This new tasting and sales bar is just part of the rockin
Harry's Café complex: a tasteful and funky rebuild of the front of the Wirra Wirra
winery in McLaren Vale. It's named after Greg Trott's old mate Harry, who did all
the amazing woodwork and joinery there from the '70s through the '90s ...
there's a cool new outdoor dinery, under shade, and a new special functions room
... photo supplied by Wirra Wirra
Because he would not
exaggerate the number of jobs the project would create, Wirra Wirra Managing
Director Andrew Kay did not get government assistance in building the handsome
new Harry's Café at Wirra Wirra. But he went ahead and built it anyway, and a
bonnie rambling deliciousity it is if you're in McLaren Vale and you need a
casual lunchtime repast, a tasting, and a long slow chatter in the shade.
Harry's is quickly
becoming a popular hangout for both the local and wandering peckish and adds to
the gastronomic adventures of the region. It's always busy and features such
famed local produce as the crunchy bread of Andy Clappis from the Willunga
hills and special coffee blends by Dawn Patrol. Many local viands are available
from specialist Vales suppliers - you can see the menu on the Wirra Wirra website.
I can feel Greg Trott's
presence when I sit there: he'd love this sympathetic and creative
reconstruction of the front of what we used to call his magnificent ironstone
erection.
Anton Groffen, Paul Smith and Andrew Kay: kicking barrels ... photo©Philip White
With the assistance of
viticulture manager Anton Groffen, winemaker Paul Smith is always combing local
vineyards of exception, including Wirra's own suite of unique blocks. There are
several very good wines on the bench which are made only for the cellar sales
and tastings. I spent a couple of days there this week, one kicking barrels
with Andrew and Paul, then another partaking in the mind-blowing McLaren Vale Shiraz
Geologies tasting, which I will
report once I have digested its vast complexities and implications.
Annual McLaren Vale Geologies tasting at Wirra Wirra: about twenty of us scoured one-year-old Shiraz from old neutral barrels and dozens of vineyards, all day, according to their geological sources ... no other Australian region does this, or can do it with such methodical rigour, based on the science of its geology map ... photo©Philip White
Wirra Wirra Esperanza McLaren Vale Tempranillo 2015
$30; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap
Smelling immediately lean
and alluring, whilst intense and appetising, this Spanish variety seems
unlikely for those who understand that it seems to produce the best wines in
the high deserts of Spain, where there's hardly a grain of relative humidity
and there's a mad diurnal daily temperature range during ripening, baking in
40C-plus in the summer sun, yet plunging to freezing each night. Neither of
these conditions occur in McLaren Vale, whose proximity to the tempering gulf
named after Vincent of Saragossa, the patron saint of winemakers and
viticulturers, give it a constantly high relative humidity, compared say to
Barossa and Clare or regions further into the hinterland. In the Vales, there's
not much variation in temperature from day to night.
So, after that dark earthy
and slightly leathery bouquet, with all its twists of polished harness and
insinuations of black satin and bolero-cut tuxedos, the wine is sinuous and
lithe like a tango dancer, and finishes lingering and tantalising, just perfect
with the casual cuisine available. This is one for the charcuterie meats on
Harry's Platter.
Take your time, shut your
eyes, sit back and you're in the Vales had it been settled by the Spaniards. Pretty
cool.
photo©Philip White
Wirra Wirra McLaren Vale Esperanza Touriga 2015
$30; 13.5% alcohol; screw cap
The Portugese Touriga
loves the maritime nature of the Southern Fleurieu Peninsula, whether it's
grown on the western seaside or the estuarine eastern boundary on the freshwater
lakes near the Murray mouth and the Coorong.
This swarthy beauty seems both more
rustic and meaty to sniff, again triggering yearnings for charcuterie/dark cured
ham dainties or piquant cheeses with Andy's bread.
It's also got a pleasing
whiff of dark bitter chocolate in with all that freshly dressed leather. Think of
the piquant air of a gang of gaúchos fronting
the taberna in their Sunday best, doused
big in their on-the-hair spices. Bay rum.
On the other hand, it
seems a little more frivolous to drink than the austere Temperanillo, whilst
sharing its Iberian source. It's a tad more generous of flesh in the middle,
yet finishes more slender and tapered. Again, almost in contradiction its
tannins are quite grainy, yet soft. It's built for black olives and slightly
salty Portugese sardines, and those too tired to tango. I like to watch.
