Emerging from the Shadows

Of course you’re familiar with the big names, the makers of classic wines that everybody seems to want. Trouble is, despite their prices, they sell out almost immediately. So which are the next labels to look out for? Who will be the next Cullen, the next Bannockburn or the next Henschke?

Here’s a brief look at three wineries, with whose presently unsung names and first-rate wines you might well be advised to become rather familiar.

Classical Notes from Mount Gisborne

Mount Gisborne is a small property in the exposed southern foothills of the Macedon Ranges, Victoria, whose wines are made by Victorian legend Stuart Anderson. In 1986 David and Mary Ell began to plant its gently sloping vineyard of around seven acres which are today equally divided between chardonnay and pinot noir. The youngest vines were planted in 1990. The site has some northern aspects, while Mount Gisborne’s vines are oriented north-south to maximise exposure to sunshine. The Ells regularly augment their basaltic soils with stable manure and straw, generally preferring to avoid herbicides.

‘We’re not organic, but we’re ecologically sensitive’, says David Ell. ‘We work to put organisms back into the soil and the results are good friability and life in the soils. We only use mineral sprays where necessary, never organic.’
Religiously green-pruned when required to keep yields at or below 2.5 tonnes per acre, Mount Gisborne’s concentrated crops deliver intense, accentuated flavours in both chardonnay and pinot noir. Being a small and somewhat marginal vineyard there is substantial variation from season to season, but nothing you wouldn’t appreciate from a small Burgundian domaine. Meantime, Stuart Anderson’s Burgundian experience simply enhances the comparison.

Mount Gisborne’s chardonnay is typically tight and flinty. It demands time for its palate to support a youthful cut of assertive minerally acidity with the richness and fleshiness typically witnessed after around three years on cork. It takes five years or more to reach its best. Anderson deftly restrains the influence of oak, retaining an expression more akin to Chablis than the Cote d’Or, with pure stonefruit and pear flavours. It will be interesting to discover if, like the wines of Giaconda, Mount Gisborne’s chardonnays acquire more mainstream Burgundian weight and power as its vines mature.

The 1995 wine 18.0, drink 2000-2003 is now rich and creamy, revealing floral and butterscotch flavours, a light toastiness and honey. The forthcoming 1997 vintage 18.5, drink 2002-2005 is bright and pure, with translucent flavours of nectarines and apricots, now developing a wonderful tangy viscosity and creaminess on the palate. Recently bottled, the 1998 wine 18.8, drink 2003-2006+ is the vineyard’s best yet, an essay in refinement and purity of clear, citrusy fruit with superbly balanced oak and taut, clean acids.

Their stamp of earthy, musky and brambly flavours, strength and robust, bony backbone marks Mount Gisborne’s pinot noir as a serious pinot, cast with Pommard-like strength in its youth, but able to age with the fragrance and aroma more suggestive of Volnay. Gaining weight and fleshiness, the 1995 wine 18.1, drink 2000-2003+ is reserved, supple and spicy, with rose garden fragrances, while the powerful, brooding, meaty and herbal qualities of the more robust 1996 vintage 17.6, drink 2004-2006 could hardly contrast more profoundly. The 1997 vintage 18.5, drink 2002-2005 is the best yet – a supremely refined, reserved wine of both power and finesse, with an explosive intensity of red cherry fruit.

A Signature Pinot from Ashton Hills

Since 1993 the small Piccadilly Valley-based vineyard of Ashton Hills has created a consistently excellent string of pinot noirs, of which the 1997 vintage is the best yet. Stephen George, who also makes the Galah range of robust Clare Valley reds, has a deft touch with pinot, fashioning a plump, fleshy and very approachable wine built around the clear but wild and almost brambly flavours of low-cropped ripe fruit and fine, tight-knit tannins. It’s now a must-have for serious fans of top Australian pinot.

George is so confident in the 1997 vintage 18.9, drink 2002-2005+ that he’s christened it a ‘Reserve’ wine. From a warm season, it’s musky, floral and exotic, with a long, supple palate of almost minty cherry, plum and beetroot flavours, with wonderful poise and balance. Although 30-40 of the wine was matured in new Francois Freres oak, its influence is not assertive. ‘As with our chardonnay, it’s important for our pinot to be in oak for at least a year, more for controlled oxidation than for any oak pick-up’, he says.

Ashton Hills’ seven acres were planted in 1982, half to white and half to red varieties. Fifteen clones of pinot noir constitute most of the red vines, the remainder being merlot, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc, which appear together in George’s restrained and occasionally leafy ‘Obliqua’ blend. The white varieties are evenly divided between chardonnay and riesling.

Sometimes it’s hard to ripen fully, but George enjoys the challenge that riesling presents in such a cool climate. ‘The vineyard and the fruit I get dictate the style, more so than with any other variety. I try my best to get good grapes and manicure the vines’, but what you pick is what you get. There’s no oak, no malolactic fermentation. A line-up of vintages genuinely reflects the differences between the seasons, from the herbaceous, sauvignon blanc-like 1994 wine to the broader, hot year wine of 1989.

Similarly, although George is able to manipulate it further in the winery, the weight and ripeness of his chardonnay clearly correspond to seasonal variation. A delicate, reserved and Chablis-like style, it can achieve the richness and dimensions of top-rate chardonnay, as the 1993 vintage 18.5, drink 1998-2001+ reveals.

In cooler and wetter seasons Stephen George has resorted to cutting vine canes to prevent further uptake of water into his fruit and to encourage a degree of shrivelling, enabling him to achieve 13 alcohol with the red Bordeaux varieties even in such lesser years. It sounds labour-intensive and it is. ‘I’m a one-man band and I’m flat out’, says George. ‘If I increase my acreage by just one more vine I’d have to employ somebody, and then I’d become a wine marketer sitting behind a desk or on a plane’, he says. Indeed you just can’t make his sort of pinot noir without that sort of approach.

A Profitable Start for Majella

Whatever way you look at it, Majella was always going to make good wine. Brian Prof Lynn’s 55 ha vineyard, two-thirds of which was planted between 1968 and 1974, has long been regarded as one of the best on Coonawarra’s red strip and when Lynn began to have wine made for his own label in 1991 at nearby Brand’s Laira, people began taking notice. The red trio of shiraz, cabernet sauvignon and Lynn’s flagship shiraz cabernet blend, anointed by Prof has as ‘The Malleea’, today offer some of the best drinking and value from this benchmark region. Each of the 1996 releases rates at or just below 18.5.

The vineyard is planted to Lynn’s, favourite varieties, namely shiraz 40 and cabernet sauvignon 55, merlot and riesling making up the balance. The first shiraz made was in 1991, the first cabernet in 1994, while the first ‘The Malleea’ was first made in 1996. Each release is typically plush and creamy, richly flavoured and rather generously proportioned for Coonawarra wine, amply able to soak up as much wood as winemaker Bruce Gregory decides to throw at it.

‘Our winemaking is pretty simple’, says Lynn. ‘We concentrate in the vineyard to develop rich Coonawarra essence, looking for a vineyard-driven, fruit-driven wine. You can never add fruit character. You can leave a wine in oak for ages, add acid, muck around with pH, but the one thing you can’t do is to add fruit.’
Able to select as he pleases from his significant vineyard, Lynn presently allocates around 25 of its production around 200 tonnes towards the Majella brand. He’s looking forward to selling a little more riesling, but has no intention of increasing the number of wines under the Majella label. Having hitherto made wine at Brands, Lynn hopes to have a new winery completed on site for the 1999 harvest. ‘For the first time ever in my life I’m hoping not to have an early vintage’, he jokes. Almost. Please login to post comment