While making our way to a sabbatical stay in New Zealand, Jean and I made a stop in the Hunter Valley of Australia for a bit of R&R coupled with learning more about the wines of the region. Our home base was a B&B in the town of Pokolbin, which is where most of the wineries of interest (ours) are located. The Hunter is Australia's most northerly growing region, which means that the weather is more tropical than elsewhere in Australia. It is also Australia's oldest wine growing region, having started in 1870 with the efforts of Edward Tyrell. Australian wine tourism most closely resembles that of the US, with well-established tasting rooms staffed by winery employees. To us, the Hunter most closely resembles Sonoma in its current state of development, as it has quite new and large facilities but lacks the glitz of Napa and still retains much of its charm. Winery "cellar doors" do not charge tasting fees for the most part and all that we visited serve a dozen or more different wines. One noteworthy feature is that all the wineries we visited had a well-stocked library of earlier vintages, most of which were available for tasting (and usually free of charge).
Our first stop was Tyrell's, the oldest winery in the Hunter (and, by extension, Australia) which began with a land grant in 1858 to Edward Tyrell. Because all the more attractive land had already been taken, he received a plot on the leeward side of the Brokenback Mountains which is where most of the vineyards remain to this day. He was the first person to plant Semillon in the Hunter, under the mistaken impression that it was Riesling (a misconception that persisted until the 1970s). The winery remains in the Tyrell family's possession. We were given a tour of the facilities and saw the wax-lined concrete fermenters still in use for the red wines there. The Hunter Valley vineyards are hand picked apart from the young vines which are machine picked. White wines are cold stabilized and fermented at 10-16° C using cultured yeasts for usually about 2 weeks. Semillons only see stainless steel throughout, whereas Chardonnay does get barrel aging. Reds get a cold soak, are pumped over and kept below 30°C furing fermentation in concrete. 50% of their grapes come from their own vineyards, 40% from vineyards under long-term contract and 10% from the bulk market. Their barrels are mostly 560 gallon, French oak and on a 15-year rotation. Some barriques are used for the Chardonnay, and they are on a 5 year rotation.
The wines we tasted started with a 2011 Lost Block Semillon which is a step up from their Long Flat series and was grassy with some minerality, light and a tad creamy. Clearly made for near term drinking, it was quite appealing if simple. We next got 2006 HVD Semillon which had a whack of sulfur in the nose and, beneath that, a minerally character and more bracing acidity on the palate. We next got a 2011 'Moon Mountain' Chardonnay which sported a stony, apply character overlaid with butterscotch. The oak was too dominant for us but there was good acidic structure and decent fruit. We next got a pour of the 2010 Brookdale Semillon which is next in the pecking order and just below the flagship wine, the Vat 1 Semillon. This wine had more green apple character than the previous Semillons had, and was yet mroe acidic. We finished off the whites with a 2011 Old Winery Vedelho which was a huge surprise for us: flamboyant floral nose, spicy and acidic in a light-bodied package. I haven't had many (if any) table wines made from Verdelho and this was a revelation.
Although it had been our intent to mostly sample Semillon in the Hunter, our tour guide (an assistant winemaker) was quite insistent that we should try a Shiraz, so we swallowed our prejudice and tried the 2009 Brokenback Shiraz, with a nose that was lactic but also with bright berry fruit that put me in mind of a young St. Joseph. On the palate, the wine was well structured, of medium body with plenty of acidity, At this point, I cornered our guide and asked him about the acidity of their wines: did they ever acidulate? He replied that it was rare for them to, though they at times would adjust acidity after MLF in challenging years. His explanation for the acidity and lightness of the Shiraz were the early picking times in the Hunter. At the time of our visit (Jan. 14) they were 4 days away from harvest, which is the equivalent of mid-July in the Northern Hemisphere. Our guide said that the shorter, hotter growing season didn't allow the grapes to ripen as much as they did further south, so they ended up with lighter, more acidic wines. This left me scratching my head as they violated so many closely held beliefs. In the Hunter, they plant on relatively level land, on clay soils, in a non-Mediterranean climate with a ridiculously hot growing season (although the weather was quite temperate while we were there, though it did rain). Yet there is no arguing with the results, and this Shiraz was unlike any other Aussie Shiraz I've had. To back up that point, he next served a 2009 Heathcote Shiraz from South Australia, which showed much more typical eucalyptus, licorice and black fruit, along which greater density and more oak in the finish. We declined a few other reds and made our farewells, though we came away with a heightened appreciation for Hunter Valley Shiraz. Although we weren't offered any Vat 1 Semillon while we were there (three vintages were available to taste, for a fee) I had several glasses of it while in Australia and it lived up to its reputation as perhaps the finest and most ageworthy example of Hunter Valley Semillon.
