Oatleys et al celebrate 25 years of Rosemount

If, in late 1998, there’s a satisfied air about the Oatley family, you have to admit they deserve it. The first of the Oatleys’ 25 vintages took place in 1974 when ably assisted by their first winemaker, John Ellis, Rosemount Estate crushed its first commercial, but limited quantities of Hermitage shiraz and Rhine Riesling. Next year Rosemount added Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Shiraz and Traminer to its production and the brand, you might say, has hardly looked back since.

It’s always been a little difficult to pin down exactly what Rosemount is all about. Its first multiple award-winning wines were Rhine Riesling and Traminer, made from Hunter Valley fruit. Following only a few short years behind Tyrrells at the head of the chardonnay juggernaut, Rosemount made its first chardonnay in 1979. Neville Wran was making cabinet decisions by it just a few years later. Nor did Rosemount miss the boat with sauvignon blanc, making hugely successful wooded Fume Blanc and unwooded variants which helped establish the brand in several overseas markets.

A double gold medal at Bristol for the 1980 Show Chardonnay cemented Rosemount Estate’s name as a white wine brand to be respected and a maker of some of Australia’s most distinctive and individual expressions of this, the world’s most demanded variety. Philip Shaw left Lindemans to head its winemaking team before the 1982 vintage and his first Show Chardonnay was 100 from a large vineyard by the standards of the time called Roxburgh. Rosemount then stepped on the gas as Shaw made the first Roxburgh Chardonnay a year later, creating a lineage of flagship chardonnay wines whose richness and creaminess have thoroughly stretched the limits of Australian chardonnay winemaking and comprehension.

Some of Rosemount’s winemaking highlights have been a little more ephemeral. In 1982 Shaw made a remarkable Trockenbeerenauslese from Hunter Valley riesling not to be confused with semillon, a wine which despite its incredible sweetness and concentration still looks as wonderfully balanced and refined today as when it first shocked the Australian wine media and trade in the early 1980s.

One of the more unsung of the leading makers of Coonawarra red wine, Rosemount was one of the first wineries to recognise the particular qualities of Coonawarra merlot. Although most of the vines have since been grafted to cabernet sauvignon, the merlot from Rosemount’s vineyard to the immediate north of Penola was responsible for some truly great wines through the 1980s, especially from 1984, 1986 and 1988, actually sold for a time under two competing labels: Show Reserve and Kirri Billi. The stunning Show Reserve 1990 Merlot was the last to be sold in Australia under this label.

The 1990s have seen the Oatleys make the necessary moves for Rosemount to become a truly national wine maker. While its heart and soul will never leave its site on the Goulburn River floodplain at Rosemount Road, Denman, where an entirely new winery is presently being completed, the company’s vineyard assets of almost 4,000 acres reflect a mature approach to the matching of variety with region.

The Upper Hunter remains a major source of Rosemount’s premier chardonnay and semillon, while the cooler volcanic slopes of Mount Canobolas near Orange are yielding flinty, refined chardonnay, some rather leafy cabernet sauvignon and very promising cabernet franc. Of all its developments in NSW, I’m most impressed by what I’m seeing from Rosemount’s efforts in Mudgee, whose ability to consistently make top grade as a wine area has long been regarded with scepticism. But more of that later.

Firmly entrenched in South Australia, Rosemount is now building on its Coonawarra assets with a new red wine vineyard, but has most closely linked its fate with McLaren Vale and its shiraz. Sourced from a number of old vine vineyards, the premium brand of Balmoral is unquestionably one of Australia’s leading shirazes and I’m certain we have yet to see the best of it. Much of the material for the hugely successful Diamond Label reds now comes from Langhorne Creek, while the Adelaide Hills has become an important source of Rosemount’s cool-climate sauvignon blanc and chardonnay.

The amazing thing about Rosemount Estate is that it means so many different things to different people. Should it be judged by its premier wines, the Roxburgh Chardonnay, Balmoral Shiraz, Mountain Blue, or its incredibly consistent Show Reserve series? It may strike you as unusual that the yardsticks applied to this question by Philip Shaw and the Oatley family are actually the Diamond Series labels, especially the Chardonnay and Shiraz, plus its very affordable early-drinking reds like the Shiraz Cabernet and Shiraz Grenache. There is a logic to this attitude: the wines are both accessible and very, very drinkable. This is one wine company not about to take its eye off the ball. Please login to post comment