Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Barossa ValleyA Taste of Australian Wine 'The Barossa Valley'
There wouldn't be much doubt that if I asked people around the world to name just one Australian wine region, most would say "The Barossa Valley".
Why is this? Well, some excellent promotion over the years has helped, it is the home of Penfolds Grange, plus there are a myriad of other reasons.
An important factor in this is the fact that the Barossa Valley is our most important wine region. Just look at the names based there, a who’s who of large quality producers, mixed with some of our most stunning boutique wineries. Any list would have to include Wolf Blass, Penfolds, Orlando, Seppelts, Peter Lehmann, Yalumba, and Krondorf, who between them produce some 50% of all of Australia’s wine!
Add to this the important boutique producers like Charles Melton, Rockfords, Henschke, St Hallett, Greenock Creek, Torbreck and others and you can see that this is the region most people start with when discovering Australian wine.
However, the real reason lies in the wines themselves, as they offer a unique style of wine coupled with remarkably consistent quality.
Style
… well, the Barossa producers all make wines designed to please. Pleasing the customer should be obvious, but it appears that not all wine producers aim to please the consumer all the time! In the Barossa they take all those many hours of sunshine and clean air and turn it into wine, all flavour, ripeness and health in a bottle. Many of the wines are made not for deep thinking and considering, but for enjoying. They are fun wines, upfront, tasty and enjoyable, made to be slurped down with good food and good friends. A generalisation … of course, but not far off the truth I think.
The style does emphasise two things however, very ripe fruit (indeed its hard to grow fruit there that does not get fully ripe) and American oak. At its best this produces wines chock full of fruit flavour with hints of chocolate and vanilla, often at great bargain prices. It can occasionally be overdone, over ripe and over oaked, but these wines are slowly lessening in number I think, most producers seem to get it about right most of the time.
Quality
… at the top end the quality is amazing, Grange, Old Block, Nine Popes, Run Rig and many others prove that the Barossa makes world class wine. However the valley makes wines of an extremely high standard across the board, and at almost every price level, from Grange down to Krondorf Shiraz. Indeed, it is hard to find a Barossa Valley wine that is not clean, well made and enjoyable, and the range of exceptional quality wines is expanding annually.
Climate
… the Barossa Valley is some 45 minutes drive north west of Adelaide, and just far enough inland to be away from the moderating effect of the sea enjoyed by McLaren Vale. On average it is also a couple of degrees warmer than Adelaide and has long, dry summers. It is a climate suitable for grape ripening, ..so ripe grapes is what you get, cool climate varieties do not work, and you can safely ignore most Riesling, all Pinot Noir, all Sauvignon Blanc and look for wines emphasising fruit and flavour.
Varieties
… look for flavour, richness and ripeness, so Semillon, Chardonnay on the riper end, Grenache, Shiraz, Cabernet, Merlot and ports are the staples.
Semillon
… Semillon is a surprisingly successful variety in this region. However, do not look for wines like those from the Hunter Valley, these are on the riper end of the spectrum, often oak aged, and designed to be enjoyed while young. They are in the main excellent, and make a terrific alternative to the ever-present Chardonnay! Enjoy them with richer seafood dishes, they are great with poultry and can handle the rich sauces that other wine styles can't
Try
Jenke Semillon
Basedows Semillon
Chardonnay
… the Chardonnays from the Barossa are wines of richness and ripeness, often barrel fermented, and they are designed to be enjoyed young. You should expect flavours in the riper peach and melon range, often with buttery flavours and usually in American oak. Very attractive drinking when young, and again, able to cope with rich seafood and poultry, even some char grilled flavours.
Try
Peter Lehmann
Bethany
Grant Burge
Orlando St Hilary
Grenache
… this is Grenache country, indeed the Grenache revolution started here with Charles Melton and his Nine Popes, and continues strongly today. The Barossa has some of Australia's, indeed the world's, best and oldest Grenache vineyards. These are mostly bush vines and un-irrigated providing small crops of very intensely flavoured grapes. Most of these used to be blended with Shiraz and sometimes Mourvedre, but increasingly they are 100% Grenache. Terrific wines full of rich upfront flavours, most of which won't cellar, or at least do not need to be cellared. Nine Popes is a notable exception. Drink these with rich meat dishes, casseroles, hearty dishes, game meats and char gilled meats and barbeques.
