Padthaway
If ever there was an Australian wine area that needs a good swift dose of PR, Padthaway is it. I’ll bet most wine drinkers are still totally oblivious that it is a very large South Australian wine region planted to a profound acreage of premium grape varieties. It’s just over an hour’s drive north of Coonawarra in the state’s southeast, but I wouldn’t be rushing to take the next bus there. To be frank, other than to kick around the sumptuous guesthouse at Padthaway Estate, there’s not a great deal to do there.
It’s perfectly likely that you’ve drunk much more Padthaway wine than you realise. For the last twenty-plus years fruit from this area has been used to beef up the flavour and intensity of dozens of the better-known red and white multi-regional blends, plus what I would suggest is a huge number of wines that quite legally deploy less than 15 of Padthaway material without making mention on their labels.
It’s still quite a rarity to see the name of Padthaway on a wine label. Lindemans was the first company to produce an entire range of wines exclusively from Padthaway grapes and packaged as such, although Hardys and Seppelt both released red wines under various ‘Keppoch’ labels in the 1970s. South of the Padthaway township, but clearly part of the same wine region, Keppoch was used as an alternative regional name by several winemakers until the 1980s.
These days Lindemans still produces its Padthaway range, while Padthaway Estate continues to turn out very competent wine under its own label. Brown’s of Padthaway is a local brand made by a contract maker. Tatachilla, Orlando and Hardys each release a couple of table wines under the region’s name. BRL Hardy has easily invested the most money into Padthaway with the development of its massive, high tech Stonehaven winery, whose premium ‘Limited Release’ wines are made from local fruit.
Commissioned in 1998, Stonehaven heralded the first time a substantial portion of Padthaway’s huge production would actually be made into wine within the region itself. It also serves as a regional winery for BRL’s substantial Limestone Coast plantings, also found at Wrattonbully, the Elgin Valley and Coonawarra, while the company also has contracts with nineteen growers in the various areas.
Sadly, Padthaway’s development in the early 1970s showed little respect for the natural resource it represented. Largely developed by big companies like Seppelt, Lindemans, Hardy’s, Wynns and Orlando, its viticultural practices were solely designed to maximize cropping levels. Most of the production went into wine casks and also into the very cheapest wines these companies put into bottles. Quality was not even an issue. Although some of the vineyards had access to drip irrigation by 1980, most were watered either by using giant winches that could soak a football oval in minutes like a burst fire hydrant or else with the most primitive, wasteful and damaging technique of all – flooding. Of course the inevitable happened, as the water table rose and the quality of the area’s sub-artesian water diminished. The increasing salinity has now stabilised to an extent, but there’s no room for any complacency.
Finally, sometime around the late 1980s, it dawned on Padthaway’s viticulturists that by dramatically reducing yields from at least 20 to 12 tonnes per hectare and below, the region actually could make excellent table wine. BRL Hardy cut its cropping and watering levels with the result that sites which had previously just made cask-standard red actually contributed to the premier red wine in its stable, the Eileen Hardy Shiraz.
Similarly, Orlando produced its first Lawsons Shiraz in 1986. Named after Robert Lawson, an early pioneer of the region, Lawson’s comes from a single and comparatively minuscule 2.8 ha vineyard planted in 1968 for decorative purposes! Unlike much of Padthaway’s soil, some of which bears an uncanny resemblance to Coonawarra’s best, its are poor, but deep and sandy. They help to stress the vines, but incredibly enough, they still crop what initially appears to be an alarmingly high 5-6 tonnes per acre.
Lawson’s is an assertive, concentrated red wine whose vineyard consistently produces minty and briary fruit flavours, sometimes with a hint of eucalypt. Better vintages like 1991, 1994, 1996 and 1998 produce piercingly intense flavours of small ripe berry fruits which, with their balance and structure, enable them to cellar for many years.
Look out for wine from Padthaway. I have a feeling it’s going to be more sought after by the industry, since while there’s no shortage of wine around these days, there’s certainly no over-supply of good fruit or wine, especially from mature vines around thirty years of age.
Breakaway:
The Ten Best Padthaway wines:
Orlando Lawson’s Shiraz
Stonehaven Limited Release Cabernet Sauvignon
Stonehaven Limited Release Shiraz
Lindemans Padthaway Cabernet Merlot
Padthaway Estate Cabernet Sauvignon
Tatachilla Padthaway Cabernet Sauvignon
Orlando’s St Hilary Chardonnay
Lindemans Reserve Padthaway Chardonnay
Lindemans Padthaway Chardonnay
Hardys Siegersdorf Riesling
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