Letter from Barossa
The Barossa Valley is one of my favourite wine regions. Few places better intertwine the mesh of such an unusual viticultural history, old vines, stoic wine styles and global presence, despite how ‘agricultural’ the region feels from within. It is a potent symbol of Australian immigrant nous and tradition – the farmers’ endeavour and struggle, their acceptance of a climate and soil so unfamiliar for grapes.
The Barossa is Australiana 101: ruddy earth, baking heat, mobs of kangaroos, screeching local bird life and plots of craggy old vines interspersed between thatches of bushland. The wines, too, reflect this motif. Hardy against the elements, grapes produce muscular, broad-shouldered, bold, rich and warm wines. Ink-glazed glasses result from Barossa Shiraz sloshed in – palates and teeth stained with sluices of dark fruit, spice and pitch-perfect sweetness. Many South Australians are the fiercest loyalists to these hearty wines – all-weather drinkers despite climate and cultural trends suggesting fresher, lighter styles might be more apt.
Australia’s mostly coastal population enjoys a wealth of seafood, along with lighter, fresher dishes of the Mediterranean and the spice and heat of southeast Asian cuisine, and this has meant that a younger generation of Barossa wine producers have begun to reinterpret the vinous landscape. The first winemaker I recall shape-shifting Barossa grapes into lighter, fresher styles is reluctant superstar Pete Schell of Spinifex. Since 2001, his judicious, earlier harvest has conspired with blending and co-fermenting Rhône varieties beyond Grenache and Shiraz. The wines hum with freshness and tension, diametrically opposed to the thunderous reds that made the Barossa famous.
Tom Shobbrook’s family planted grapes in 1998, producing wines up to 2004, then in 2007 Shobbrook returned to bottling his own wines. I recall him pouring his Poolside Shiraz at a high-profile event – the bright, crunchy, ruby-coloured red was bottled and released just eight weeks after the harvest. This was (and is) a remarkable interpretation of the region’s staple grape that speaks of incredible derring-do. And it’s also a perfect light red for chilled al fresco drinking in a deckchair.
There have been many others working to express individual wines of lighter body in a prestige wine package. Abel Gibson’s father, Rob, paved the way for the Gibson family through potent, big-flavour reds – heartland Barossa stuff. But Abel has taken a different route, crafting some of the most exciting and interesting expressions of wine in Australia. He is known for his meticulous blending of small parcels of fruit, particularly Shiraz, Grenache and Mourvèdre, to create delicate, lifted, low-alcohol wines of detail, tension, fine tannin and firm acidity, along with a range of whites that are skin-fermented, textural and distinct, made as orange wines.
More traditional, but equally committed to farming and blending, the Sami-Odi wines of Torbreck alumni Fraser McKinley should also be considered among Australia’s best ‘new’ wines. A hermit-like solo operator with almost monastic methods, McKinley’s wines are deep and complex, laden with layers of savoury fruit and punctuated by a sense of purity and freshness despite the heft. They are remarkable wines for discussing the ‘complexity’ of Barossa Valley Shiraz, and join a growing list of producers emerging as an avant-garde sect that includes Frederick Stevenson, Geyer Wine Co, Head Wines, Kalleske, Massena, Rasa Wines, Smallfry, The Standish Wine Co and Yetti & The Kokonut.
These notions of ‘new tradition’ in the Barossa Valley are thrilling. While the old school-good school continues to garner interest and improve through fine-tuned viticultural and winemaking practices, the reinterpretation of the region through fresh eyes and fresh wines adds its own value, and deliciousness, to the world of wine.