A surprise

S

Saina Nieminen

Saina Nieminen
Brokenwood Graveyard Vineyard Shiraz 2004 Hunter Valley; 12,5% abv; 55

It is strange to see such a moderate alcohol level in an Aussie Shiraz. The style is, as expected from the lower abv, a more elegant style of Shiraz, where the emphasis is on drinkability rather than massive fruitiness.

If I could take away the overt oak aromas, I think I would find this wine awesome! The fruit seems fully ripe rather than over ripe as sadly seems to be the norm in the sample of Aussies that I have had. It has healthy tannins and a general sense of liveliness. It is a refreshing wine, one that begs me to take a bite to eat, to take another sip and to take a closer look at the wine. The other Aussies available to me reveal all their charms ... sorry, vulgar charmlessnesses ... immediately, whereas this wine makes me want to explore further. It has some finesse to it, though I do admit I find the oak a bit heavyhanded. But I am sure that time will correct it. I would love to see how this is in a decade! So the Aussies do make wine? Why then is only "wine" imported here? (Rhetorical question, no need to answer it.)
 
Their Hunter Valley Semillon is only 10.5! Imagine. (It's not bad, either, though not exceptional. I wonder if it would do that burnt toast thing if I left it around for 15 years - scary to try with the screwcap.)
 
Cool climate. Interesting wines. I had a buddy who did a stage there.

If I owned some I would drink them more often.
 
originally posted by Steven Spielmann:
Their Hunter Valley Semillon is only 10.5! Imagine. (It's not bad, either, though not exceptional. I wonder if it would do that burnt toast thing if I left it around for 15 years - scary to try with the screwcap.)
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Let me know if you age any and find out for yourself. Don't plan on leaving Brokenwoods in a cellar any time - I find their Semillon very drinkable young but without the same acid spine that a lot of other Hunter Semillons have.

As for Graveyard - it's a big wine that needs a lot of time. While I haven't had older ones, I've heard amazing things about them.
 
Steven, isn't that a pretty normal abv for Hunter Valley Semillon? I have loved the few of that example that I have managed to find.

Salil: "it's a big wine that needs a lot of time."

Well, my point was that this wasn't a big wine; it was perfectly proportioned. But still in need of age. From remarks elsewhere I understood that in other vintages it is a bigger style, but this '04 was a wine of finesse, not bigness. I'd be interested to know what the alcohol levels in highly appreciated Graveyards, like the '91 or '00, are. Are they much higher than in this '04?
 
"Big" probably wasn't the right word to use. What I meant is that while Graveyard does have a lot of finesse and great balance, it's normally a fairly intense, massively structured, brooding wine (almost Hunter equivalent to Wendouree if you will) that really needs time to calm down and develop.

The alcohol normally tends to be in the 12-14% range - I've seen a few bottles around 13.6/13.7 at times, but Brokenwood doesn't normally go beyond that.

Cheers,
Salil [wishing Greenock Creek would take a lesson or two from that. 18% Grenache. Eww.]
 
Just a note: the winemaking technique for 100% of Hunter Valley smillons includes heavy acidification with tartaric acid. The subtropical, humid climate of the Hunter, with very warm nights throughout the austral summer and constant rains, destroys the grape's acidity and keeps the alcohol level very low. Very peculiar wines. The conditions also affect the (somewhat less aggressively acidified) shiraz, of course.
 
I've had some that were up around 13%, but in general they do tend to be somewhat lower alcohol I suppose, with the summer clouds and all.
 
