FIVE POSH AUSTRAL PINOTS

The tomb of Philippe le Hardi - Philip the Bold - Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy, Dijon

Refining wave hits Oz 600 years after Philip's bold old move in Burgundy 
by PHILIP WHITE


In July 1395 Philip the Bold of Burgundy made enemies of most of his Burgundians by outlawing the region's main red grape, Gamay. 

Mr and Mrs Philip the Bold

Calling his kingdom's big-yielding, safe-and-sure, cheap quaffing red an "evil and disloyal plant ... injurious to the human creature," Philip actually banished Gamay south to Beaujolais.   

Instead, he insisted the Côte d'Or grow only the clone of that other pesky, high-acid, low-yielding red with the bunch shaped like a pine cone: pineau. 

One needed lots of monks. Rome paid the monks. 

Look what happened. 600-odd, slow years later Australia's getting around to having a bit of a go. Most unlike the brazen boozemongers that established this country's plonk rackets with the gooey sweet strong stuff, there's been a lucky break, not for Gamay, but the finer, leaner, tricky-tricky little earner with the greatest longevity. The pale pineau that nobody could be bothered with. The one we now pass off as noir. 

Bold move for such a hot joint. It snows in Burgundy. 

My desk has been deep in Austral Pinot noir for a week. Some of it comes from snow country. 

Whether surly and sullen, or spritely and bright, cherry-simple, or tannic as tea, good Pinots are a felicitous, confounding business riddled with risk, driven by the elusive glimmer of perfection that was no doubt made more readily available to that previous Philip's table. 

Allow me please to appraise some famous Austral Pinots:

Oakridge Willowlake Vineyard Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2016 ($38; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap) smells  fleshy, like framboise liqueur and thick cream. It also has that slightly-threatening edgy reek of dry bay leaf and the nightshades. As you'd expect, the flavours and sensory mouth feelings immediately reflect this counterpoint of flesh and bone; chub and acid chunk. Over several days some of its initial bright cherry shine settled down to this adults-only dry raspberry liqueur state, where it sits pouting, immobile, hanging a right royal shitty.  

Oakridge Hazeldene Vineyard Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2016 ($38; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap) is more pretty and perfumed. Chanel, but more No. 19 than 5. 

It has all the heady, concentrated-but-fluffy fruits of the Willowlake, in this case in some sort of protofoam, but with the sweetest, fungi-rich forest floor, all ferny and certainly on the aromatic march, giving the recipient a deadly urge to quit campaigning and try a touch of frotting on the mossy sward. More risk, see? Sore? 

This one's wickedly sensual. And sensuous. Carnal. Rubens.

Oakridge Henk's Vineyard Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2016 ($38; 14% alcohol; screw cap) has a shard of the best of each of the above, all shimmering of wellness and nowness, but in a bath of lemon verbena. My goodness. This one tickles the old wolf genes sleeping in one's nostrils. I suspect it has as much to do with the selection of forest in the barrel stave compilation as much as vineyard distinction and a slightly earlier pick. So what's a wolf doing with mouthful of oak in her majesty's bath chamber? Oh? It's kindling for the heater? Bring more, you slinking scoundrel. Now scrub her back. Gentle, gentle. Shut those nostrils. Stop dribbling. Behave. Okay: sit! 

Moss Wood Willyabrup Margaret River Pinot Noir 2015 ($60; 14% alcohol; screw cap) was an oversized mohair sweater sort of affair from the start. Hey daddy, she's wearing your jumper again. If it's not the mohair, it'll be the felted alpaca poncho: whichever one you just reached for. The Yak. I don't care. It was a dark and furry and dusty feeling from the start. I've been waiting for days for a diamond glint of acidity to put a stripe across the painting, or a touch of creamy flesh, but it hasn't happened. It's like a punky goth pupil of Vermeer trying to paint without the window. 

Stefano Lubiana Tasmania Pinot Noir 2016 ($50; 13.5% alcohol; screw cap), after five days open, is the most red wine red wine of all of these. It seems to have the stiffest chassis. But it also has the prettiest, most cherubic perfume. It has musky flesh. It has developed a slightly spiritous parade gloss reek. It runs off into the forest and giggles through the trees. I reckon this is close as you'll get to the sort of pineau that forced Philip The Bold's hand. Like the Yarra wines are tantalising, but this is fair dinkum royalty. 

Monique and Stefano Lubiana in their vineyard on the Derwent in south-east Tasmania ... planted in 1990, certified biodynamic in 2013

Which inspires me. Note on fridge: #1 Take power of the region. #2 Banish Shiraz. #3 Work out what to plant, relative to geology. #4 Stay alive for 600 years. #5 Consider and discuss: If you replanted any Shiraz, where did you put it? Why? Did it work?