Try
Rockford Grenache
Charles Melton Nine Popes
Turkey Flat Grenache Noir
Yalumba Bushvine Grenache
Penfolds Old Vines
Veritas
Cabernet
… Barossa Valley Cabernets really have more to do with their region than with classic Cabernet flavours. The sunshine wins out against the variety I think. Don't expect many of these wines to mimic Bordeaux, they can't, indeed I don't think they want to. The wines will be all about rich fruit, flavours in the blackberry and plum group, American oak usually, with ripe tannins and medium term cellaring life. The best of these create a lovely chocolate/mocha edge to the wine, very attractive and appealing if not overdone. Drink with lamb, beef, your favourite red meat dish really.
Try
Charles Melton
Elderton
Peter Lehmann
Henschke Cyril Henschke
Greenock Creek
Shiraz
… the Barossa Valley and Shiraz go together. Many vineyards of very old vines, dry grown grapes, small yields and American oak create richness, flavour, length, aging ability, spice, chocolate and much more. These wines are identified by their personality, fruit and more fruit, noticeable oak and aromas that leap out of the glass, they are real 'in your face' styles of wines. Drink these with red meats, they are great with beef particularly.
Try (well, where do I start and end?)
Charles Melton
Peter Lehmann
St Hallett Old Block
Henschke Mt Edelstone and Hill of Grace
Grange (although these days this is much more a multi regional blend)
Turkey Flat
Rockford Basket Press
Veritas Hanisch Vineyard
Greenock Creek 7 Acre Shiraz
Yalumba Octavius
Torbreck Run Rig
Dutschke St. Jakobi and Oscar Semmler
Merlot
… a recent arrival as a varietal wine but it shows great promise. Again expect rich upfront flavours and designed to be enjoyed while young.
Try
Jenke Merlot
Miranda Merlot
Ports
..these are tawny port styles; solera blends most of them. However they have been made for generations and so the stocks of older wines are outstanding. Tawny brown in colour, these wines are amazing value for money, incredibly complex, rich yet often light, and the perfect end to a meal
Try
Penfolds Grandfather
Seppelt DP 90
Saltram Pickwicks
Yalumba Galway Pipe
Spare
A Taste of Australian Wine 'Shiraz'
This is Australia’s highest profile wine style, and arguably its best red wine. The grape is believed to have come to Australia first from its home, Hermitage in the Rhone area of France many years ago. Some believe, again arguably, that due to extensive re-planting in France due to Phylloxera, our older vineyards are more like Hermitage used to be, than that region is today. Some vineyards of Chateau Tahbilk for instance date back over 100 years unchanged (and small amounts of wine are still made from these old grapes.)
What is not in doubt however is that Shiraz is the best and best known red wine of Australia. It is the most widely grown red grape variety, grown in almost all regions, and makes the most recognised Australian wines in the world market such as Grange and Henschke Hill of Grace amongst others. In addition it is used in blends with many other grapes, as well as being used extensively in the Fortified wines of Australia, most notably our Vintage Port styles.
Through all of this and in almost every climate, Shiraz makes quality wine. It rarely needs or receives the same volume of new oak as Cabernet, it can be delicious and fruity when young, but can mellow with up to 20 or 30 years in the cellar into magnificent wine showing earthy, velvety, almost sweet fruit characters.
The aromas and flavours of Shiraz vary with wine style and region, but are usually blackberry, plums, and pepper in varying degrees dependent on growing conditions. In addition, even more regionally based, we can find liquorice, tar even, and bitter chocolate and mocha. Climate affects these with the warmer climates providing the plums and chocolate (Barossa) and the cooler climates giving more of the pepper (Victoria).
