2011: 2ND BEST WORST WETTEST VINTAGE

STOP PRESS:  
Mollydooker Wines FaceBook 15 April 2011 posted two images on their wall: one a vineyard which had been harvested, across the road from their block, which means nothing, and another of their own block, with the following caption: "Both of these photos were taken yesterday:one is our vineyard and the picked vineyard is over the road. We are watering to keep the sugar levels down and the canopy flourishing so that the Mollydooker grapes can continue to bask in the beautiful Indian summer sun. The vines are maturing and sending ripe tannin signals to the grapes, which gain extra flavour and richness every day. Exciting news - we have already got argh- cut me off...should read- Exciting news - we have already got two blocks at VELVET GLOVE level!"

Well, they sure look velvety. A close look at this image shows grey, velvety, botrytis-and-mould-riddled berries. So what is Mollydooker doing? They're watering? The vines are sending ripe tannin signals to the grapes? Which gain extra flavour and richness every day? If the silly buggers up the River had only called Sparky Marquis for advice there would now be hundreds of thousands of tonnes of grapes making the Velvet Glove grading, no? Not to mention the Barossa, Clare, the Adelaide Hills and McLaren Vale, no? Watering? Those leaves are falling off, for Bacchus' sake!

So is it, or isn't it Aussie's best year ever? Select your preferred degree of propagandist bullshit!
 
by PHILIP WHITE - a version of this was published on INDAILY, and the shorter version published here previously has been deleted


This is a bad time to be a wine writer.

There’s far too much competition.

At the climax of a vintage as horrid as 2011 there’s a parallel peak of nonsense spoken by those who know their wines will not be as good as usual.

The astute observer will have already recognized the formation of little twists of spin which look promising to those who somehow utter them. By the time the wine is clarified and packaged, these seminal stutterings will have bloomed into gushing back label texts and blurbs that can be cut and pasted by idiots for centuries.

My opinion of vintage 2011 is largely formed. The vintage is well over half way through. I have toured vineyards and tasted grapes, ferments and wine in enough places to get a fair idea of what happens when you have the wettest vintage in thirty-seven years.

EDEN VALLEY RIESLING KING, COLIN FORBES, WHO HAD BEEN CONTRACTED TO MAKE THE DRY-GROWN BUSH VINE KARRA YERTA RIESLING FOR MARIE LINKE LINKE, RIGHT, WON'T BE PICKING A GRAPE SINCE THE CROP WAS BUTCHERED BY BOTRYTIS AND OTHER MOULDS photo MILTON WORDLEY
 
There are those, of course, who are disarming in their honesty. The tiny-scale Barossa Ranges Riesling aces, Bob McLean (McLean’s Farm) and Marie Linke (Karra Yerta) have stated quite simply that their heavily-Botrytised Riesling is not worth picking. But while their write-offs are symptomatic of the year, their frankness is not indicative, unfortunately, of the general industry spin.

EVEN THE FASTIDIOUSLY HAND-TENDED ORGANIC NEVER-IRRIGATED RIESLING BUSH VINES AT McLEAN'S FARM ARE SUFFICIENTLY DAMAGED BY BOTRYTIS AND OTHER MOULDS TO PROHIBIT PICKING

The summer of 2010-11 was, in fact, the second wettest on record for Australia.

"Nationally we averaged 354.7mm, 70 per cent above normal and second only behind the infamous summer of 1973-74 when 419.8mm was recorded," said Tom Saunders, meteorologist at The Weather Channel.

“Victoria’s had its wettest summer on record,” he continued. “Western Australia recorded its second wettest summer. South Australia recorded its third wettest summer. New South Wales recorded its fifth wettest summer. Queensland recorded its sixth wettest summer. Northern Territory recorded its eighth wettest summer, and Tasmania recorded its seventeenth wettest summer.

THE RAIN AND FLOODS CAME VERY EARLY IN THE VINE CYCLE, AND PERSISTED UNTIL A GREAT VINTAGE WAS UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE ... THIS IS A NORTHERN VICTORIAN VINEYARD

"And after a decade of drought, The Murray Darling Basin also recorded its third wettest summer," he concluded.

