Stuart Anderson’s Best-Kept Secret

Treated already with some reverence by the winemaking community of the Macedon Ranges, the names Bindi and Mount Gisborne are hardly household words to even the most dedicated followers of Victorian wine. That’s about to change. Bindi and Mount Gisborne will become two of the most important small vineyards in Victoria. Remember, you read it here first.

Winemaker’s log, winedate December 1990. The Andersons have moved from their longtime home base of Bendigo to retire to the tranquillity of an attractive rural block near New Gisborne. Wine, says Stuart Anderson, legendary winemaker and founder of Balgownie, was the furthest thing from his mind. ‘I’d a gutful of wine and wine politics’, he says. ‘I though I’d sneak in quietly and hibernate.’

Three days later the phone rang. It was a local grape grower, David Ell, who wanted some help. ‘How the hell did he get wind of this old git?’ Anderson still wonders, although he acknowledges it was that phone call which initiated some of the most rewarding winemaking challenges of his career.

Bill Dhillon was a student at Ballarat Grammar School when he came across its head of physics and mathematics, the late Kostas Rind, who had firstly fled advancing Germans and then Russians before escaping with wife and daughter to Australia. Kostas had been integral to the development of the Geiger Counter and was, without question, the most brilliant human being anyone who ever met him would ever meet.

Equipped with a palate like Picasso and a photographic memory which made him absolutely lethal in guessing games, Kostas adored good wine. Bill Dhillon has Kostas to thank for the first wine he ever tasted and for becoming a wine enthusiast himself. Kostas handed to Bill many of his philosophies and Bill says its was perfectly natural to dedicate his own wine to Kostas Rind, whose portrait features prominently on the Bindi label.

‘People like him don’t get the recognition they deserve. Kostas wasn’t a publicity seeker, but affected a lot of people who are grateful for what he did for them’, says Bill Dhillon. Having grown up next door to Kostas myself, I think I can say he would regard his recognition on the Bindi label with a mixture of embarrassment, disbelief and not inconsiderable pride.

Bill Dhillon and his son, Michael, planted the bulk of Bindi’s 11 acres in 1988, half to each of chardonnay and pinot noir. The choice was inspired by the late and popular Victorian viticulturist, Murray Clayton, who realised that the sparkling varieties provide a second option in cooler seasons. Planting was completed by 1992, after space had been found for 300 nebbiolo vines. The Dhillons will add to their vineyard once the new Burgundian pinot noir clones of 114 and 115 become available.

Bindi proves just how much of an advantage it is to have a near-perfect vineyard site. Although the Macedon climate is cool and the region clearly marginal for viticulture, Bindi is planted on a heat trap-like site which intercepts sunshine from the earliest daylight hours. Its soils are grey loam over siltstone, with a high alluvial content.

Bindi’s spotless vineyard is a tribute to the constant attention of its custodian. Shoots are vertically trained, leaves are thinned and plucked to expose fruit during ripening and it sure looks like the vines talk back to Bill when Bill talks to them. ‘But what I do is no different to what most people do’, he says.

‘Already I’m working longer hours than I’ve ever done, but I’ve never been happier. You have to devote your life to doing it right. It does take a lot of time’, says Bill, who owned and managed the Gisborne squash court complex until Bindi became his major priority.

‘We have room for the vineyard to become quite large’, says Bill, ‘but not in my lifetime.’ Something of a philosopher, Bill, born in northern India, tends to think wiser than his years. ‘If someone wants to achieve quality, it’s just a matter of following the rules that are set down. There’s no exceptional or special thing – it’s just that we put in a lot of effort. We’re never going to be commercial – so it has to be quality.’

Quality it is. A recent tasting of every Bindi wine made from the 1991 vintage reveals an accumulation of richness and fruit-driven complexity towards classic international styles with both chardonnay and pinot noir. By 1994, each are clearly of gold medal quality and reflect a pedigree with a Burgundian flavour.

Stuart Anderson is due much of the credit. He makes Bindi’s pinot noir at Mount Gisborne’s winery, while its chardonnay is made by John Ellis – both with an ever-increasing degree of participation by the Dhillon jnr, Michael.

By the time Michael Dhillon left his accounting degree behind, he had already had a fair taste of back-breaking work in the Bindi vineyard, although he hadn’t imagined working full-time in wine. This he began to do for Paul de Burgh-Day at Tullamarine Airport, where Michael became acutely interested in premium Australian and international wines and had the opportunity to develop an ability with them. Stuart Anderson has taken Michael Dhillon under his wing in a similar fashion that Kostas Rind did for his father.

Michael Dhillon is learning his winemaking without going to Roseworthy or Wagga. Instead, while not working vintage at Bindi, he’s travelling the world, tasting and helping to make wine. He’s also worked two vintages for John Wade, who in addition to his own Howard Park label, makes wine for about sixteen others in Western Australia.

The first Bindi wines to be released commercially will be the 1995s; to be introduced towards the end of 1996. The occasional bottle from the 1994 vintage will doubtless find its way into segments of the trade.

You won’t have to wait nearly as long for the first Mount Gisborne wines, for David and Mary Ell are shortly to release their 1993 chardonnay and pinot noir, both made by Stuart Anderson. As with Bindi, the 1994 vintage which will follow them is exceptional.

The Ells planted their six-acres of chardonnay and pinot noir in 1987 on a high, exposed plateau of black loamy soils over fractured granite. Canadian-born David Ell’s father was a hobby winemaker with a German background who used fruit from British Columbia. There was always wine around the family table. Today the Ells are delighted to be a part of the excuse which keep Stuart Anderson’s winemaking hand in. ‘It’s a symbiotic relationship for us all’, he says. ‘Stuart said he was too old to keep making wine in a tin shed, but he seems to like it here.’

Like Bindi, Mount Gisborne’s quality has much to do with the vineyard’s European-like ability to influence fruit expression and intensity, enhanced by the low cropping levels demanded by the proprietors and enforced by the growing conditions. Both properties crop around 2.5 tonnes per acre, which is well within the limits imposed by top-quality appellations in Burgundy.

Stuart Anderson, who began making pinot noir on a micro scale at Balgownie in the mid 1970s, says the association with both vineyards gives him an enormous buzz. Revitalised and brimming with enthusiasm, he’s now more involved with pinot noir than ever before. He and his wife Shirley have just departed for two months of winemaking in Burgundy, a pilgrimage they have made every year since the mid 1980s. He has enormous expectations for the wines of both properties.

The synergy between Bindi and Mount Gisborne is quite unusual. It’s not just that both vineyards use the Mount Gisborne winery for their pinot noirs, which are made by the same maker. Or that one vineyard is exposed to the elements while the other is more sheltered. The phenomenon is more stylistic.

While the Mount Gisborne wines have a tighter, racier edge which encourages Stuart Anderson to think of them in terms of Cotes de Beaune the southern half of the Burgundian wine district, the Bindi wines are fuller and fleshier, more akin to the Cotes de Nuits the northern half of Burgundy. And they’re only 2 km apart. Both, says Anderson, have austerity, leanness and restraint while young. ‘They’re not too blousy. I look for a little subtlety; wines that you think about a little’, he says. ‘They will all age well; they all have huge potential for development.’

Gisborne is hardly a fashionable name in Australian wine, but it’s quite possible that Bindi and Mount Gisborne will push our potential with pinot noir and chardonnay to new limits. That should put another smile on Stuart Anderson’s face. And on Kostas Rind’s. Please login to post comment