Below is a list of some of the Australian regions producing quality Shiraz wines, plus some labels to watch out for from those regions. Naturally there will be many that I have missed, and this is not meant to be a definitive list, but if you try these wines you will find quality, and discover some of those flavours for yourself (with apologies to other regions and producers I have missed).
Cool Climate Victoria
Mt Langi Ghiran
Seppelt Great Western
Bests Great Western
Western Australia
Cape Mentelle
Vasse Felix
Warm Climate
Barossa Valley
Rockfords Basket Press
St Hallett Old Block
Charles Melton
Elderton
Henschke
Grange
McLaren Vale
Eileen Hardy
Coriole
Seaview
Woodstock
Clare
Leasingham Bin 61 and Classic Clare
Wendouree
Tim Adams
Jim Barry the Armagh
Mitchell Pepper Tree
Coonawarra
Wynns
Bowen Estate
Zema Estate
Leconfield
Hunter Valley
Brokenwood Graveyard
Tyrrells
Rothbury Estates
A Taste of Australian Wine 'Cabernet Sauvignon'
Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the world's finest red wine grapes. From Bordeaux to California and increasingly in Italy and even Chile, Cabernet makes great red wines. Australia is no exception making great Cabernet in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and the Hunter Valley.
Cabernet grapes tend to be thick skinned with bunches of small berries, and also only give moderate sized crops in general. This means that wines made from these grapes will have plenty of skins from which to get colour, flavour and tannin, and have plenty of flavour as a finished wine.
Cabernet based wines can tend to be quite tannic when they’re young, but age very gracefully with a softening of the tannin and the slow development of complexity, cedar and cigar box aromas. In regions where the grapes do not quite ripen there can be a ‘capsicum’ or ‘green bean’ character. This can add complexity to the wine, but if more than a trace it tends to distract from the experience and be a fault. Very ripe Cabernets from warm climates tend to be less distinctively Cabernet, and develop chocolate and richer flavours, and while delicious young, do not cellar as well. The flavour profile in Cabernets tends to be black and red currant, blackberry, and cassis, with occasional hints of mint, chocolate and even regional earthiness.
Regional versions of this wine can be noticed and I will mention these below along with some recommended wines to try from each region.
Coonawarra
Consistently Australia’s best Cabernets are made in the Coonawarra region of South Australia. This is a small cigar shaped region with red ‘Terra Rossa’ soils over limestone, free draining and with a cool climate. The wines from here tend to be well balanced with a very good cellar potential
Wynns John Riddoch
Lindemans St George
Bowen Estate
Majella
Gartner Estates
Zema Estate
Barossa Valley
The warm climate here tends to produce richer dark and fleshy wines with typical chocolate hints. Blackberry more than blackcurrant is often the dominant fruit flavour.
Penfolds Bin 707 (although very much a multi region blend these days)
Charles Melton
Elderton
Grant Burge
Wolf Blass
Victoria
In Central Victoria there is often a mint/eucalyptus hint to these wines over classic cassis and blackcurrant.
Balgownie
Mitchelton
Taltarni
Mount Mary
Oakridge Estate
Margaret River
Very good region indeed for Cabernet wines, slight gravelly hints with red berry fruit and usually great length and cellaring ability.
Moss Wood
Leeuwin Estate
Pierro
Cape Mentelle
Chateau Xanadu
Cullens
Great Southern
Alkoomi
Howard Park
Plantagenet
Hunter Valley
Very regional as all their reds seem to be, earthy style whose regional nature continues as they age.
Lakes Folly
Brokenwood
Rosemount
A Taste of Australian Wine 'Rieslings'
Riesling is the grape most associated with Germany, where the best examples of it are stunning, world class wines. Here in Australia we are probably the only other country to give this fabulous grape the care and attention it deserves. Indeed, for many years it was the most popular Australian white wine, only recently succumbing to the world wide fashion trend of Chardonnay. To me it still produces more good wines, and perhaps more to the point, less bad wines, than Chardonnay.