Just as a perfect vintage, ideally dry, slow and cool, deserves recognition in the odd chance that it may occasionally occur, so do record numbers like these. These are not matters of opinion.

Neither are the simple facts evident to anybody who knows vines well enough to jump over the odd fence and identify Downy Mildew, Powdery Mildew, and Botryitis cinerea. Botrytis not only rots the skins of grapes, but it also attacks the stems of the bunches. When you stand in highly regarded vineyards and watch the vibrations of the mechanical harvesters shaking bunches onto the ground before they even reach those vines, you know something’s wrong. When you watch bins of mouldy slurry, rather than your actual grapes, arrive at winery hoppers, you know this is not what the wineries would like their drinkers to see.

BOTRYTIS CINEREA ON SHIRAZ BERRIES photos by JAMES HOOK, CONSULTING VINE SCIENTIST AND PROPRIETOR OF LAZY BALLERINA WINES, McLAREN VALE.

The need to recognize and identify mere opinions intensifies once frightened winemakers wheel out their most trustworthy employees to tell us that everything’s much better than it is. Such phenomena are not determined by the size of the business, other than in the sense that little guys can bullshit more convincingly than big guys because they’re little.

Troy Elliker, viticulturer for the big McLaren Vale vineyard management company, The Terraces, may feel a little sheepish about calling it too early when on February 19th he said “We've had a very good season and it looks like we are going to have a good year … There will be some really good quality fruit, hence quality wines, coming out of McLaren Vale for the 2011 vintage ... It's a bit later this season because of the weather conditions ... This summer we had cool nights and warm days, which was great for growing grapes down here."

Baron of Barossa, Louisa Rose (below), chief winemaker at Yalumba, warned against calling it early. This Barossa winery takes vast tonnages of fruit from the Riverland, and lesser amounts from the more premium vignobles in the ranges and interstate. At 31,600 tonnes, it is ninth on the list of the biggest Australian wineries measured by winegrape intake.

I could feel poor Louisa squirming when she told The Advertiser "The wines that are going to be made for the 2011 vintage are going to made from very good grapes and those wines are going to be very good drinks."

See the back label forming?

“Ideally cool conditions produced beautiful fruit of good natural acidity and elegance,” a good spindrifter could write, more or less along the lines of what winescribe Max Allen wrote in The Australian. You could easily stretch this to insinuate that 2011 was the closest Australia gets to the general vintage conditions of, say, Bordeaux, strangely reflecting what Clare Riesling hero Jeffrey Grosset told the same paper, about a fortnight after I’d facetiously suggested it on DRINKSTER.

Not to suggest the astute Ms Rose would extend her spin so far. She had already stated "Too many people assume that the whole vintage has been ruined and that's not the case … It's far too early to make bold claims as to what the vintage is really going to look like. Making big claims about the success or failure of a vintage while grapes were still being picked was a foolish exercise … While there had been some sad individual cases of growers with disappointing harvests, that did not tell the story of the whole vintage.”

From a winemaking family famous as champions of positivism at all costs, Neil McGuigan (below) of Australian Vintage (157,000 tonnes) told the influential industry business e-mail newsletter, The Key Report:

“Vintage has been very challenging across Australia with the Hunter and WA both having excellent vintages. The irrigated districts were ‘under the pump’ but those vineyards that were managed correctly and had a bit of luck were able to harvest most of their fruit. Some rejections did occur, and some varieties were adversely affected by Downy Mildew. Barossa looks good but the SE of South Australia has been adversely affected by the weather as well.”

So you have a choice in the Barossa. Either you believe that it “looks good”, or you give ear to the champion grapegrowers’ representative, Baron of Barossa Leo Pech, who said this was the worst vintage he’d seen in 61 years, as reported here at the beginning of vintage.

Judson Barry, of Brian Barry Wines (less than 100 tonnes) more recently told DRINKSTER “I can speak first hand for the Clare district. The Riesling and Shiraz grapes that I have crushed and seen crushed thus far are 1st class quality. A higher than usual amount of fruit has indeed been left on the vine however, due to poor quality arrived from disease. Harvest is approximately 1/2 complete. One must take into account that it is not just fruit quality that determines the final result of the wine quality. This depends heavily on the particular winemaking method that the fruit is subject to. Winemaking techniques or methods are infinite!”

