Bad year for the rationalists
17 March 2015
2015 VINTAGE REPORT: EARLY AND QUICK
Bad year for the rationalists
but naturalists with proper kit
make the best of a tricky pick
by PHILIP WHITE
Now that was a vintage.
Early and quick are the two new buzzwords it seems we'll
be pasting at the top of our wine vocabs.
Around my neck of the woods, winemakers are looking lost,
wondering what they're gonna do til Easter and Anzac Day, milestone holidays
they usually spend up to their ankles in hoses, with their noses pressed firmly
to the winestone.
It all started last year, when it was warm and dry, month
after month, and flowering was early and quick.
Everything was as dry as a chip when the merciful rains
set in for a few days towards the end of January. Vineyard blokes were a little
sweaty at that point, wondering if Huey was gonna smite 'em with mildews and
botrytis moulds like those that wrecked 2011. But that moisture seemed happily
married to cool breezy evenings which dried everything out nicely: only a
whisper of mildew developed in some southern vineyards. That was easily dealt
with.
It was so cool here where the Vales meet the Hills at
Casa Blanca this writer found himself chopping firewood. In January.
Previous
Januaries have been spent nervously waiting for the local firebug to strike
again, but that terrible business seems
to have halted since the arrest of a fireman, and there I found myself, worried
that my whiff of smoke on the twilight zephyr would set the old neighbourhood panic
spreading.
Then the steady daytime warmth turned back on as the
evenings stayed cool. Smooth and calm ripening progressed until last week,
when I found myself photographing a big mob of pickers working efficiently
through the baby bush vine Shiraz and Grenache. Suddenly it was over.
Which makes it time to go kick tanks and barrels, which I
have done with all due diligence.
I've never seen anything quite like it. McLaren Vale people
are all gooey about their Chardonnay, but it's the Roussanne that will blow the
judges' whistles when these 'fifteens emerge. I can't recall any white grape,
other than maybe Clare and Eden Riesling in exceptional years, taste more of
the ground in which it grew. I've even seen Roussanne that smelt like
ironstone: tight and supremely confident of its future.
In these Vales, everybody always seems obliged to rave
about Shiraz, which they do to the point of caricaturising themselves. That's
what they grow.
Sure, I've seen some cracking Shiraz: intense, solid,
glowering wines with beautiful natural acidity. You can't beat natural. I'm not talking about dirty, unstable hippy wines. I'm talking about responsible scientific winemaking which depends upon the best natural ingredients. Like natural acidity which fits
in the wine and sits there where it belongs, preserving the rest of the wine's
nuances, guaranteeing a good long steady maturation in cellar: quite the
opposite of early and quick. Natural's always superior to the standard tartaric
acid you add with a shovel after you've buggered your grapes with bad viticulture. There'll be no new Mercs and Bimmers for the acid dealers this year. Not in the Mount
Lofty Ranges, anyway.
Speaking of natural, it is brilliant vintages like this
in which it seems the organic and biodynamic vineyards really hit their straps:
the more nature the vigneron can employ in the vineyard reflects with more
open-faced innocence in the bottle: there is no sophistry evident or indeed
required in the face of such honest purity.
All that aside, I reckon this will be the year when
Grenache grown in the right place and made well finally shows with
real authority that it can replace Pinot noir in the elegant part of your red
cabinet. I've seen Grenache wines this year which remind me of the best of
Burgundy, with riveting florals, acidity, and that one thing that most mainland
Pinot lacks: natural tannin. Oooh-eee. There. I've said it.
Vaucher Beguet grape-sorting machine at Yangarra ... all photographs by Philip White
I've tasted a wide range of varieties in the Barossa,
both high and low bits, and it's pretty much the same: wild natural beauty over
solid bones, with splendid aromatics and hues. Eden Rieslings are highly
promising.
I've not tasted much from the Adelaide Hills or Clare
yet, but I can guarantee you'll see some stunning Cabernet from the cooler
uplands. After those horrid Hills fires, there's a noticable silence relative
to smoke taint in those vineyards which survived. If such spoilage has been incurred,
it must be coming evident by now.
Which leads me to the really horrible bit. Early and
quick are factors which simply don't fit the template of big refineries which
depend upon everything being relaxed, steady and spread out.
Efficiencies of scale and the adoration of the investor
sees the faceless accountant-driven boards building wineries which simply
aren't big enough to hold everything they have planned, or even promised to
take.
Even huge family outfits along the Murray-Darling saw
themselves panicking over their own wineries that were brimming full while they watched
the other two-thirds of their crops lose their natural acidity as the sugars
soared through fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and even eighteen Baumé, meaning
that when the wines are fermented dry, their alcohols will be right up in those
heady nether regions, well beyond the likelihood of gastronomic delight.
To correct this misadventure, which is built in to their
manufactury cycle, the big refineries will be adding water and tartaric.
They'll be using all manner of sophistry and shiny gadgetry to get that alcohol
out. While they do this, they'll be stripping many other aspects of the fruit.
At the same time, these refinery winemakers will find
themselves attempting to push ferments through at an unholy pace. Wineries of
better design are sitting there grinning as their reds are still in the initial
cold-soak stage, in which the prettier, water-soluble aromatics are expressed
before the tanks are let warm so the yeasts take over, while these giants are
bashing stuff through without giving the musts and ferments a chance to let
their beauty develop at a seemly pace. At the stage where Winery A is just
letting the yeasts in, Refinery B has one batch dry and finished, the second
batch being pushed with warmth, and third through fifth batches sitting out
there in the baking sun, in bins on the concrete apron.
Which leads in turn to those growers still out there in
the queue, watching their beautiful fruit fall to bits on the vine. If they can
somehow jump the queue to get harvesters, the wineries will shake their heads
because they're full. Carnage.
It's time this intensifying cycle is recognised as a
permanent aspect of hot irrigated viticulture, and many of those poor broken
growers are helped to discover a replacement crop which better suits their
environment, and requires less water. Hemp comes immediately to mind. Is
anybody applying any science? Any trials going on?
Many small-scale premium Ranges winemakers without their
own vineyards, machinery and wineries to suit--those who depend upon renting
such stuff--have found themselves in the same sad position as those upriver behemoths
they regard as the enemy. There'll be plenty of very expensive reds about with
unseemly alcohols. Watch out for jam and gloop from your favourite
artisan/garagiste.
So. There are some true glories adorning the crown of
South Australian winemaking in 2015. These will emerge in the $20-plus ranks.
The cheaper stuff will be of a much cheaper quality than usual, but because
the best of it will be in short supply, it'll probably cost more. Be careful. Beware the
bulkmongers.
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1 comment:
Philip, you hit the nail on the head: "It’s time this intensifying cycle is recognised as a permanent aspect of hot irrigated viticulture, and many of those poor broken growers are helped to discover a replacement crop which better suits their environment, and requires less water. Hemp comes immediately to mind. Is anybody applying any science? Any trials going on?"...
Hemp was one of the most important crops in the world once upon a time; wars were fought over its control. Alas, cotton took its place; cotton which uses way too much water, requires fertiliser and poison to keep it healthy. Yet, Australia would be perfect for the growing of hemp (no, not the marijuana kind); it needs very little water, few chemicals, it cleanses infertile land, a crop that can be used for all kinds of purposes... clothing, fibres for weaving carbon fibre style materials, building materials, health foods, the list goes on. Yet, it is illegal to grow the crop in SA...
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