Farewell to another Yarra Valley icon

Like most people who knew him, I had an up-down relationship with Dr Bailey Carrodus, the founder and inspiration behind one of Australia’s great wine estates, Yarra Yering. Bailey was one the most intelligent, determined, self-assured, stubborn and obstinate people I have ever met. He was eccentric, quirky, razor-sharp, persuasive and rather affected. He was however impossible to dislike. Without doubt, we drove each other crazy.

He was a visionary to be sure, but his vision was so acutely focused that he ignored everything that didn’t fit inside it. You could walk away from a conversation with Bailey totally and utterly convinced that he was the only person on earth who knew anything about wine. I’d call it the Carrodus Effect, and it would sometimes take more than a day to shake off. Forgive me, but here is my favourite Bailey Carrodus story. It says much about the man.

Back in 1984, in my very first year as a wine critic, he sent me samples of his 1982 Dry Reds to taste. I very happily published glowing reviews of them in The Age, since they were indeed remarkable wines. Being a gentleman of the old school, Bailey then took the trouble to write me a letter in freehand in which he thanked me for my kindness. I kept the letter, because I hoard such things. In that letter, he mentioned how important he thought it was to keep the informed section of the media updated with his wines. He also sent me a dozen bottles of the wines I reviewed. This, I can assure you, is the only time in my life that a winemaker has ever done that. Because I was 22 years old, charmed and flattered, thirsty and broke, I drank them.

It was about twelve years later that I sent Bailey a letter requesting the three latest vintages of each of Yarra Yering’s wines so I could include the winery in the first edition of my new wine guide. He was kind enough to write back saying that while he was grateful for my request, he would prefer not to do as I asked. So I wrote back, emphasising the importance of my previous letter, and that I would be delighted to include Yarra Yering on the basis that he sent me the wines I needed. Under no circumstances, he wrote in his next letter, would he be sending me the wines.

So, after several phone conversations that I found akin to trying to alter the opinion of the world’s most intelligent mule, I wrote again. This time in his reply he made the suggestion that the competent wine critic should allocate a certain portion of his and he was way too old-fashioned to write ‘his or her’ income towards expenditure on the wines he needed to taste in order to facilitate his daily work. This hurt, since I was still broke.

I responded, again in writing, saying that to achieve this, each and every wine writer in Australia would be indebted up to their eyeballs. Furthermore, I argued, it was generally regarded within intelligent circles that all companies operating in the luxury goods area – which naturally included Yarra Yering – should allocate at least ten percent of their turnover as marketing expenditure – more than cover the meagre request I was making. But the bit that got him over the line was the photocopy that I enclosed in the envelope of his letter to me of twelve years before.

Here is why I liked Bailey Carrodus so much. In the letter I received back from him shortly thereafter, which I still hoard, he wrote: ‘Ok – you win. I thought that only a Frenchman could behave like that! This, I later found, was about Bailey’s most profound expletive – he would later name his new vineyards after battles such as Agincourt and Crecy in which the French were defeated. Two days later, a mountain of Yarra Yering wine arrived at my office.

Not to be out-done, Bailey gradually dried up the annual supply of wine to me, at the same time initiating trade and media tasting days in which he would move agitatedly around the edges, clearly wishing he was anywhere else on earth. These he then stopped, withdrawing to his perch half-way up the hill in the Yarra Valley, where on the first Saturday of May, he would open his new releases, along with the occasional vertical, for his hordes of adoring acolytes. This date, he observed, was one I should keep annually in my dairy, if I were to go further in my intended business of becoming a truly professional wine critic.

After a few years in which pride prevented me from turning up and showing the respect to which to a by then ageing, but still extremely energetic and piercingly observant Bailey Carrodus was entitled, I relented. These would be the only times we ever saw each other. I would be ushered into a back room by winemaker Mark Haisma to escape the jostling out front. I’d share a few words with Bailey every now and again – for with Bailey if you had nothing of intelligence to say it was extremely prudent not to say anything at all – and I’d leave with a renewed mixture of respect and affection. The last time, on May 3rd this year, I departed with a lasting impression of a man who moved only to his own beat, whose pride was paramount, but whose humour and affection was as deep as it was often so carefully concealed.

Right now I regret more than ever that I didn’t engage Bailey more often in conversation. Of course we would end up in an argument, and of course he would win, even if I was right. People like Bailey don’t come by every day. It was a treat to have known him on and off, hot and cold, for nearly thirty years. Please login to post comment