The wine is made to capture the essence of the grape, no oak, few wine maker's tricks, just grape to wine. After picking, the grapes are crushed then generally removed from the skins either immediately, or after a brief period, while the rest of the task is to control the speed of fermentation and keep the oxygen away from those fragile flavours. The wine will ferment in stainless steel containers, chilled to control the fermentation speed, and under an inert gas blanket. When finished the wine will be stored for a short period then bottled to keep those primal fruit flavours. In fact, we have been drinking the 1996 Rieslings now for some months, and very good indeed they are. Best Regions
In Australia Rieslings are grown in many regions, but only in 3 or 4 areas are the best wines produced. The regions to watch out for are, in my order of preference only, Clare/Watervale, Eden Valley, Great Southern, Western Australia and pockets of the Adelaide Hills and Tasmania. Good wines are produced elsewhere, but not with consistency or reliability.
Young Riesling will smell of freshly crushed grape, lime, citrus, tropical fruit and floral smells. A friend of mine once described a Riesling as smelling like 'orange blossom dipped in lime juice”, flowery language, but that is what the wine smelled like.
They tend to have firm acid finishes, the Clare region typically producing steely or flinty finishes with tropical overtones in the young wines. They taste of fruits, limes, lemons, and passionfruit, often with floral and even mineral edges to them, are long and zingy on the finish, and are the perfect accompaniment to a range of sea food.
Aged Rieslings
Rieslings that taste so fresh and exuberant when young age surprisingly and remarkably well. As the years go by the primary fruit fades to be replaced by toast, honey, nuts and 'kerosene', that traditional yet hard to describe smell of good older Rieslings. In fact, it is often a difficult choice, drink young or cellar.
Many go through closed periods between youth and maturity, so personally I like to drink them young and fresh, or after 5 years, but they can become slightly awkward at about 1 to 4 years of age.
Food Matching
These wines are absolutely designed for seafood, especially freshly grilled fish. It also goes really well with lobster as long as you avoid heavy sauces, just the delicious lobster flesh, and the zesty limes and citrus of the wine, a match made in heaven.
Another worthwhile fact is that now is the time to try these wines. The currently available 2002 vintage is the best of the previous 10 or more years, most are still available, and almost all of them great wine bargains at $Aud20 or less pb (That’s about $US12 or less per bottle).
Current Tasting Notes
2002 Hewitson Eden Valley Riesling - In a stelvin closure, well done Dean! Another spanking good 2002 Riesling, but this one is from Eden Valley. This is all class, very pale colour with a very varietal nose of lemon, with almost pea like hints, plus tropical fruits and floral edged limes. The palate too is all class, powerful but tight fruits, limes lemons and grapefruit, along with hints of spice on a long and crisp finish with some lovely natural acid. Yum, and will cellar!
2002 Tin Shed Wines Wild Bunch Riesling - Wow, what a way to make Riesling, whole bunch pressing, use wild yeasts, this is not playing it safe, but what a great result, delicious Eden Valley Riesling! "hand picked from old Eden Valley vineyards, and made the old-fashioned way with whole bunch pressing and a wild yeast ferment without chemicals, this amazing Riesling's a fair-dinkum blast from the past. ... Tight pear and lime, with that beautiful mineral base tone of the best vintage in yonks, its a work of wonder."
2002 Petaluma Riesling - "Brian Croser (wine maker) has no doubts about the 2002 Riesling vintage: “It was the perfect riesling year,” he says. “Fruit quality was superb. Acid was wonderfully high. Flavour was excellent – it was a great, great riesling vintage.” His own riesling release is one of the first off the ranks, and the verdict is: it’s intense. Intensely grapey, intensely minerally, intensely lemony/powdery, with an acid structure that seems both obvious and soft – there’s clearly lots of acid here, but it has an Alsatian super-softness to it. The result of all this is that, unusually, it’s not overly attractive young – but should cellar magnificently.