Still to come: visits to Brokenwood, McGuigan and Mount Pleasant.
Mark Lipton
Our first stop was Tyrell's, the oldest winery in the Hunter (and, by extension, Australia) which began with a land grant in 1858 to Edward Tyrell. Because all the more attractive land had already been taken, he received a plot on the leeward side of the Brokenback Mountains which is where most of the vineyards remain to this day. He was the first person to plant Semillon in the Hunter, under the mistaken impression that it was Riesling (a misconception that persisted until the 1970s). The winery remains in the Tyrell family's possession. We were given a tour of the facilities and saw the wax-lined concrete fermenters still in use for the red wines there. The Hunter Valley vineyards are hand picked apart from the young vines which are machine picked. White wines are cold stabilized and fermented at 10-16° C using cultured yeasts for usually about 2 weeks. Semillons only see stainless steel throughout, whereas Chardonnay does get barrel aging. Reds get a cold soak, are pumped over and kept below 30°C furing fermentation in concrete. 50% of their grapes come from their own vineyards, 40% from vineyards under long-term contract and 10% from the bulk market. Their barrels are mostly 560 gallon, French oak and on a 15-year rotation. Some barriques are used for the Chardonnay, and they are on a 5 year rotation.
The wines we tasted started with a 2011 Lost Block Semillon which is a step up from their Long Flat series and was grassy with some minerality, light and a tad creamy. Clearly made for near term drinking, it was quite appealing if simple. We next got 2006 HVD Semillon which had a whack of sulfur in the nose and, beneath that, a minerally character and more bracing acidity on the palate. We next got a 2011 'Moon Mountain' Chardonnay which sported a stony, apply character overlaid with butterscotch. The oak was too dominant for us but there was good acidic structure and decent fruit. We next got a pour of the 2010 Brookdale Semillon which is next in the pecking order and just below the flagship wine, the Vat 1 Semillon. This wine had more green apple character than the previous Semillons had, and was yet mroe acidic. We finished off the whites with a 2011 Old Winery Vedelho which was a huge surprise for us: flamboyant floral nose, spicy and acidic in a light-bodied package. I haven't had many (if any) table wines made from Verdelho and this was a revelation.
Although it had been our intent to mostly sample Semillon in the Hunter, our tour guide (an assistant winemaker) was quite insistent that we should try a Shiraz, so we swallowed our prejudice and tried the 2009 Brokenback Shiraz, with a nose that was lactic but also with bright berry fruit that put me in mind of a young St. Joseph. On the palate, the wine was well structured, of medium body with plenty of acidity, At this point, I cornered our guide and asked him about the acidity of their wines: did they ever acidulate? He replied that it was rare for them to, though they at times would adjust acidity after MLF in challenging years. His explanation for the acidity and lightness of the Shiraz were the early picking times in the Hunter. At the time of our visit (Jan. 14) they were 4 days away from harvest, which is the equivalent of mid-July in the Northern Hemisphere. Our guide said that the shorter, hotter growing season didn't allow the grapes to ripen as much as they did further south, so they ended up with lighter, more acidic wines. This left me scratching my head as they violated so many closely held beliefs. In the Hunter, they plant on relatively level land, on clay soils, in a non-Mediterranean climate with a ridiculously hot growing season (although the weather was quite temperate while we were there, though it did rain). Yet there is no arguing with the results, and this Shiraz was unlike any other Aussie Shiraz I've had. To back up that point, he next served a 2009 Heathcote Shiraz from South Australia, which showed much more typical eucalyptus, licorice and black fruit, along which greater density and more oak in the finish. We declined a few other reds and made our farewells, though we came away with a heightened appreciation for Hunter Valley Shiraz. Although we weren't offered any Vat 1 Semillon while we were there (three vintages were available to taste, for a fee) I had several glasses of it while in Australia and it lived up to its reputation as perhaps the finest and most ageworthy example of Hunter Valley Semillon.
Still to come: visits to Brokenwood, McGuigan and Mount Pleasant.
Mark Lipton