I bought up some bottles of Lindemans Hunter River semillon reserve Bin 8650 in 1995-vinatge years ago on sale. I think I have 4-5 bottles left. (Almost) unoaked and only 11,5% alc. It has been a couple of years since I last had it, but it is a nice drink that is aging well.
 
originally posted by VS:
Just a note: the winemaking technique for 100% of Hunter Valley smillons includes heavy acidification with tartaric acid. The subtropical, humid climate of the Hunter, with very warm nights throughout the austral summer and constant rains, destroys the grape's acidity and keeps the alcohol level very low. Very peculiar wines. The conditions also affect the (somewhat less aggressively acidified) shiraz, of course.
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I was told that the high humidity and cloud cover contributed to low alcohol, but didn't know about the acidification. Interesting!
 
originally posted by VS:
Just a note: the winemaking technique for 100% of Hunter Valley smillons includes heavy acidification with tartaric acid. The subtropical, humid climate of the Hunter, with very warm nights throughout the austral summer and constant rains, destroys the grape's acidity and keeps the alcohol level very low. Very peculiar wines. The conditions also affect the (somewhat less aggressively acidified) shiraz, of course.
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I've repeatedly asked at Tyrrell's tastings about acidification, but been assured that they don't add acid; this means the Vat 1, Belford (Vat18) and Stevens (Vat4) semillons, at least. The alcohol levels (only reaching 12% in the hottest years, otherwise normally in the 10-11.5% range) come from early picking, which in turn has been adopted to beat the summer rains. Usually the semillons are picked before the end of January.

The enemy of Hunter semillon in bottle has always been random oxidation; largely cork related. All the major producers now bottle under screwcap. I have no hesitation in predicting steady, reliable aging in accordance with vintage conditions; a 2004 Mount Pleasant Elizabeth (a A$13 wine) opened last week was in fact slightly more aged than I might have expected (except that i think the quality of Elizabeth is generally not what it was 10 years ago).

Here's a nightmare recipe for those who despair at wines recommended by the Advocate: a 2006 Shiraz, cropped at less an a tonne per acre from 125yo vines, aged in new French oak, 250 cases made. Sounds ghastly, right? Well, it's a Tyrrell's 4 Acre Shiraz, from their oldest block of vines. The new French oak was a single large barrel of 2250 litres, and the resulting wine is described as light-medium bodied, and weighs in at a thundering 12.6% alcohol. Under screwcap. I'll post a TN in 15 years when I open a bottle...

cheers,
Graeme
 
Surprised at the "100%" figure, I contacted four semillon producers in the Hunter. Two replied that acidification is rarely if ever employed for their semillons, and one replied "not in my memory." One hasn't answered yet.

They said more, but I don't want to start a fight when I'm just the conduit. However, I thought it was worth reporting what the producers claim.
 
I visited the Hunter with James Halliday as my guide - a rare privilege - last April, so please believe me (and James, of course - he was the one showing us every nook, cranny and secret) and not the wineries' PR machines, guys.
 
originally posted by VS:
I visited the Hunter with James Halliday as my guide - a rare privilege - last April, so please believe me (and James, of course - he was the one showing us every nook, cranny and secret) and not the wineries' PR machines, guys.
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Hmmm. Well, it's true Halliday was one of the founders of Brokenwood, and intimately involved with wine in the Hunter. But he moved to the Yarra twenty years ago, and I'm not sure that he'd really know what Tyrrell's, for instance, are doing with their semillons these days.
There must be over a hundred wineries in the Hunter these days - 100% is a big call, even if you are James Halliday.
cheers,
Graeme
 
Actually, I contacted winemakers. Who are, no question, part of the vast winemaking PR conspiracy machine, but still.

As Graeme notes, 100% is indeed a very heady proposition. I'm not personally acquainted with any instance of 100%-ism anywhere else in the winemaking world (varietal composition, techniques, and so forth...whether legally-mandated or not), but you've got far vaster experience than me, and I've neither made semillon in the Hunter Valley nor monitored every single one of the winemakers who do as they exercise their craft, so I don't have any personal stake in this game. But -- and I'm worried you're going to take this badly, so I apologize pre-emptively, because I don't mean it to be taken so -- I'm a little uncomfortable calling the winemakers liars based on James Halliday's second-hand word. And I say that respecting both of you.

Anyway, since as noted I don't have the winemakers on secret camera adding or not adding tartaric acid, I'm going to bow out of this nano-controversy, unless there's some highly compelling bit of evidence that arrives on my doorstep. Which I don't expect.
 
