|
The
Clare Valley
Part 1:
introduction
I
don’t think it would be mean to say that South Australia’s
Australia’s Clare Valley doesn’t have a terribly high profile, as
wine regions go. Of course, most wine geeks will have heard about it,
but few will be able to place it, or name more than a couple of its
wineries.
But
the Clare was thrust into the international spotlight in 2000, when it
briefly assumed the mantle of champion of the screwcap. Clare
winemakers, frustrated by the poor performance of cork, banded
together to make a stand on the issue.
Clare
is famous for its Rieslings, and these wines are made in a style that
shows up any cork-related faults particularly transparently. The Clare
winemakers had to overcome a significant logistical obstacle before
they could offer their wines in screwcap: at the time, there was no
Australian supplier who could offer bottles and caps of the required  style
and quality. As a result, they had to drum together enough like-minded
producers willing to adopt screwcaps to generate an order for 250 000
bottles from Pechiney in France, which was the threshold needed to
make this possible.
With
a collaborative effort, they managed it, and the combined shift was
large enough to make headlines, for what at the time seemed a very
brave move. Jeffrey Grossett, one of the winemakers involved,
estimates that from this humble beginning, during the 2004 vintage 200
million wine bottles will be sealed with screwcaps in Australia,
roughly 10% of the entire Australian production. The Clare initiative
started the ball moving, and prompted the New Zealand winemakers to
form the NZ
Screwcap Initiative a year later.  ‘We
were inspired and encouraged by the success of the Clare Valley
Riesling move to screwcaps in 2000’, reports one of the founder
members, Michael Brajkovich MW of New Zealand’s Kumeu River Wines,
‘and like them we realized that we could achieve much more with a
combined effort than we could ever do individually.’ So Clare has
handed the baton on to the New Zealand guys, although screwcaps are
increasingly being used for reds here and not just Rieslings.
Aside
from its contribution to the closures debate, Clare is also home to
some very smart wines indeed. My visit was prompted by an email from
Andrew Mitchell, one of the leading Clare producers, who found out I
was visiting South Australia. He invited me to stay for a night and
take a look around, and I was happy to oblige.
 I
drove up on Sunday morning from the Barossa. It isn’t far; a gentle
drive through attractive farming country, taking an hour or so. Once
you are there, the Clare’s quite an easy place to get your head
around because it isn’t too big; while it’s not strictly a single
valley (it’s more like a couple, with gentle rolling hills
separating them), most of the action is signposted and reachable from
a single road, running right through the middle of things. There’s
also a nice walking route, well signposted, called the Riesling trail.
If you fancy a nice weekend in wine country, you could do far worse
than target Clare…
Some
history. The first vines were planted in Clare in 1850 at Sevenhill,
and a number of wineries were established at this time. Another burst
of activity occurred in the 1890s, when more wineries – including
Wendouree – sprung into action. Leasingham (then known as The
Stanley Wine Company) was established in the 1920s, and then nothing
much happened until the 1960s, when there was another surge of
interest, and in the late 1960s and early 1970s more wineries popped
up. Things seem to be buzzing here now (in a laid back, Clare sort of
way).
I
was only here for a couple of days, so this will be just the briefest
sketch of the Clare. I visited Grosset, Mitchell and Wendouree. It's
on my list of places to revisit.
Back to top
|