Wirra Wirra Biodynamic Vineyards Amator Shiraz 2015
$30; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap
Biodynamic vineyard management
really seems to suit the Shiraz of the Vales, somehow maintaining a natural
vibrancy yet softening its chocolatey earthiness to comfort and reassure the
tippler rather than offering the challenging linear tighness of more industrial
models. It's a lot more velvet than their refined, polished and filtered humdrum.
More focussed and less
complex than the Iberian reds, this wine is once again the perfect partner to
just about anything on Harry's menu. Compare it to one of the more
conventionally-grown and made Shiraz offerings available if you're curious
about the influence of Bio-D. Discuss.
Wirra Wirra The Absconder McLaren Vale Grenache 2015
$70; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap
There's a great deal of
bullshit being spread about Grenache as its popularity grows apace and a conga
line of winemakers say they saved the variety from oblivion: we're lucky it
wasn't all uprooted and lost in the mad misunderstandings of the 'nineties and
'noughties ... most of the dipsticks and pull-throughs suddenly laying claim to the
Grenache revival weren't even on deck when the second battle to save it began
barely a dozen years back. Or even during that cursed Vine Pull Scheme of
thirty years ago, when most of South Australia's ancient pre-phylloxera
bushvines were bulldozed and burnt. I know who really fought the war, and who
the enemies were, but that's another story.
I got a terrible shock
recently. Having long lauded the Vales Grenache - and the Vales easily does
Australia's best job of it - for the savoury sweet-and-sour pickled morello
cherry character its best examples exude, I bought a jar of said cherries to confirm
and check my theory. Land sakes they were bleached, bland and forgettable. They
were barely cherries. I suddenly doubted that readers have ever got my drift.
Time for the local providores to begin importing some proper quality brands of
Amarina from Italy's Marche, no? Or grow and pickle them locally. There's a
challenge.
Greg Trott, typically waiting to be convinced. mid 'eighties ... photo©Philip White
The Absconder - named
after Wirra founder Greg Trott's infuriating tendency to disappear from sight
at all the wrong times - has quickly risen to the rare atmosphere at the very
top of the new Grenache wave. It's gorgeous: offering a moody deep in a
polished silky sheen. It's long and alluring and luxurious and makes a much
more accessible drink than most of the local Shiraz, which is grown more for
its resilience and ease than for any real gastronomic reason. It seems that
McLaren Vale, like the other famous Shiraz regions, simply forgot what it was
doing other than making easy, lazy money.
Not all winemakers are gastronomes;
even fewer grape farmers. Pity.
Wirra Wirra Chook Block Single Vineyard McLaren Vale
Shiraz 2014
$130; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap
In the 'sixties and
'seventies many of the more famous McLaren Vale vignerons were also chicken farmers, Trott included. Chook Block is an
eccentric, tiny Shiraz garden adjacent to one of his big old chook houses: it
still seems to thrive on the remnants of the manure they donated to that
sparse, bony terroir.
Regarded by many as the
pinnacle of Wirra winemaking, this is almost Grenache-like in its bouquet, but
a touch darker and deeper. It's similarly silky initially, but its distinctive
lemon-and-bergamot flavoured acidity rises quickly, drawing its finish out to a
very long appetising taper. It'd be
ravishing with juicy tea-smoked or Peking duck. (Writer dribbles into
keyboard.)
Ideally, it's one for
twenty years in the dungeon. Right now, it's a savoury prize for the
connoisseur seeking to explore the wildly-varied, distant backwaters of the
variety: if Shiraz is the Amazon, this is from one of its tiny tributaries away
up on the Andes snowline. It is utterly
unique, memorable and madly collectible. Just don't forget it's a drink, and a
beauty.
The Chook Block is tiny -
it produced only 90 dozen in 2014 - it's of such rare character that I reckon
it'd sell out even more quickly if they doubled or trebled its price.
Which they must be tempted to do. Its sheer brilliance and unique demeanour put it well beyond Hill of Grace territory.
Which they must be tempted to do. Its sheer brilliance and unique demeanour put it well beyond Hill of Grace territory.
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