KIWI DOC WARNS: NO SAVVY SAVVY

BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL MARLBOROUGH. BUT IS IT TOO BIG? photograph by KEVIN JUDD

Marlborough's Big Tip

“Tip glut wine or Marlborough topples, industry warns”, was Rachel Young’s headline in The Marlborough Express on New Year’s Day.

I don’t want to go on too much about my piece Wine Biz On The Nose, published on the same day in response to a Sydney Morning Herald piece, but I can’t help observing: why are these terrible wine crises reported only at a time when nobody’s reading newspapers, including journalists?

Oldest trick in the book. They can say “I told you so”. But they didn’t. They didn’t even tell themselves.

But Whitey noticed.

Dr. John Forrest, of the winery bearing his name, said Marlborough's wine image could be forever tarnished if the export market is flooded with cheap sauvignon blanc.

Plenty of that in my in tray. From Marlborough. Already. About the same quality as your average Adelaide Hills sauvignon. Piss on the nettles.

“Marlborough's vintage size increased by 61 percent from last year to a record 194,639 tonnes this year which has caused talk of excess wine and oversupply within the industry”, the Express reported.

“Forrest said oversupply could cause major problems for Marlborough's image and the price it could demand for future vintages ... most wineries took in more fruit than they needed, of which he estimated about 20 per cent was of compromised quality ... this compromised wine should not be blended with good wine, he said.

"If you believe that by flogging cheap 2008 when the 2009 is available and waiting will not compromise the long term viability and profitability of the New Zealand wine industry then I think you are kidding yourself.

"How do we save the Marlborough and New Zealand wine industry from slipping down to produce bulk white wine like you can buy for around 3 to 5 in the UK from Chile?" the Doc asked.

"I feel like we are standing on the edge of a cliff and once we go down I don't see how we can come out of it."

So does he have any solution?

Yep. Tip it out.

Ask our Riverland, and Coonawarra. And give Texas a call. And check CADUCEUS.

SAUVIGNON KING LEAVES CLOUDY BAY

KEVIN JUDD will be spending a lot more time on his brilliant photography. Check out his work by clicking on this image.

Juddy Mosies On

1984. Kevin Judd, probably the quietest man in the wine business, walked into my office grinning like a giant clam and said he was into this new thing with David Hohnen of Cape Mentelle. But New Zealand? Yep. A place called Marlborough.

“We’re gonna plant sauvignon blanc”, he gurgled through his smoke. “Best place for it.”

I liked two sauvignons blanc: one yellow softy made at Angle Vale by Rocky O’Callaghan; the other was Hardy’s tawny fortified made from Bob Hardy’s ancient vines at upper Tintara. Wolf Blass had been buggering about with some, blended with riesling and aged in mostly American oak(!).

Then came the radical Vales blitzkriegs Iain Riggs made in ’81 and ’82, at Hazelmere Estate (now Serafino Maglieri’s). Riggsy used fruit from the Edge Dennis vineyard that d’Arenberg has just bought. He picked it into milk crates so the grapes wouldn’t squash and oxidise, chilled it, then gave it the Oenotech treatment devised by Dr. Tony Jordan and Brian Croser, using their distinctive R2 yeast. The wine was a blast: crisp, grassy and fresh as a lemon, with all those alarming R2 whiffs of banana and passionfruit.

R2 had been isolated by Croser at Chateau Rahoul near Sauternes in Bordeaux, where Len Evans was spending Peter Fox’s money. But the financially-challenged Fox solved his Adelaide Holdings problems by driving his Ferrari flat out into a concrete wall, and Peter Vinding-Diers bought Rahoul, to make exquisitely fine, almost brittle sauvignon blanc. The savvy-B explosion ignited, and soon Rob and Michael Hill Smith had a great lunch at Yalumba, where they served Vinding-Diers’ inspiration: “Y”, the dry savvy-B from the mighty home of sticky, Chateau d’Yquem, in Sauternes.

Sometimes d’Yquem picks its sauvignon early in the vintage to make a dry wine, rather than letting it botrytise with the semillon and go into the mighty sticky for which that Chateau is revered. There have been only 23 vintages of “Y” since the first in 1959.

So we guzzled our “Y” while the Smiths quizzed us over the chance of dry savvy-B becoming the next chardonnay. Rob eventually went in the viognier direction, and while I have a tape recording of Michael deriding savvy-B that day, he went on to make it a stalwart at Shaw and Smith. There was much discussion of the cat’s piss grassiness of the variety, which comes from its natural methoxypyrazines (3-isobutyl-2-methoxypyrazine and 3-isopropyl-2-methoxypyrazine). These compounds are common to cabernet sauvignon, soursob, rhubarb, tomato leaves, and grass. Hemp, and jute, or hessian, is full of it, and sometimes austere sauvignons smell rather like superphosphate sacks, which combine the remnant methoxypyrazine with the smell of guano, which I reckon comes from combinations of sulphur, soil, and yeast.

