Idyll Vineyards

Daryl and Nini Sefton are mentioned in the third edition of Sam Benwell’s famous work, `IJourney to Wine in Victoria`F. Benwell published his first edition in 1960, which was described as a `requiem’ to Victorian wine, clearly written with a tear in the man’s eye, as he composed his farewell to the industry that became his life. Fortunately, as Benwell later emphatically agreed, he was wrong.

As the second and third editions appeared – the second in 1976, the third in 1978 – Benwell found difficulty keeping abreast of his task. More dots appeared on the map, as Victorian vineyards began their rebirth. Where they were planted in clusters they became wine regions. Benwell wrote that “it is clear, to this writer, that no book can keep up with the continuing intention of Victoria to spawn vineyards”. I’ll keep that in mind…

The Seftons missed the first edition by six years – they planted the Idyll vineyard in 1966 to herald the rebirth of the once-famous Geelong wine area, but appear to the end of Benwell’s second and third editions in a chapter entitled `New Wines from Old Vignobles’.

Seventy years before, the slopes around the now deserted Moorabool railway station, just outside Geelong, were covered in vineyards. Phylloxera was responsible for their decline, and the Seftons have played a significant part in their revival.

There are now twenty members of the Geelong District Winegrowers Association, of which Daryl is President, Nini Secretary. When they established it there were just three members, all of whom had to attend to make a quorum!

Nini Sefton, who makes a lively and devoted front-of-house for the Idyll Vineyard and the region itself, says that she and ex-veterinarian husband Daryl were lucky to have travelled widely, and wanted to settle down and make wine like Bordeaux. They chose Geelong for its proven suitability for winegrowing, and for the fact that Daryl’s great-grandparents, Jacob and Rosina Just, were members of the Swiss community responsible for Geelong’s position as Victoria’s greatest vignoble until phylloxera ended all their dreams.

Anyone who visits Idyll will immediately see why they chose that particular site. Soft and exquisitely attractive in all but the hardest seasons, the vineyard location is quite unique. It’s clearly responsible for the company’s name. “Visitors ask `Why Idyll?’ Then they spend few hours here and agree that we couldn’t have called it anything else. There’s so much peace and tranquility”, explains Nini Sefton.

“We’re in a priviledged position – in Zone 1 classification the coolest category of the University of California’s climatic classification, we’re over limestone, and there’s a major water mass nearby. We’ve concentrated on classic varieties and styles”.

“Our philosophy has always been to make a white, a pink and a red, and to do it the best we can”, continues Nini. “In our little way have always been front-runners, for we developed a rose in an era when people said it couldn’t sell – but it sells out each year. We were the first to make a bone-dry traminer in Victoria, and we recognised that to make a complete `claret’ style we needed to blend another variety with cabernet sauvignon”.

When planting the vineyard, the Seftons believed at the time that the best choice for a variety to fill out the middle palate of cabernet sauvignon was shiraz. Mind you, there weren’t many alternatives around Australia at the time. If you said `merlot’ to most people, they’d think you insulted them. “But in retrospect we would probably choose shiraz again, for our experience with it in this area has been all good. It’s a good bearer and good cropper, and becomes more elegant the further south you travel. We’ve proved that with the rose – it’s very elegant and delicate”.

Idyll releases four wines – a rose Idyll Blush, a Cabernet-Shiraz blend and two gewurztraminers, one wood-matured, the other without. The rose is generous, fruity and dry, with a soft middle palate, attractive raspberry-like fruit, and a clean finish. I prefer the wood-aged gewurztraminer for its freshness and complexity, indeed enhanced by the wood treatment. Current releases are the 1986 wines, of which the unwooded wine is quite broad and perhaps a little flat in comparison to the other.

The red blend is a success – a full, generous and well-structured wine of depth and flavour. The 1985 is a wine to cellar, and has a life expectancy of at least fifteen years.

Idyll has some chardonnay planted, but it will be some time before it becomes available in any quantity.

The Geelong area is like the Yarra Valley was only a few years ago. There are several very small growers, of just two hectares or so, but bigger vineyards are coming along. Browns at Scotchmans Hill, who have forty windy acres under vine, and Coghills at Drysdale are beginning to see some results. The region is concentrating on table wines, which Nini says that all good farmers should be able to make well there. “It doesn’t matter what they grow – this area is capable of bridging a great variety of grapes”.

Geelong is the second city of Victoria, but Nini thinks it’s just too close to Melbourne. It is developing a tourist industry, of which the wineries are becoming an integral part, but people tend to look farther afield for their recreation. That hasn’t prevented the cellar-door from becoming by far their major source of income, representing around half. They find that people keep coming back, and that mixed dozens are a popular answer for those unable to make up their minds on location.

Idyll has pioneered wine exports, and it has accounted for a quarter of their sales for some years now. The remainder is sold through the local trade.

What will happen to Idyll in the future is anyone’s guess. It would take an offer of extraordinary dimensions to tempt the Seftons to move on, but they’re not interested. “You’re either motivated by the dollar or not”, says Nini, and we’re not”. They have no family, and believe in any case that children are no certain guarantee for continuity. The site is however tailor-made for all sorts of development, and given a few million dollars could do anything. See for yourself sometime. Please login to post comment