THE GREAT CLARE RIESLING ACE AND MASTER WINE JUDGE, BRIAN BARRY, THE AUTHOR, AND JUDSON BARRY AT BRIAN'S RECENT 84TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS

In the Murray Valley, organic wine grower Michael O’Donohue of Tom’s Drop (less than 20 tonnes) insists he has very good fruit ripening calmly. Another organic Berri company, 919 Wines (less than 100 tonnes), was slightly more specific when Jenny Semmler reflected Judson Barry’s opinion.

“Quality has been marvellous when the fruit comes in clean,” she said. “This vintage will be a test of the winemaker - his or her skill at working closely with the viticulturalist to ensure the fruit is picked at the appropriate time.

“We’re generally finding the fruit is ripe at lower Baumés than usual this year, but with delightful flavour/sugar/acid/tannin balance. Then of course, a good winemaker will be able to be a good custodian of the fruit ... there are traps for unwary players, however.”

TOP-QUALITY EARLY-PICKED SHIRAZ FROM OLIVER'S TARANGA, McLAREN VALE

Closer to home, Inkwell (under 20 tonnes) proprietor Dudley Brown, of McLaren Vale, reports ideal ferments. His neighbour, Paul Petagna (under 10 tonnes) has a winery full of calm, clean ferments. These tiny super-premium local heroes are joined by Roger Pike, of Marius (under 20 tonnes), who says one of his ferments is a bit tricky, but the other two are more or less ideal. Oliver’s Taranga, which picked early, has magnificent wine.

In the Barossa, Tim Smith (right), who will soon be the former winemaker of Chateau Tanunda as he pursues his own revered brand, insists there are some very fine parcels of fruit in that district, while admitting it has not been ideal for many.

So take these claims as you wish, and prepare to see them reflected, or not, on the back labels of the 2011 bottles, if not the bladder packs.

But if it’s forensic accuracy you want, you can’t go past Louisa Rose’s forerunner at the winemaking helm at Yalumba. Brian Walsh, now director of strategy and business management there, wrote a vintage report that is blistering in its honesty and precision.

“The wettest growing season [of the post WWII period]” he stated “being the second wettest year on record. The rain and cold conditions extended right through vintage leading to big losses from disease and produced mostly thin wines from unripe grapes … growers suffered severe losses (as high as 40%) from Downy Mildew due to the wet season – in fact Peter Lehmann did not make any red wine suitable to bottle … ”

Trouble is, Walshie was talking about 1974*.




FOOTNOTES

1. *This quote is from BAROSSA (Barossa Valley – Eden Valley) Vintage Classification 1947 – 1998 (authors: Peter Fuller and Brian Walsh; publisher: Barossa Wine And Tourism Association 1999).

2. A much shorter version of this story first appeared here. I have deleted it, but saved the comments already posted.

Marie Linke from Karra Yerta said...

“About to catch up on your latest posts, Philip. I lapsed into a coma last night for eleven hours which was probably a good thing. Bad thing was, when I woke up, it was still vintage.” April 5, 2011 5:15 PM

Anonymous said...

“There is Barossa Shiraz that has already been graded Grange by the Penfolds team!!

“Both Barossa Merlot and Cabernet are the best we have seen in years.” April 5, 2011 5:31 PM

Jenny said...

“Quality has been marvellous when the fruit comes in clean. This vintage will be a test of the winemkaer - his or her skill at working closely with the viticulturalist to ensure the fruit is picked at the appropriate time. Generally finding the fruit is ripe at lower baumes than usual this year, but with delightful flavour/sugar/acid/tannin balance. Then of course, a good winemaker will be able to be a good custodian of the fruit.

“Traps for unwary players, however.” April 6, 2011 5:33 PM

Cam Haskell said...

“Great stuff Whitey.

“A few points. McGuigan thinks some of it's going to be alright. Which begs the question as to why so much of their wine will be so boring.

“The rainfall in WA figures are a tad misleading. Sure, we got a shedload up north, but down here (in Margaret River) we've only just got some yesterday after super tinder-box-dry conditions since Jan, when we had one day of rain. The fruit I've seen has looked AMAZING, and I think this will be a breakout year for Margaret River shiraz, in particular.

