Australian
impressions
Some of Tony Brady's old vines at
Wendouree, Clare, September 2004
As I write I’m sitting in the
departures lounge at Adelaide airport, having just finished a
lightning fast visit to South Australia. This included four days in
the Barossa, a couple in Clare and then a day in Adelaide. So, time to
collect some of my thoughts and impressions.
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The Barossa is undergoing a new
lease of life. The thing to remember about the Barossa is that it
is still dominated by small growers, who then sell their fruit:
some wineries do own their own vineyards, but almost all are
dealing with growers. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It has
left the way open for winemakers without much capital behind them
to make a start on their own, sourcing grapes and then borrowing
winery space. This is what is happening at the moment: young,
ambitious winemakers are starting to turn out their own homebrew,
often in quite small quantities. Some of the wines produced are
stunning, and it is good for the Barossa as a whole to have this
dynamic undercurrent. They aren’t making especially big, oaky,
soupy critic wines, looking for high ratings and a fast buck, but
instead the inspiration is often trying to do the best possible
with the grapes they’ve got. The results are frequently hugely
impressive. It’s the ‘New Barossa’ style, not relying on
toasty, spicy, roasted flavours from American oak, but incredible
depth and intensity of fruit.
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I’ve never seen so many great
old vine vineyards. Because South Australia is phylloxera-free,
old vines abound. Virtually everything is planted on its own
roots. Growers are often paid relatively little by big companies
for old vine fruit, which leaves the way open for the young
winemakers to come in and offer a better price and then do
something fantastic with it. There are plenty of 100 year old plus
vineyards in the Barossa, and a few in the Clare.
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Winemakers are beginning to
realize that Grenache is underrated. Old vine Grenache is
compelling stuff. Mourvedre (or Mataro as it is known here) is
also underrated. Both are fantastic when handled well.
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Barrel characteristics and oak
usage are under-researched and somewhat poorly understood topics.
American oak generally sucks; locally seasoned American oak sucks
even more.
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The Clare is a beautiful region
and makes stunning Riesling (you already knew that) and some
brilliant Cabernets. The Shiraz is pretty good, too. I didn’t
visit many producers, but had a great time with Andrew Mitchell,
Jeffrey Grosset and Tony Brady. One of Clare’s claims to fame is
that they really kick-started the current screwcap revolution in
2000. Because no one in Australia was offering screwcappet bottles
of the right sort of quality, they had to club together to import
250 000 (the smallest viable quantity) from Pechiney in France.
This collaborative effort set the ball rolling with the effect
that last year there was some heroic number of screwcapped bottles
used in Australia – off the top of my head I think it is around
200 million.
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Synthetics aren’t dead. I
visited Nukorc’s facility in Adelaide. They are one of the two
current leading players in the synthetic closure field, most of
the others having fallen by the wayside a little. They use a novel
one-piece extruded design and it works pretty well. And it’s
cheap. Impressive product that might be a better option that
screwcaps for a large segment of the wine market.
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The AWRI is doing some fantastic
research. I spent some time (not enough) with several of their
researchers and came away very impressed. Lots of good
information, and a few book chapters will have to be expanded.
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I think I might be right in
saying that Aussies are probably among the world’s nicest people
– at least the people I met in my travels. This was my third
time here, and I was overwhelmed by peoples’ generosity of
spirit and down to earth, open attitude. There’s a refreshing
pragmatism. I also heard a good amount of utterly unprintable
gossip. Thanks are especially due to all the winemakers and
scientists who took time to see me, and for Richard and Wendy
Gibson, and Andrew and Jane Mitchell who invited me to stay in
their homes.
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