I'll be happy to retract the 100% figure. Let's make it 95%. But, in my limited experience - i.e., the International Wine Academy's tastings of smillon wines in the Hunter, I'll have to ratify the figure: 100% of the smillons we tasted were acidified. And it's only logical.

The Hunter Valley would not be considered a viticultural region anywhere else in the world, except maybe in those few tropical and subtropical areas where against all odds something resembling wine is made - such as Cuba or northern Brazil. Nowhere else in the world is there almost nil rainfall in the winter, then constant rainfall during the growing season and harvest - plus amazingly high nighttime temperatures in summer, around 25 C. That's a surefire recipe for low alcohol, nil acidity (not to mention widespread rot and loss of production, as was the case in 2008). So the Hunter recipe - acidification, then a long wait for the bottled wine to develop its unique style, was developed.

("James Halliday's second-hand word" is an interesting description of the information given by Australia's leading wine authority, and not just by a wine producer in distant Yarra...)

The levels of acification throughout Australian winemaking, BTW, remain mind-boggling in European terms - even in Spanish terms!
 
Oh, dear. See, this is why I wanted to bow out. I'm not disparaging Halliday. However...

More than a few Hunter wineries openly tout "natural acidity" as the feature of their semillons. Thus, the very existence of this disagreement means one of three things: the wineries in question are lying, Halliday (or, I guess, you, though it seems unlikely) is lying, or someone is misinformed. All three possibilities make me twitchy and uncomfortable, but the last least so as it's the most likely, and since (I repeat) I most certainly don't know based on my own experience, and can't psychically inhabit the winemakers' heads, I really have no dog in this fight, other than a fundamental objection to "100%" when applied to any group of winemakers, without very strong evidence to the contrary.

I do know and/or strongly suspect the following, however:

1) Wineries lie; rather a lot in some cases. But if they're inclined to do so, there's no reason to believe those lies are restricted to email inquiries from the States from fifteenth-tier wine writers.

2) I'm as yet unaware of a wine writer whose work I've subjected to on-the-ground testing that hasn't occasionally been in error. Sometimes egregiously so, sometimes not. That includes me, which is aggravating as hell. (If it makes you feel more at ease, I've never done this to you, so for all I know you've never, ever made an error. That's not passive-aggressive snark, by the way. I honestly don't know if you have or haven't made an error.)

3) Halliday has probably not monitored every Hunter winery's every harvest for several decades; obviously, such a thing isn't even possible without an extensive network of secret cameras. Which is why I don't feel all that terrible about not, um, 100% crediting his word on this. He may very well be right. Or he may not. But what we have here is "Victor said James said winemakers (who are not James) all acidify," which I will not apologize for characterizing as (at least) second-hand, whether the source is James Halliday, the Pope, God, Cthulhu, Nathan Vandergrift, or Robert M. Parker, Jr. I don't discredit the source, at all. I don't know who I'd credit more. But "100%" makes my antennae quiver, no matter what the context.
 
Then why don't you stick to your previous word about quitting this "nano-controversy" and save yourself all the trepidation, Thor?

By the way, I insist: I have dropped my 100% claim, and propose a prudent 95% as the alternative.

If it serves to assuage your doubts, everything I've written here is more amply developed in the International Wine Academy's official report on its visit to Australia, which since last December appears on its web site (http://www.academievin.com/index.php3). I should know - I wrote it. The Academy has received no rebuttals from the Hunter Valley that I know of.
 
Victor - thanks for the link. Let me get the niggling question out of the way here (and offend people first) - maybe there's been no rebuttal as Hunter hicks don't read French?

Okay, more seriously, if I understood the article correctly, your claim is largely based on Halliday's explanation, which in turn is based on logical reasoning (Hunter sub-climate = low acidity) and also draws on his authority/experience. We have Hunter winemakers (assuming Thor is not lying) who claim they do not acidify. They might fall within the 5%, but that seems unlikely.

Thor, could you send the article in question to the winemakers you'd contacted? Only a few paragraphs need to be translated, I think.
 
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