Humans detect methoxypyrazine at around one part per trillion, which is like smelling one grape in the entire Australian crush. The grape manufactures it to deter predators, and only when the pip is ripe enough for germination does the vine suddenly cease its production and instead pumps sugar to attract said predators, which become incubators for those seeds.

Vignerons panic if they can’t get their savvy-B off quick enough in heatwaves, as the plants quite abruptly cease manufacturing this compound. On a hot day, the value of a crop can plummet in hours. The winery wants the methoxypyrazine for its distinction, but suddenly it disappears, leaving the grower with a grapeyard full of sugar but devoid of character and smothered in birds.

“I knew Stephen Hickinbotham was sniffing around Marlborough - he knew sauvignon had a future there”, Hohnen says. “He was first into everything. Kiwi sauvignon had the eyebrow factor: nose in the glass and up goes the eyebrows. But it was all too sweet and too acidic.

“Juddy instinctively knew what to do. He’d worked four vintages with Merrill at Reynella, then went to Selacks in New Zealand. We found three or four growers with 120 tonnes. They didn’t know what to do with it. Juddy made it after work. We built Cloudy Bay in ’86, and off it went.”

Kiwi savvy-B is now an international hit. Hohnen sold Cloudy Bay to Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey in 2000. In the twelve months to October, Australia drank 26 million litres ($206 million worth) of Kiwi white, most of it sauvignon blanc. Like Hohnen, Juddy’s off to make a little wine for himself, and get on with his first love, photography.

I would have liked to talk to Juddy about all this, but at the time of writing the Cloudy Bay people haven't responded to my enquiries.

You couldn’t squeeze another grape onto the Marlborough plain now - the vineyards are climbing over the hills. Google Yealands and you’ll get my drift. But too much of it’s mean greed, all acid and sugar, devoid of soul or balance. Same old tale.

At home, the world’s biggest wine company, Constellation, just won the top sauvignon blanc gong in the Adelaide Hills show with Oomoo, and while Rob Hill Smith’s waiting for viognier to become the next chardonnay, he still imports d’Yquem and, when they make one, the crunchy “Y”. They’re only $685.

.

KIWI RECORDS SMASHED; NO PANNELL BEATERS

PRESS RELEASE FROM STEVE PANNELL

Good News Story #1

Tonight, the title ‘Best Sauvignon Blanc’ has been wrenched from the hands of the Kiwis after a six-year strangehold, with the epithet awarded to Stephen Pannell and his S.C. Pannell 2007 Sauvignon Blanc.

The annual Tri-Nations Wine Challenge is a tough competition chaired by three judges who represent the who’s who of wine sovereignty in their respective nations – James Halliday (Australia), Bob Campbell MW (New Zealand) and Michael Fridjhon (South Africa). They choose just seven wines in each of the 15 categories, totalling 315 wines for judgment. The wines are entered by invitation-only, making these awards unique by world standards.

With Sauvignon Blanc being the signature variety of the New Zealand wine industry, this loss presents a crushing blow. Stephen Pannell, owner and winemaker of S.C. Pannell wines, strongly believes an Aussie win was long overdue. “The Kiwis won the Best Shiraz trophy yet again this year, so quite frankly the judging panel has assigned a little bit of justice. And we need to win something - it’s clearly not going to be in the cricket,” remarked Stephen.

The win also demonstrates that sauvignon blanc can reap some sound rewards with a little more time in bottle. Unlike his friends across the ditch, Stephen chooses to release his sauvignon blanc a year after vintage.

Good News Story #2

The Alternative Varieties Wine Show, held each year in Mildura is arguably the most exciting and intriguing show on the wine calendar. It aims to cultivate emerging varieties and styles, and is a true discovery ground, bringing to the fore the type of wines usually marginalised at mainsteam wine shows. It now attracts some 600+ entries from throughout Australia and New Zealand. The show has just wrapped up, and the panel led by Chair Max Allen reckoned the S.C. Pannell 2006 Adelaide Hills Nebbiolo an absolute stand-out, and was the only wine awarded Gold in its class.