A Taste of Australian Wine 'Muscats and Tokays of the Rutherglen Region'
I must begin by stating a bias, these wines are absolutely individual, world class and at their best, ASTONISHING. I make no attempt at being unbiased when describing them. If I get even close to their unique style, incredible complexity and great age, if I make you want to run out and buy some, then I have accomplished my goal! The complex flavours, the length, the age and the mouthfilling qualities of these wines put Bordeaux, Burgundy, indeed most other wines other than perhaps Vintage Ports and Madeira to shame.
So how are these astonishing wines made, and what are they made from?
The answer to both questions is deceptively simple. Each wine is a style not a variety and each is made from a different grape. Muscat is made from a brown coloured type of the grape Muscat a Petits Grains known locally as Brown Muscat, and Tokay is made from Muscadelle, a grape better known for a small role in the sweet wines of Bordeaux. In both cases the grapes are grown in this hot sun drenched region and allowed to hang on the vine long after the table grapes are ripe, soaking up that heat, turning it into sugar, and then concentrating this sugar and the acid as the grape shrivels. In this way the grapes often reach 16-20 degrees Baume (each degree Baume roughly equates to one % alcohol after fermentation) quite naturally which means the resultant wine will be both sweet and rich.
The grapes are then picked and crushed. This in itself is a difficult job due to the raisined grapes and intense sugar levels. Next comes the fermentation, the use of yeast to turn the sugar into alcohol. Many makers, Chambers included, do not even start fermenting some wines (Tokay) or in very ripe years. Either way, the short fermentation is stopped rather like Port by the addition of high quality brandy spirit which kills the yeast leaving all that rich sugary sweetness and flavour.
The next step involves time and patience. The young wine is cleaned then put into oak barrels of varying sizes to age and develop. No new oak is used for this process as the added flavour would not work with the wine, in fact, most of the makers feel that the older the oak the better. Most of these wineries are full of a myriad of barrels of varying sizes and some of great age. The rest of the process is time.
What happens now is controlled oxidation. Over time, lots of time, small amounts of air get in through the oak to affect the wine, and through these same very small openings tiny amounts of the wines evaporate (locally this evaporated liquid is known as the "angel's share"). The effect is three fold:
Colour
The oxidation causes colour and flavour changes in the wine. Muscat when young is reddish brown but time and oxygen turns it brown, then eventually olive green, particularly on the rim. Tokay starts out lighter with golden tints but follows the same pattern with very old Muscat and Tokay looking quite similar.
Texture
Given the loss through evaporation both wines become noticeably thicker, even oily. In fact, very old wines, and there are some as old as 100 years and more, look and have the texture of Treacle or Molasses.
Flavour
Time adds to the complexity of the wines with older wines showing many aromas and flavours that were not present in the young wines. Most noticeable among these is 'rancio', a term much used with Sherries and Ports and which means, at least as well as I can explain it, a mixture of volatility and other substances (aldehydes for the chemists amongst us) which stop the sweet wine from smelling and tasting over sweet or cloying. In fact, all the flavours concentrate and intensify until older wines are quite literally explosive in the mouth.
So what can I expect from Muscat and Tokay?
Muscat has an aroma that can be described as fruity, with smells of grape, raisins, orange peel, rancio brandy spirit and more plus a palate including incredibly intense sweetness, and many other flavours that I can't find words for.
Tokay has all of these plus a characteristic flavour and aroma from the Muscadelle grape that has been described as cold tea, fish oil, or malt extract, all right, but all wrong ... you'll need to try the wine to know what I mean.
Producers to watch for
Chambers Rosewood
Morris
Stanton and Killeen
Baileys
Campbells
Brown Brothers
All Saints
Wines to try
Chambers Liqueur Muscat and Tokay (younger)Very Old Liqueur Muscat and Tokay (very special, very, very old)
Morris Canister Series (younger) or Old Premium Liqueur (older)
Stanton and Killeen Special Old Liqueur
Baileys Warby and Founder Range (younger) and Winemakers Selection (older)
Campbells Merchant Prince
Brown Brothers
All Saints Lyrebird Range
I once was privileged enough to try some 100 year old Muscat from Chambers. It was so dark and thick you almost could not pour it! It looked like treacle and in the mouth was explosive, almost searing in its intensity and the flavour stayed with me for ages, longer than any other wine experience. It is this wine, when blended in with medium and fresher wine, that makes these old blends so sensational to try.
