I had an OMG food moment at the gala dinner of the International Cool Climate Symposium in Hobart Tasmania where renowned chef Tetsuya Wakuda prepared the signature dish from his Sydney restaurant: confit of Petuna ocean trout, with shaved fennel and lemon scented olive oil.

Indeed it was as he explained after the course. It did look raw in the half-dark mood lighting of such dinners, (and it looked good for that) – a lush 2cm thick steak of trout – pink, plush and radiant on the plate.

Being new to this blogging lark, I’ve made a note to self: take some pix of stuff I eat. It might look nerdy at table, but it could be really useful. Though there is a pic of his dish on the restaurant link.

The trout is confit-ed in olive oil at 80C for 30 minutes. It was soft, with huge flavour locked in, and came with a crust of semi-dried kelp which provided a delicious salty and crunchy textural counterpoint. Yu-um.

I was sitting at a table with the supplier of said sea trout. Tim Hess explained how he farms the trout on the west coast of Tasmania, where the Gordon river flows in to Macquarie harbour. He said the trout find their favoured spots where fresh and sea water mingle.

The dish was paired with Tamar Ridge Kayena Chardonnay 2009 and Frogmore Creek Chardonnay 2008, both of which had sufficient, delicate, elegant oak supporting fresh and soft peachy fruits. Not a bad match.

I was completely blown away by this wine. I tasted it during a sparkling wine dinner at the International Cool Climate Symposium in Hobart, Tasmania on February 1^st, where it was paired very well with soft peach wrapped in succulent pork.

I tasted it again the following day in more neutral circumstances, where my notes read: honeyed lemon verbena on dry toasted brioche. Multi-layered complex wine that blossoms on the mouth with flavours that seem to linger forever. It’s fresh, elegant, lifted and light and with a huge concentration and intensity. It’s refreshing where some other really complex aged bubbles lose that, perhaps not after just five years. White floral edges remain in a really youthful wine with a wonderful future still ahead if it.

Clover Hill are in the north of Tasmania.

100% chardonnay.

Partial malolactic in tanks

On lees for at least 38 months.

RS 7.9g/l

TA 8.7g/l

13%

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

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

Macedon Ranges

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

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

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

Why is it important? 

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

North Tasmania

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

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

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

Cool climate from the wine up

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

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

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

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

East Coast Tasmania

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

The science stuff

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

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

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

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

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

Selection of locations to show MJT and degree days

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

Mac Forbes

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

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

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

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

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

Victoria

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

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

Tasting notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As Australia tries to create a message different from its ’sunshine in a bottle’ that has done so well for it in recent years, one of the challenges for the Queensland wine industry is how to get past its ‘Sunshine State’ moniker and subtropical climate image.

View from the winery

The state’s capital city, Brisbane, is known as ‘Australia’s only sub tropical capital’, so at first glance this is quite a challenge for the wine industry, but Maryanne Pidcock, President of the Queensland Wine Industry Association puts this to one side, saying: “The perception of Queensland as a sub-tropical climate is only true for the coast and further north, which is how many [people] perceive Queensland, due to the marketing efforts of tourism bodies over many years. In fact only two of the state’s wine regions would fall into this category, with the rest being on or west of the Great Dividing Range.” And the position of vineyard areas in relation to the Great Dividing Range is important, with greater humidity and cloud on the eastern side, reminiscent of New South Wales’ Hunter Valley. The cooler temperature offered by increasing altitude is significantly beneficial.

Tourism is Queensland’s second largest export industry (after mining), and the key wine regions are just two to three hours drive from Brisbane.   Wineries are able to plug into the tourism road map, by siting a cellar door retail outlet, often with restaurant attached, at some distance remote from the winery, notably on those main tourist avenues in closer proximity to Brisbane, frequently on the route to the Gold Coast.

To fight its cause, the Queensland government has created the role of Minister for Wine Industry Development and wine enthusiast Margaret Keech MP will go down in history as the first incumbent. The state is the first in Australia to create such a minister for wine.  A wine industry development strategy was finalised in December 2004, after nine months of consultation with the industry.  It is likely that the success of the Queensland wine industry over the coming years will be judged directly according to the investment afforded by the government.

