced. Good. I like this for its uncomplicated simplicity.

Jansz 2005, Tasmania, ~£20
Five years on lees. Chardonnay 51%, pinot noir 49%; 12.5%.
Brioche and dried spiced citrus fruit skins. Fine mousse, with a fresh core amid ripe, sweet fruits. It has complexing savoury, doughy character emerging, nicely balanced with good volume of fruit and a decent length of finish.

Mesh, Riesling 2009, Eden Valley, ~£17 
A joint venture between Robert Hill-Smith and Jeffrey Grosset, of Grosset Wines.
12%. Fennel and preserved lemon nose. Herbal complexity in linear profile, Less in a pure, primary fruit mould, more into the herbal, stony, almost gunflinty spectrum. Smooth and layered, but then not quite as long a finish as the palate promised. Still with a firm, steely finish. Good.

Pewsey Vale Vineyard, Riesling 2010, Eden Valley, ~£11
13%. Lime pith and jasmine nose, fresh, limey attack, smooth and finely textured, with some sophistication of palate length and profile. Pure lime zest with aromatic complexity from jasmine and fresh ginger.  Long finish. Good and elegant.  

Pewsey Vale Vineyard, The Contours Riesling 2005, Eden Valley, ~£14 
13%. Citrus, kerosene with lanolin notes just beginning to emerge. Dense palate flavour with aromatic smokiness and hints of toastiness coming through the lime and steeliness. Long finish.

Redbank, The Anvil Shiraz 2006, Beechworth, ~£25
14.5%. Dark fruit, bitter chocolate, complex nose, smooth palate attack, sophisticated and gentle attack which persists. Alcohol not really noticeable. Dark chocolate, liquorice-stick, aromatic-tarry mid palate notes. Yet not much more than medium bodied. Silkily textured and refined. Smooth, fine, deeply flavoursome, with some savoury graphite notes. Serious and very good.

Vasse Felix, Heytesbury Chardonnay 2008, Margaret River, ~£23 
13%. Aromatic tar with sweet cinnamon and allspice-infused fresh oranges and lemons. Tropical notes emerge mid palate in this nearly full bodied style. Creamy, ginger-spiced double cream on the finish gives weight to this wine’s fat and breadth. Balanced and integrated in an overt, modern style.

Vasse Felix, Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Margaret River, ~£18 
14%. Herbal hint of tar and green pepper on the nose. Smooth fresh, crunchy black berry and black currant palate attack. Silkily smooth fruit texture. Some nice refinement and elegance of silky tannin structure here. More-ish. Medium bodied, elegant, sophisticated, with upright backbone. Long in the palate length and finish. Very good.

Vasse Felix, Heytesbury 2007, Margaret River, ~£35
14.5%. Cabernet sauvignon, malbec, petit verdot. 
Spice and cedarwood, sandalwood, medium plus weighted, open knit, mildly chewy youthful texture. Baked red fruits – cherry, forest berry fruits. Big, soft fruits of high concentration, and some complexity. Big fruits, fleshy rather than muscular.  Decent finish. Good.

Yalmuba, Viognier 2009, Eden Valley, ~£12
14.5%. Apricot, peachy and ginger nose, very clear varietal definition. Smooth, glycerol-slippery texture, alcohol fully integrated in the mid palate. Full-fat body, toastily spicy in its typical, straightforward style.

Yalumba, The Virgilius Viognier 2009, Eden Valley, ~£25 
14%. Reticent nose, silky texture the first thing that hits the palate, quickly followed by a blanketing peachy, creamy fruit in a serious expression of viognier. Full-fat body, slippery sweet texture, spicy depth and non-overt sweet concentration. A wine that demands attention. Long finish. Good.

Yalumba, FDR1A 2006, Barossa, ~£20
14%. Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz.  (Fine Dry Red, barrel selection 1A) 
Deeply coloured, with spicy, herbal nose,liquorice-sweet attack and sweet, dense black berried fruits. Succulent, silky textured and sophisticated, though warmth of alcohol comes through at end.  Small price to pay for sweet, lush fruit and linear-textured profile. Good.

Yalumba, The Signature 2005, Barossa, ~£27 
14.5%. Cabernet sauvignon / shiraz.
Warm, spicy, minty, in a rich, traditional Barossa style – big, fat, mouth-filling, lush, sweet, all -enveloping. All held together well with a glycerol thickness. Big sweet fruit, spicy, stewed black berries, liquorice stick and herbal – thyme.  Warm, thick finish. Good.

Yalumba, The Reserve 2002, Barossa, ~£49 
14%. Cabernet sauvignon and shiraz
Sweet vanilla and characterful, stalky brambles on the nose, and followed up on palate. Tannins smoothing out nicely, still immense primary fruit, very little fruitcake of bottle age, just a gentle melding of tannin. Big softie and nice for that.

Yalumba, The Cigar 2008, Coonawarra, ~£14
14%. Cabernet sauvignon
Black cherry and allspice/cinnamon nose, smooth, finely crushed black berry fruit, with fresh backbone, medium bodied, and with alcohol well integrated.  Freshness is the  key driver here, with crunchy, fresh fruit, nothing baked or stewed. Fine grained youthful texture. Long finish. Very good.

Yalumba, The Octavius 2004, Barossa, ~£49
14.5%. Old Vine Shiraz
Red cherry and victoria plum spiciness on the nose. Smooth, bright cherry, youthful fruit, no sign of bottle age. Mid palate complexity aided by floral perfume. Young and crunchy-fruited still, with hints of milk coffee and warm mulling spices. Smooth and textured. Complex and very good.

Yalumba, Hand Picked 2007, Barossa, ~£18
14.5%. Shiraz-viognier
Gentle mocha, spiced red berries with smooth-aromatic palate attack. Hint of bitter phenolics on the mid palate, which is gentle and a bit loose. 

Yalumba, The Menzies 2005, Coonawarra, ~£27 
14.5%. Cabernet sauvignon
Dark, charcoal and mocha nose. Hints of fresh leather savouriness emerging on the palate. Aromatic tarry core, full bodied, sweet black fruit, dark, brooding, fat and still lushly sweet. Black berry fruits emerge to greater concentration on the palate. Smooth, rounded, full, with big, softie tannins, in a brash style. Good. 

Yalumba, Fromm Vineyard Shiraz 2006, Barossa Valley, ~£35
14%. Single site at Lyndoch
Lifted, red cherry, cranberry fruits, with richly toasted oak coming through on the palate;  dark fruits, charcoal notes and rich chewy tannins. Big, quite butch, pretty classic Barossa valley expression.  Big and fruitfully chewy.

Yalumba, Hahn Farm Vineyard Shiraz 2006, Barossa Valley, ~£35
14%. Single site at Light Pass
Dark, ripe stalky nose. Sweetly luscious dark berried fruit. Slippery texture, dark berries, big and fat and rather loosely structured, without clear definition of backbone.

Yalumba, The Scribbler 2008, Barossa, ~£12
14.5%. Cabernet sauvignon – shiraz
Herbal and liquorice nose mellowing into spicy red berry fruits in a lifted, fresh-fruit-salad sort of spectrum, with fresh acidity to the core which lifts the bearing of the wine. Gentle texture, with focus on the fruit and spice. Finely textured, warming, with an attractive degree of elegance for a wine of this alcohol.