“Your point about trumpeting every vintage is bang on the mark. Vintage variation is real, and it's foolish to suggest that, no matter how judicious, selective and pernickety a producer is that it might match up to a better year. It's irritating and largely mendacious in my opinion to go around treating climate as though it is something that can be overcome in the winery. Absolute bobbins.

“As for fruit being graded as grange, given they make this wine every year, what does that mean? Anything?

“In any case, keep up the good work. Best of luck to the rest of yer still picking and crushing.” April 7, 2011 10:25 AM

Anonymous said...

“This vintage should not be the test of the winemaker, unless he is forced to take fruit with laccase problems. This growing season was surely the test of the viticulturist: his/ her sensitivity, forethought and diligence (and in all likelihood budget) in carrying out cultural operations proactively. This year, perhaps winemakers will actually be stewards of fruit for once, since the requirement for bags of acid and the old culebra negra is vastly dwindled?” April 7, 2011 12:36 PM

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BAROSSA FINALLY GETS ROCKS IN ITS HEAD

LOUISA ROSE, CHIEF WINEMAKER AT YALUMBA, HOST OF THE 2010 BAROSSA TERROIRS TASTING: A RE-ASSURING CONFIRMATION OF LAST YEAR'S INAUGURAL SHIRAZ TASTING BASED ON GEOLOGICAL TERRANES

Getting Below One's Roots Rockstars 2nd Year Hit Yalumba Tasting Bites Paydirt

by PHILIP WHITE - A version of this story appeared in The Independent Weekly ... an expanded, more inclusive and detailed version will appear in place of this piece soon.

Barossa staged a tasting last week that history will regard more profound than most attendees will realise.

This year, hosted by Yalumba - who loaned their beautiful tasting chamber and numerous inestimable members of their staff - sixty wines were served blind in eight groups, according to their geology. A similar event was held at Seppeltsfield a year ago, but to garner support from the region’s constituents, that nervy exploratory fixture was held mainly for famous wine critics from around the world, some of whom got the point.

It's a tragic reflection on Australia's dumb forelock-tugging mentality that it seems no wine region can get a project up unless there are humans from foreign shores to endorse it before it starts. This happens too, in McLaren Vale, where local press, who understand the detail of the deal, are forced to take back seat to, or be replaced by, overseas hacks, or peanuts from dumb glossies, because such humans impress the paying members sufficiently for them to agree to proceed, regardless of whether anybody understands it or not.

The winemakers who observed last year’s Barossa event, but didn’t participate, have had twelve months to ponder. We then tasted shiraz wines from 2008, from older, neutral barrels. This year it was 2009s, to establish the foundations of a database which will, after further decades of tasting, suggest descriptors unique to each vague sub-region. Twelve tasters, including twitchy industrialists, ticked four pages of boxes for each wine, covering its spectrum of flavours, aromas, styles and strengths. This will be compiled statistically by the astonishing Louisa Rose and her crew at Yalumba, isolating words that re-occur frequently for future use in describing each zone’s characteristics.

In spite of vintage variation, my responses almost identically matched last year’s.

TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP OF THE BAROSSA, WITH THE ALTITUDE GREATLY EXAGGERATED TO MAKE THE HILLS APPEAR SUDDENLY TO RESEMBLE THE SWISS ALPS ... AN ACCURATE GEOLOGY MAP IS BEING PREPARED BY THE TEAM WHO HAVE FINISHED THE SAME TASK IN McLAREN VALE, AND AWAIT PUBLICATION. CLICK ON IMAGE TO MAKE HILLS EVEN BIGGER.

The first set came from the higher vineyards between Williamstown and Lyndoch, and a few from the older country over the Para around Gomersal. These are largely in alluvial sands laid down in the last million years or so, overlying the micaceous schists, siltstones, calcilicates and quartzites of the Upper Burra group, all older than 540 million years. These were perfumed and fragrant delicacies with hints of fennel, aniseed and wintergreen over their elegant cherries and dark berries. They were generally of moderate alcohol and acidity; concentrated, yet modest and pretty, reminding me of the floral cuties from the schist of northern Beaujolais.

