Fromthe groundup
The quality of Australia’s pinot noir is at an all-time high as an increasing number of producers turn their focus to the vines.
We check in on Australia’s pinot noir and how the producers are working with it.
Flirty, firm and fine. Structured, detailed and elegant. Hedonistic, ethereal and exclusive.
Could there be any more adjectives – ludicrous or apt – to describe a wine? When the discussion centres on pinot noir, that’s just a warm-up. No other wine conjures such reverent, zealous debate with a liberal dose of passion. There are even major celebrations dedicated to this ancient, noble variety, held everywhere from Oregon in the US to the Mornington Peninsula. Then there are the pilgrimages to Burgundy – a rite of passage for any pinot lover trying to decipher the allure (hint: it’s in the vineyard). It borders on vinous idolatry.
Leading Sydney sommelier Amanda Yallop of Quay believes pinot noir is one of the finest varietals because it’s so diverse and hits such a range of moods. “It can appear understated, but there’s a gentle power to it,” she says. While duck and pinot are frequently named perfect partners, vegetarians can also rejoice. “If there are green beans or vegetative notes, pinot works because it can be lighter and have structure, a balanced line and acidity.” As a bonus, Amanda adds that Aussie pinot punches above its weight in terms of price, pointing to Victorian examples in particular, also naming Mornington Peninsula renditions as her current drinking crush.
It’s alarming to discover the hot regions of the Riverland, Riverina and Murray Darling have a combined 808 hectares of pinot noir planted, from a national total of 4948 hectares (Australian Bureau of Statistics, vintage 2015). Who knows where that fruit ends up, but why grow it? Pinot noir is a cool climate variety. Compare those to the more suitable spots of the Yarra Valley with 662 hectares, Mornington Peninsula with 384 hectares, and Tasmania with 654 hectares. Certainly other places produce quality pinot, such as the Adelaide Hills and Macedon Ranges, but the aforementioned are especially prized.
“If you know anything about pinot noir, it’s that a [cooler] different site is just that, and should be appreciated rather than comparing or rating other regions,” says winemaker Tom Carson of Yabby Lake and Serrat. “I don’t like it when people say Tasmania makes the best because it’s a colder climate or that the Yarra does. I don’t buy that. Let’s appreciate the differences and different sites.”
Tom has worked with pinot since his time at Coldstream Hills, one of Australian pinot’s early proponents (you could count pinot producers in the valley with one hand in the 1980s, he says) and Yering Station. Ten years ago, Tom took over at Yabby Lake on the Mornington Peninsula and in 2013, he became the first pinot producer to snatch the coveted Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy at the Royal Melbourne Wine Awards for the 2012 Yabby Lake
Block 1. It grabbed headlines.
While there are many variables, Tom describes the Mornington Peninsula, with its maritime influence, as producing pinot with good colour, black cherries, lots of tannin, and structured when young, whereas the Yarra Valley, which is more continental, produces more red fruits and perfume with a wonderful silky balance in its youth. Tom, together with wife Nadege, planted their Yarra Valley vineyard Serrat to 8800 vines per hectare in 2001 – four times the average planting density. “One of the reasons we did that was we’re in the central valley on a warmer site, so to cool it down we have rows closer together.” It is demanding work, yet rewards with detail magnified in the wine. This is the very heart of pinot noir: it interprets site so profoundly.
One glaring difference between Australia and Burgundy is closeplanted or high-density vineyards. Here they are few and far between. The oldest is Serré at Bannockburn in Geelong, planted in 1986, next to Gary Farr’s Tout Près; in the Yarra Valley, there's Mayer’s vineyard plus the original Diamond Creek site now under the Punch label; in Gippsland there’s Bass Phillip and William Downie; and Sinapius in Tasmania. More recently, Bindi and another Macedon site owned by importer/distributor Robert Walters have joined the high-density gang.
Tom says if there were a chance to replant or acquire another Yabby Lake site, variations in planting density would be considered. “To think that in 2018 there is only one close-planted vineyard on the Mornington Peninsula says something, and that is the progressiveness of pinot has stalled.”
The site he’s referring to was planted in 2016, led by Sandro Mosele for Ten Minutes By Tractor. Spedding vineyard, named after winery owner Martin Spedding, faces east, comprising 1.5 hectares of pinot to a density of 12,100 vines per hectare. It sets a precedent in the region. The equivalent number of vines on a conventional vineyard would need more than eight hectares of land.