A Taste of Australian Wine 'Sparkling Reds'
Sparkling red wines, or as they used to be known in Australia - Sparkling Burgundies, are a particular love of mine. I’m not sure about the US experience, but many in Australia were turned off these wines due to drinking light red concoctions tasting like sweet lolly water sold here in the 1960’s and 1970’s with names like “Cold Duck”. These usually tasted like a blend of cough mixture and boiled lollies and have put a generation off what are very traditional Australian wine styles that are indeed world class.
So what are we talking about with Sparkling red wines from Australia? Well, we are talking about quality red wines made in the same way as Champagne - that is, bottle fermented, aged on lees, then liqueured and left to develop in the bottle. However, instead of using Chardonnay and Pinot as the base wines, they use quality red wines.
These styles exist elsewhere in the world, notably in the Burgundy and Loire regions of France, but not in any quantity, or with the same quality. Only here in Australia do these tend to be taken seriously, indeed they are very much in fashion currently, and the range and variety are now truly exceptional.
What should you expect from these wines?
Well, imagine tilting an empty glass and pouring ... down the side runs a frothy liquid, vivid purple in color with violet and purple froth. Roaring out of the glass comes the smell of blackcurrants, blackberries, chocolate, cherries, strawberries and more. You finish pouring and slowly the froth settles into purple red wine with a steady mousse. Another sniff now shows hints of oak, sweet fruit and firm acid. Try some .... powerful fruit, dry yet seeming sweet, some acid and tannin on the finish as the flavours run over your tongue, berries, mushroom, spice, cherries and more. Makes me thirsty just writing about it!
What are these wines made from?
Well these days just about anything red. Most, and I think the best, are made from Shiraz. All that chocolate and rich smoky blackberry fruit just seems to suit the wine style. At one extreme we have the almost impossibly rare Rockford Black Shiraz. In the early days at least this wine started off life as a quality 10 year old Barossa Shiraz before Rocky took to it with the fizz. Also try the Rumball which uses 100% Coonawarra Shiraz, or the Leasingham, using the same Clare Shiraz as their classy table wines do.
Some people are making this wine from Cabernet too, notably Yalumba, and most successful it is too, lighter in style than the Shiraz, but not light. After this we have some beautiful Sparkling Merlot, notably the Irvine. One or two make a sparkling Pinot Noir like McWilliams and then we have the something different wines, Tatachilla make a brightly coloured Sparkling Malbec and D'Arenberg have just released their Sparkling Chambourcin.
How do we drink these wines?
These Sparkling Shiraz wines should be served slightly chilled. Naturally this depends on the conditions. If its summer and you want them with a barbeque for example, 30 – 40 minutes in the refrigerator helps them, it stops them seeming flabby and over alcoholic. However, if its mid winter then room temperature will do fine. In short, don’t overchill, or serve warm.
What do we drink these wines with?
Well, they are fantastic with your favorite pizza, served slightly chilled. They also drink wonderfully with Turkey particularly the sparkling Cabernet, and naturally also for barbeques where they hold their own. Added to this are any of the meat dishes that Shiraz style wines go with.
If you like experimenting, then try them also with Duck, char grilled Tuna, in fact, most meats char grilled. The lighter styles also make excellent aperitifs particularly on colder nights.
What sparkling red wines should I try?
Inexpensive
Andrew Garrett
Hardys Sparkling Shiraz
Middle range
Mt Prior Sparkling Durif
Tatachilla Sparkling Malbec
Rumball
Premium
Rockford Black Shiraz
Great Western
Charles Melton Sparkling Shiraz
Leasingham Classic Clare
Irvine Sparkling Merlot
Henrys Drive Sparkling Shiraz
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