Queenslander Peter Scudamore-Smith MW, wine judge and oenology consultant with over 30 years experience believes the production structure is a key issue, saying ” the main challenges are the ability to build brands locally, domestically and internationally, and the ability to contain costs in a very condensed marketplace so that businesses are profitable. Scale of economy is the ultimate challenge, grow larger, streamline production and supply and distribution infrastructure.” He says a handful of key Queensland brands have to grow significantly and consistently for Queensland to make a success of its industry. At the moment there are just four producers who crush over 200 tonnes (~15,000 cases): Ballandean, Clovely, Jimbour and Sirromet. Otherwised 85% of the industry is made up of small holders, each making between 500 and 3,500 cases annually. 

Ballandean Estate

Queensland had a flourishing wine industry from the 1860s but it fell into decline until the late 1960s, when Ballandean Estate in the Granite Belt started a programme of replanting. The vast majority of latter growth has been in the last 6 to 7 years, and much more is yet to come.

With 1,500 ha of bearing vines, Queensland accounts for about 1.5% of total Australian vineyard plantings.  Tasmania has about two-thirds of the vineyard size, but crushes half as much again as Queensland.  The crush for 2005 is expected to finalise at about 5000 tonnes (just 350,000 cases for the whole state).  A further 20% increase is forecast for 2006. In 1999, a total of just 600 tonnes were crushed. This is rapid growth indeed, but the entire Queensland industry produces, for example, just over one fifth of the production of South Australian company Yalumba.

The main grape varieties are, almost predictably, shiraz, cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay and merlot. Semillon is next, much of which is ‘exported’ to near neighbour Sydney. Verdelho makes some interesting wines, especially in the fresh, aromatic, unoaked styles, and it would easily be an alternative in the UK to the ubiquitous sauvignon blanc.  A few hectares each of a plethora of other grape varieties are also grown with some interesting early results on viognier and petit verdot.  Indeed Scudamore-Smith suggests “Verdelho is poised to the be the State’s drink…some of the best international ones come from the Granite Belt”, adding “petit verdot is exceptionally promising, though better blended than a single wine.”

The vineyards are concentrated in two principal districts, South Burnett and the Granite Belt, both awarded Geographical Indications.  A third region, Darling Downs, shows potential and in all there are some nine named wine regions in Queensland.  Scudamore-Smith said of wine character “the Burnett and Darling Downs parallel the Riverina, Barossa and Clare Valleys with similar climate classifications – warm to hot with an early vintage in February-March.  The Granite Belt is cool continental – similar wine personalities are found at Orange, Tumburumba and Northern New South Wales.”

South Burnett was the first district to be awarded GI status, in 2000. Grapes were first planted in 1993 and many producers have planted only since 1999.  The altitude varies from 300 to 500m ASL and the rainfall pattern is a summer one. 

Pidcock, who is also a producer in South Burnett, at Captain’s Paddock Vineyard, said: “The warm climate results in fast phenological ripening for all fruit, giving rich, ripe fruit characters, with wines often opulent, with plenty of tannin.” 

Gerald Keatinge, the general manager of Clovely Estate, an 175 hectare South Burnett property, all of which vineyards were planted in the late 1990s, said: “the best suited variety is verdelho which we pick early in January, at about 13.5 Baume, with more flavour.  Semillon and chardonnay also work well… We have shiraz, and petit verdot, which is a hardy variety, retaining acidity and having deep colour.” 

The warm climate can result in quite a short time on the vine, and both Keatinge and Pidcock are proponents of double pruning, which can lengthen the time ripening grapes spend on the vine.   The normal growing season is from October to January, but a December to May season extends the growing season from about 100 days to 130.

Luke Fitzpatrick, winemaker at both Clovely and Captain’s Paddock explained: “you cut back to two bud spurs in December and the vines grow again. This results in bunches being on the vine longer – we  don’t harvest till June.  We do it on one acre of a four acre shiraz plot, and rotate.”  As well as lengthening the growing season, Keatinge added “it brings yields down to about 2 tonne/acre [~40hl/ha] from 4 tonnes and we aim to get more intense flavours.  But the process creates something like jet lag for the vine and we need to leave it for a couple of years to recover a normal growth pattern.  We may try it on cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot just to see what happens.”

It is the Granite Belt, a 40km north-south strip of land, with GI status since 2001, that is the jewel of the Queensland wine industry, both qualitatively and quantitatively. The region is close to the border with NSW. Large granite boulders rock the landscape, and soils are composed of decomposed granite, nominally akin to those of the northern Rhône.  Most vineyards are between Stanthorpe in the north of the region and Ballandean in the south.  Altitude varies from 700 to 1000m ASL, and the resulting 7-10°C cooler temperature than at the coast definitely takes this region a long way from the subtropical.  Whilst summer days are still hot, autumn evenings can be cool and snow has been known to fall in winter.  As if to emphasise the continental climate, Mark Ravenscroft, President of the Granite Belt Wine Industry Association calls winter the “brass monkeys season where temperatures can get to -8°C, but is usually around freezing, with day temperatures of 14-15°C”.  Within Australia, Brisbanite Andrew Corrigan MW, consultant and radio presenter, said the statistics show the area to be similar to the Young-Hilltops area of southen NSW near Canberra.