“I don’t like it when people say Tasmania makes the best pinot because it’s a colder climate or that the Yarra does. I don’t buy that. Let’s appreciate the differences and different sites.”
Tom Carson, Yabby Lake and Serrat.
Sandro describes the site as a jewel. After two decades of winemaking experience, he’s come to a couple of significant realisations: both vineyard orientation and density of plantings have been wrong. He has a problem with north-facing vineyards, which are the norm. It was perhaps okay in the 1990s when vignerons were chasing warmth, but not anymore. “We need to find cooler, more gentle aspects with an easterly exposition. Even going a little bit south is okay with east-west plantings and that means vines get softer morning sun, but not blasting afternoon sun. We also need to get away from the hot northerly winds.”
As for high-density plantings, they create more balance yet also competition between the vines, so they have to work harder, producing smaller, more concentrated fruit. Better fruit with detail. However, there's a catch. “High density only works if the terroir can be matched to it. That’s not well-understood in Australia,” Sandro says. To put it bluntly, if your site is lacking, high density won’t help. It might seem obvious that row orientation and density should be fundamental, so why have vignerons been so reticent?
“We didn’t want to believe it was important,” Sandro says. “It’s hard to do high density. And expensive. I’ve heard so many Australian winemakers come back from Burgundy with these winemaking techniques, from whole bunches to different barrels. But no one has said, ‘I saw how they grow grapes’. I’ve never heard that once… Ultimately, it’s a real blow to tell someone you really should start again.”
Tasmanian-based Peter Dredge has worked in Oregon, where viticulture surpasses Australia in research and vineyard investment, and he buys fruit from disparate sites. Also behind the wines at Meadowbank, Peter is seeking the right site to plant pinot and when he finds it, he'll head down the high-density route.
Until then, he’ll continue exploring the isle’s geology with its distinct sub-regions, all the while exploiting clonal influence. Before starting his Dr Edge label in 2015 with just one pinot,
Peter worked at Bay of Fires and, by extension, with the Accolade company sourcing fruit across Tasmania. It afforded a precious
insight into vineyards from Tamar Valley and Pipers River in the north east down the east coast leading into Coal River Valley, and south towards the Derwent and Huon Valleys.
“It was inspirational seeing those different parcels of fruit, and it was pinot with all its diversity that really got my juices flowing,” he says. He was also taken aback by the intense colour, density of fruit and plentiful tannins, although he’s all about tempering that to make a finer style.
Back on the mainland at Bindi in the Macedon Ranges,
Michael Dhillon, one of the most thoughtful and articulate producers, has pursued high-density plantings. He agrees with Sandro’s suggestion that we’ve been looking to winemaking when we should have focused on the vineyard. “We clearly can make fantastic wine from lower-density plantings. Our move, about 14 years ago, to withdraw herbicides and systematic sprays, and do more hand-work in the vineyard all goes towards making better wines,” Michael says. “So it’s not necessary to go out and plant high-density, but the opportunity to do so makes it feel right.”
Again, experience counts. Michael’s farming observations have come from nearly 30 years of hands-on practice. They have planted two small plots, one in 2014 to .4 of a hectare known as Darshan’s block, named for his late father, and in 2016, another .77 of a hectare. Two more will follow, but he’s keen to first listen and learn. It amounts to 11,300 vines per hectare spaced at
1.1 metres by .8 with low trellising.
“It’s always easier to change what you do in the cellar than what you do in the vineyard,” Michael says. “We’re 30 years in and happy to look at the next 30 years, and it is intensive but we have a long viewpoint. I have learnt so much as to what it takes to produce fantastic pinot and chardonnay, and it is strongly a vineyard story. It’s simple – to make great pinot noir you have to grow great pinot noir.”
There may be a common thread of respect and devotion among these small producers, but you could ask why there's so much detail and heartbreak for a grape variety. “Pinot noir is a wine you think about,” Sandro says. “It has power, but not in the old Australian way of a big heavy-duty red, because there’s finesse and elegance too. If it’s treated right, grown right, you get all this wonderful detail and you keep going back to the glass. Great wine does that, and you keep discovering new things about it.”