Oliver finally discovers Oliver’s Taranga

Some families move more slowly than others. Five generations after establishing themselves just north of McLaren Vale in 1841, the Olivers no relation to this writer are finally gaining popular acclaim for the grapes they grow. Why? One of the family’s sixth generation has turned out to be rather a committed and talented wine maker.

With around 250 acres of prime McLaren Vale vineyard at their disposal in addition to other farming pursuits, the Olivers have traditionally been grape growers who have sold fruit to a number of different winemakers. Not just any winemaker, mind. The fruit from their best vineyard site, named HJ after the man who planted it on his return from the second World War, Herbert John Bert Oliver, regularly finds its way into two of Australia’s benchmark shirazes, Penfolds’ Grange and Hardy’s Eileen Hardy Shiraz.

It was Corrina Rayment, one of the new generation of Olivers, who began the family’s shift towards wine production, when as a winemaking student in 1994 she persuaded her grandfather Bert and uncle Don to part with some fruit so she could make a little red for ‘personal consumption’ and to swap with friends. With the help of winemaking legend Pam Dunsford, Rayment was on her way.

After a series of deliberately small and low-key vintages up to 1998, Rayment went into commercial production in 1999. She was still part of Penfolds’ winemaking graduate program, and continued to juggle other winemaking roles and contracts with Southcorp and later, Foster’s until the 2006 vintage. The first vintage to benefit from 100 of her attentions was 2007, which she made at Haselgrove’s where she has her own small open fermenters and at the Boar’s Rock winery in McLaren Vale.

Bottled under the brand of Oliver’s Taranga a corruption of the aboriginal word Tarangk, meaning ‘the middle’ with a label depicting an old fruit box that she designed herself, Corrina Rayment made a just single wine, a Shiraz, until 2000. That year she introduced the first commercial vintage of her ‘Corrina’s’ blend of cofermented shiraz and cabernet sauvignon. As happened with so many small-scale South Australian wineries in around the turn of last century, it was an American, Robert Parker, who first discovered Oliver’s Taranga, rating the Shirazes from 1996, 1997 and 1998 very highly and singling out the 1998 vintage for special praise.

Since I and virtually every other Australian wine critic had never heard of the label – the first chance I actually had to taste these wines was in 2003 while writing for another American, Steve Tanzer – I must admit that I had expected their style to conform to what has since become Parker’s consistent sweet spot of high alcoholic strength, overt oak, low acidity, massively concentrated and overcooked, raisined fruit.

A recent tasting showed just how unbelievably wrong I was. Steadfastly sticking to her style guns, Rayment has shunned the trend for over-cooked and ultra-ripened McLaren Vale shiraz, fashioning an extremely impressive young legacy of wines of great natural balance and longevity. While she’s no longer a darling of the Parker set, since her wines now score well below those at the extreme end of the style envelope, she is as committed as ever to leaving a legacy of refined, balanced and long-living red wines.

Here’s what she says about her winemaking attitude: ‘I want someone, some day, to be glad that I started making wines with longevity in mind. I work on the assumption that the fruit is always going to be there; rather than forcing it. I like the early low-alcohol reds from makers like Penfolds, Buring and Wynns. I want people to be able to look back on our wines like they do the old Penfolds reds and see where they come from and where they are today. It’s all about gaining credibility from consistency and constant improvement, and having fine older wines to look at. I know it’s not trendy, but I’m aiming towards a greater good.’

Today around ten percent of the family’s fruit production goes to the Oliver’s Taranga label, including around half of the crop from the HJ vineyard. Since 2000, Rayment has used this fruit for her HJ Reserve Shiraz, which has quickly established itself as one of the most affordable of Australia’s top-flight shiraz benchmarks. Its price of just over $40 per bottle totally under-sells its remarkable quality, longevity and distinctive, individual style. Similarly, the Shiraz and Corrina’s blend represent unbeatable value at around $28.

I was late on the mark in discovering this McLaren Vale label. Don’t you make the same mistake! Please login to post comment