Next, the western piedmont of the Barossa range, from Rowland Flat north through Bethany and Vine Vale, along the Stockwell fault to Saltram. Most of this is sediment of sand, gravel and clay, younger than 1.8 million years. These, too, were perfumed, elegant wines, musky, juicy and delicate over their cherries and blackcurrants. Fleshy rather than mineral, with meaty charcuterie hints.

The bracket from north of there, in similar geology, from Nuriootpa past The Willows and Light Pass, was quite different, with a touch more acidity and alcohol, and classic Barossa chocolate adding to their rich fruitcake and leather. In these ethereal, juicy, wines, dried apple, an aroma typical to the more westerly vineyards, began to emerge. Some showed the minty influence of eucalypts.

Across the range, the wines of the High Barossa - from McLean’s Farm atop Mengler’s Hill, south past Mountadam to Eden Springs and east to Craneford - rocked. This geology - metasiltstones, metasandstones, slates, gneisses and granites - is 490 to 545 million years old, when sluggy critters, arthropods and trilobites were evolving. With stony mineral basenotes perfectly reflecting their source, these were stacked with marello cherries, blackberry jam and prunes, in ethereal, juicy, bouquets; below lay charcuterie meats and earth. The alcohols seemed modest, as did the acidity, but the latter looked natural, which always beats shovelled tartaric!

The wines from north of Eden Valley town, out past the Henschkes, were more boisterous, minerally and stony, with blackcurrants, blackberries, dark cherries, prunes and sinblack jams abundant. Milk chocolate appeared here, and more charcuterie; even metwurst. The tannins were earthy, yet sinewy.

Back to the Moppa: the flats north of Nuriootpa, where the great old vines of Ebenezer and Kalimna somehow live in dry alluvial sands deposited 1.8 to 50 million years ago, with bits of more recent wind-blown sand on top. These were what I’d call classic, mighty, fruitcake Barossa: black and thick with prunes, cherries, mulberries and cassis, with dark chocolate, and meaty, leathery tones glowering below, and higher alcohols to match. The tannins were soft, yet earthy and mineral.

South then, and west to Greenock, Seppeltsfield and Marananga, and the Valley’s strongest, most complex wines: packed with jams and fruitcake, prunes and figs, dried apple and pear, leather, cooking chocolate, and walnuts. The rocks north of the Marananga Church to the by-pass highway are schists, siltstones and quartzites from the Upper Burra Group, from away back in the Neoproterozoic (545-1200 million years), when multi-cellular life was beginning. Climate and altitude aside, this is where I dream that the older, more complex rocks give flavours to match.

THE NEOPROTEROZOIC ROCKS IN THE HILL AT GREENOCK CREEK VINEYARDS AND CELLARS' ROENNFELDT ROAD VINEYARD ARE MUCH OLDER THAN MOST OF THE BAROSSA FLOOR GROUPS - LEO DAVIS PHOTOGRAPH

And so to Stonewell: the ironstone south from Marananga to Tanunda. Some of these wines smell like a blacksmith’s shop, with hot coke burning below horseshoes glowing on anvils. You’ll find aniseed, walnut, fig and leathery aromas here, with much of the Greenock character, contrasting in a more elegant, creamy structure, somewhat akin to chocolate crême caramel, towards the softer custardy textures of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

While the winemakers who entered wines in this event were brave, showing unfinished produce to so many fusspots, I bow to them, very, very deeply. They will be remembered. Too many others failed to attend the next day’s event, when everything was on display. They’ll slip off the map.

SHOWS: BIG CO.s KILL HILLS; JUDGES KILL VALES

by PHILIP WHITE

It’s official: out of 58 Adelaide Hills sauvignons blanc exhibited at the Adelaide Hills Wine Show, the best is from Constellation Wines and the generally-discounted Oomoo range.

The big chains are ordering their Constellation Oomoo Adelaide Hills Sauvignon Blanc 2008 as I write, but both are coy about the price they’ll charge. I expect it to eventually sit between $15 and $19, but who knows?

“The top sauvignon blanc awards showed fresh bright fruit characters but with an extra dimension” reported chair of judges Louisa Rose, from Yalumba. “Clear but well integrated acid was rewarded.”