Dating from 1930, Ballandean Estate is one of Queensland’s oldest wineries, and it is third generation, ‘godfather’ Angelo, and Mary Puglisi who are noted with revitalising the modern Queensland industry by beginning to replant vines in the 1970s.  In addition to be a leading producer in the region, and one of only a handful available in the UK, the estate is noted for hosting an annual charity event ‘Opera in the vineyard’ which more than 2000 people attend each year.

This adds another element to the vital tourism angle and other producers offer live performances alongside dining and tasting opportunities.  Robert Channon Wines, which opened for business only in 2001, from vines planted about eight years ago, is  primarily is gaining a reputation as a leading producer of Granite Belt verdelho, but their 2005 ’season’ offers pop, jazz, opera and classics.

This cellar door experience has to date been one of the greatest successes of the Queensland wine industry. Over 90% of Queensland wineries have cellar door operations and the experience at many fits perfectly with the whole tourism experience.  Ballandean Estate for example, has 85,000 cellar door visitors a year.  Many producers make several different styles of wine for the home market, and there is something in this akin to the Germany model of offering a range of styles to be the ‘one stop shop’ for passing trade.

Sirromet, started from scratch in 1999, has built its premise and premises on the tourism route.  Mt Cotton, a 230 hectare estate, is situated just over an hour south of Brisbane on the main tourism drag.  The property has just a few hectares of atmospheric vines at Mount Cotton, plus 100 ha of working vines in the Granite Belt.  Mt Cotton has a modern processing facility with high profile environmental assests such as a waste water treatment plant and an extensive worm farm to recycle solid waste.  A 220-cover restaurant and large cellar door outlet are designed to create ‘a great day out’.  Managing Director Adam Chapman said: “”It’s packed at the weekend, we might have a jazz band, people can get a bottle of wine and bucket of prawns, go sit on the lawn and relax, read the paper…”  There’s even an grass amphitheatre below the main building where the owners hope to hold concerts and live performances.  And it makes wines too.

A growing industry needs to find a market and it is export that holds the key. The domestic market is pretty static and  the vineyard area is due to double, so export is already a survival tool for the industry despite its small size. Exports for 2003-2004 campaign reached just 14,000 cases.  Expect to see increasing focus on the wines of Queensland.

Pidcock said: “in relation to export, Queensland has an advantage in many Asian and emerging markets, as the styles we produce well [some lighter and some with residual sweetness] are well placed to meet demand. The consumers in these markets already have a positive image of, or relationship with, Queensland through tourism and its clean, green, sunshine image.”  As the UK embraces Asian cuisine perhaps there’s an opportunity for an additional link to be made here.

Queensland wine is certainly receiving an injection of focus and funds, witness the fact that more than half the operators in Queensland have entered the market in the last decade.  But consider that just a decade and a half ago, Western Australia had about 1,700 hectares and produced 7,500 tonnes of fruit.  There’s plenty of work to be done, but perhaps the sights of the Queensland wine industry are not set so high after all.

FACTBOX (correct in 2005)

The Granite Belt – 790 ha

The South Burnett – 420 ha

Darling Downs – around Toowoomba – 120 ha

Western Downs – Maranoa Region – Roma, St George and Surat – 20 ha

North Burnett and Central Queensland – 40 ha

Sunshine Coast and Hinterland – 20 ha

Gold Coast Hinterland, Brisbane, Brisbane Valleys and the Scenic Rim – 50 ha

Somerset Valleys and D’Aguilar Ranges – 20 ha

Inglewood District – 30 ha

Total = 1,500 hectares

Source: Department of Wine Industry Development

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

East Coast Tasmania

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

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

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

Cool Climate Chic

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

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

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

Pinot Noir

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

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

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

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

Climbing, Climbing

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

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

Yarra Valley

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

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

Champion Clones

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

Creature Champions

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

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

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

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

Pinot noir plantings in Australia

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

Adelaide Hills                       391 ha

Geelong                                   170

Macedon Ranges                    58

Mornington Peninsula       252

Tasmania                                 625

Yarra Valley                          706

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