Good News Story #3

On a recent trip to London, Stephen was hosting a dinner with renown Barolo producer G.D Vajra whom Stephen had also spent some time working with in 2004. It was the usual, very serious wine affair, with eight of London’s top Italian restaurant sommeliers in attendance. In one of the wine tasting brackets, guests were served the 2004 Langhe Nebbiolo from Vajra and S.C. Pannell’s own 2005 Adelaide Hills Nebbiolo. The wines were masked and the guests were told that one wine was an Aussie, the other an Italian, and the challenge was set for them to guess which was which.

Out of all sommeliers, only one of them got it right.

About Stephen Pannell

Stephen Pannell grew up in the wine industry as a member of the family which founded Moss Wood in 1967. Stephen’s extensive knowledge and experience has been garnered over many years working with some Australia’s iconic wineries (including Wirra Wirra, Hardy’s Tintara and BRL Hardy where he was Chief Red Winemaker from 1999 to 2003) alongside numerous overseas vintages at such places as Domaine des Comtes Lafon in Burgundy, Chateau Mouton Rothschild in Bordeaux and G.D. Vajra in Barolo. Other highlights in Stephen’s career include winning the title of International Red Winemaker of the Year at the International Wine Challenge in London, winning the Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show, twice winning the Max Schubert Trophy at the Adelaide Wine Show as well as being listed as one of the 50 most influential contributors to the world of wine by Decanter Magazine. In addition to establishing his own label, S.C.Pannell, Stephen has a wine consulting business withclients in Australia, Argentina, UK and Spain, and is a member of the Qantas wine selection panel. “This is a label which is well on the way to icon-status.” - James Halliday, The Australian Wine Companion 2008.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 21 November 2008

For further information and images, please contact: Llawela Forrest - RUN FORREST. M: 0400 586 991. E: llawela@runforrest.com.au

FOOTNOTE FROM PHILIP WHITE:

The new Pannell wines will soon be reviewed on DRANKSTER. The nebbiolo is from Frank and Rosie Baldasso's PROTERO vineyard between Gumeracha and Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills. For the latest PROTERO knockout, read the article below.

COMMENTS

Lord Byron said...

"They choose just seven wines in each of the 15 categories, totalling 315 wines for judgment. The wines are entered by invitation-only, making these awards unique by world standards."

While I quite like Steve's wines, and am growing sick and tired of over-cropped industrial Marlboroughs, I find the above quote very interesting. Is there any such thing as an honest blind wine competition anymore?

November 24, 2008 7:50 AM

AND ANOTHER ONE:

How many more of these claims are we gonna get from this tasting these three blokes had of wines they’d nominated themselves? This is the spin from McWilliams:

Press release

AUSTRALIA’S GREATEST WHITE WINE

AUSTRALIAN WINE THAT BEAT THE KIWIS AND SOUTH AFRICANS RELEASED TODAY!

An Australian wine which has garnered international attention and critical acclaim will be released in Australia today. Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon 2003, which won three trophies including ‘Best Wine of Show’ at the Tri Nations Wine Challenge, can now be found in limited quantities on shelves across Australia.

The wine’s ability to reward cellaring for up to 30 years is a rarity with Australian white wine and has been appreciated by international critics and wine show judges for more than five decades, however Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon is still relatively unknown among most Australian wine drinkers.

Described by leading UK wine critic Matthew Jukes as, “…the finest single vineyard Sem in the

world,” Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon has also been named a ‘Landmark Wine of Australia’

and is rated ‘Excellent’ on the prestigious Langton’s Classification of Australian Wine IV.

“Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon represents a style unique to Australia and the Hunter Valley, from a very special piece of soil in the region. I’m pleased that these distinctive elements have been recognized. It is also pleasing to see Australia once again demonstrate why we’re such a powerful player on the international wine stage,” Mr Ryan said.

The 2003 vintage of Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon – released today – won the Best Other

White Trophy, Best White Wine Trophy and Best Wine of Show Trophy at the Tri Nations Wine

Challenge, announced last Friday night. The wine has also won a gold medal at the International

Wine and Spirit Competition, in London, and a gold medal at the Melbourne Wine Show.

The Tri Nations Wine Challenge sees wines from Australia, New Zealand and Africa compete to win trophies in several categories. Wines can only be entered after receiving an invitation by an

esteemed group of judges that includes UK wine critic Robert Joseph, James Halliday (Australia), Bob Campbell MW (New Zealand) and Michael Fridjhon (South Africa).

Due to the tight criteria for entry and the status of the judging panel, the competition has quickly

established a reputation as one of the most challenging and demanding to win.

Overall, Australia – supported by the success of McWilliam’s Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon – was named as ‘Country of the Show’.

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