The judges seemed once again to steer away from wines deliberately built with some complexity, like the O’Leary Walker Fully Worked Adelaide Hills Sauvignon Blanc 2007, which is a personal favourite.

Fully-worked chardonnay won the day, however, with Penfold’s Bin 06A Adelaide Hills Chardonnay 2006 taking top gold in the commercial chardonnay class, as well as winning best wine of the show. Luckily for the drinker, the much cheaper Penfolds Thomas Hyland Chardonnay 2007 came in only half a point behind, equal scoring with Shaw & Smith’s premium M3 2007. The Starvedog Lane 2005 also won gold.

None of this writer’s preferred pinots got anywhere. Ashton Hills Reserve 2007 scraped bronze; Honey Moon and Romney Park didn’t score. Boo hoo.

The cabernet and merlot classes scored rock-bottom across the board, but there was a glimmer of hope in the shiraz sector, with Honey Moon winning gold, as did Brackenwood, Argyle Cawdor, Shaw & Smith, and Starvedog with its shiraz/viognier.

These results were similar to those of the recent McLaren Vale Show, where the stunning wines which didn’t score - Coriole Nebbiolo Rose 2008; d’Arenberg The Coppermine Road Cabernet 2006; d’Arenberg the Dead Arm Shiraz 2006; et cetera, were as noticeable for their omission as the trophy winners were for their victory.

Not one white wine was rewarded gold at McLaren Vale.

COMMENTS:

GINGER MEGGS said:

"Of course Oomoo's the best sauvignon in the Adelaide Hills! Have you tasted the rest of them?"

December 3, 2008 10:48 AM

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East Coast Glossy Joins Mega Discount Plonkmonger To Shine Up Sunny South Winos

by PHILIP WHITE

Australia’s Gourmet Traveller WINE, a shiny gastroporn monthly, in association with the enormous Sydney-based liquor discounter, Kemenys, has awarded three South Australians in its annual Winemaker of the Year Awards.

The Winemaker of the Year 2008 award, “which recognises excellence in the Australian wine industry”, went to Louisa Rose of Yalumba in the Barossa.

The Kemenys Medal, which “encourages up-and-coming winemakers in the pursuit of excellence”, was awarded to Helen McCarthy of Taylors in the Clare district.

The Len Evans Award, “celebrating the importance of leadership in the industry” was presented to Robert Hill Smith, the owner and chief executive of Yalumba.

“South Australia is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to good winemaking, so it’s particularly fitting that all three winners hail from the southern state,” said Judy Sarris, editor of Gourmet Traveller WINE. "We’re absolutely thrilled to celebrate the outstanding creativity and hard work of these people who help make Australian wine among the very best in the world.”

Louisa Rose was selected for “impeccable quality of her flagship viognier, Yalumba The Virgilius, and Pewsey Vale The Contours Riesling ... Louisa has been experimenting with shiraz – looking at the impact of site, variety and clone – and releasing some single vineyard wines”, the Gourmet flak said.

The Len Evans Award went to Louisa’s boss, Robert, for his “era of remarkable growth and innovation ... His highly assured leadership is what drives Yalumba and the other entities that fall within his reign, especially Hill Smith Family Vineyards and Negociants International. Within this large organisation, teamwork is considered vital and decisions are the result of consensus rather than being handed down unilaterally. The leadership shown by Hill Smith and Yalumba in releasing their Old Vine and Reserve charters in 2007 is all too rare in the industry. By entering the realm of practical philosophy, they sought to promote discussion and address consumer confusion that arose from the loose use of the terms.”

For DRINKSTER’S opinions on or discussions of any of the above, hit Len Evans in the search box above, read Reserved For Whom? or check the viognier file on DRANKSTER.

The Kemenys Medal went to Helen McCarthy, who worked at Barossa Valley Estate and Penfolds before becoming senior winemaker at Taylors.

“McCarthy has made an excellent start with wine judging too – she’s accurate, confident and ready to defend her opinions” said the flak.

The awards were judged by the magazine’s regular contributors, Huon Hooke, Andrew Caillard MW, Nick Bulleid MW, Peter Bourne, Sophie Otton and Peter Forrestal (Chairman).

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