Erl Happ - a man with a passion (or two)
Step onto the Happ’s bushland property and there is serenity. The studio, wine cellar door, pottery displays and house nestle into a hill and flow towards the vineyard and valley.
Even early on a busy Saturday morning Erl Happ’s calm demeanour is evident. But, beneath the surface lies a lightning-fast, enquiring mind searching for the ‘why and how’ of everything.
Happs Wines is a family business producing table wines from two Margaret River region vineyards.
The first wines from the Dunsborough vineyard were produced in 1978 and the Three Hills vineyard at Karridale followed in the mid 1990s.
In a region where cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay have ruled, from day one Erl was stretching boundaries and now produces the largest range of wines and styles in the Margaret River region.
Erl and Roslyn Happ share an academic background.
Erl has degrees in education and economics and a previous career in teaching.
Add a fascination with all things ceramic, from clay bricks and fiery kilns to elegant glazed pottery after he first
To know where a person is going you first need to know where from whence they came
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encountered pottery while teaching in Borneo.
Roslyn graduated as a science teacher and then became Erl’s potting partner and sounding board.
Married and expecting their first child, Roslyn found the heavy lifting and pot throwing difficult and turned to ‘cleaning up after Erl’ and the science of glazes, experimenting and studying mostly Japanese ceramics.
Thereafter, every holiday was spent at any workshops being held by visiting potters, notably Shigeo Shiga.
Roslyn said, “Without knowing it, our artistic philosophy became heavily influenced by Zen Buddhism, which transformed the art into somewhat of a meditative discipline.”
While the Happ’s were busy raising children and developing a viable pottery business in the early 1970s, Margaret River, a tiny dairy and surfing village, was being discovered by a few pioneering vignerons, mostly medicos, teachers and others with little or no knowledge of agriculture.
Encouraged by earlier expert opinion that both the Mt Barker district in the Great Southern and the Margaret River region had similar growing seasons to Bordeaux and other classical wine precincts in France, wine enthusiasts planted the first tiny vineyards.
Happ’s first vines were planted high in hills overlooking Geographe Bay in 1976 and the die was cast. Erl had added another passion to his list of things to be relentlessly pursued.
Then in 1994, 100 kilometres to the south, the Karridale vineyard - home of the Three Hills label - was planted.
Of 30 different varieties originally planted 28 have proved viable in the cool region.
Roslyn said, “Erl is a man of passion. He pursues his passions with discipline and dedication. He will spend whole weekends and evenings poring over data, graphs and nical journals.
“He believes the way forward for the wine industry is to plant varieties that are best suited to the location, but he recognized that knowledge in that area is limited.
“Hence, his research into temperature and ripening conditions.
“Erl gathered original temperature data from 15 locations in WA and compared it with data from France, USA and New Zealand.
“He used the data to look at ripening conditions in the month prior to harvest.
“Being aware that colour and flavour are very much affected by fruit
tech- exposure, and that trellising is of vital importance he has developed some radical new forms that have unique advantages.”
True to Erl’s dictum weather is recorded hourly in Happ’s vineyards.
To go organic or not?
Before Erl answers the question, he has one of his own, ‘Is it a desire to care for the land or to care for the ultimate consumer?’
“Our vineyards are not ‘certified’ organic. Compounds with identical molecular formulas may be regarded as organic when synthesized by a plant but not if they are synthesized in a factory. For instance, pyrethroids produced by the petroleum industry from ancient organic material or distilled by a different industrial organization from a flower still have the same molecular formula.
“As a farmer, there is no distinction between the two and I will choose the cheaper version. As a spray plant operator I am no safer using one rather than the other.
“While I respect growers who chase certification, I see some of them working with one hand tied behind their backs for no good reason.”
The Happ vineyards are managed with the aim of having a balanced growing environment where the soil is constantly improving and the pests and predators are self-limiting; all the while producing the best wines with the least amount of chemical additives.
“The cycle of mulch it, manure it, water it and watch it grow has been
observed by farmers and gardeners for thousands of years.
“It is the positive response of growing plants to the application of organic materials.
“Ultimately there must be a balance between what is taken from the system by harvesting, burning or wind and what is returned as plant debris. The nutrients that support plant growth originate in organic matter and the slow demineralization of native rock.
“For these reasons prunings and stalks from the winery are returned to the vineyard floor to build an organic layer that retains moisture, prevents the run-off of nutrients into nearby streams and cools the soil in summer.
“A sustainable situation is where the organic matter levels in the soil are stable or increasing.
“In summer the vineyard floor is covered with grass debris like the forest floor and this keeps the soil cool, conserving moisture.
“If a fire comes we are lost but in the meantime looking after the soil demands that we take that risk. This is the chief element of our organic approach to viticulture.”
A local catchment group’s monitoring program has shown that a stream flowing through the Happ’s Karridale property is leaving with fewer nutrients than when it entered.
Erl explained, “It is because our mulch layer of slashed grass between and around the vines provides effective catchment for water and detritus that would otherwise run off.
“The ti-tree that grows in the valley bottoms is also an effective nutrient trap that we tolerate, despite the protection it provides for destructive bird species.”
The vineyard floors are covered in cut grass, and sometimes uncut grass, with the emphasis on keeping a balance between preventing volunteer weeds strangling the vines and controlling them to where a crop that will pay costs is produced.
Erl is the first to admit that his vineyards are not visually attractive to the “anally retentive types who would prefer to see a complete absence of competing plant material, dead or alive, and like rows of carefully clipped vine foliage.
“Herbicides are used sparingly and only to prevent the weeds directly below the fruiting zone entangling bunches. The minimal application of herbicide is less damaging to soil life and organic matter levels and less energy consuming than mechanical cultivation.”
Erl noted that this method is best suited to dryer Mediterranean climates where weeds dry off in the summer months.
Where concerns about herbicides moving from the soil and crop into the food chain are held, Erl insists that there is as yet no evidence to suggest this happens. In fact, he says that many ‘edible’ plants produce large quantities of toxins as a defense mechanism that if eaten indiscriminately can be fatal.
“Insecticides are clearly different with well documented contamination of the food chain. Spray operators and bystanders can be at as much risk as the target pest.
“Intelligent farming cares for the pest predators rather than inadvertently wiping them out with the primary target. Intelligent farming uses strange inputs in the most conservative possible fashion,” Erl said.
‘It (SO2) is therefore a very sensitive issue for the ‘organic
movement’ - Erl Happ
“We are blessed with a warm dry Mediterranean climate that allows us a low input, relatively relaxed and clean farming system. We stop applying fungicides in late December when the berries are small and harvest is still two or three months away.
“Because the main fungicide, elemental sulphur, volatilizes into the atmosphere with time and temperature, it has disappeared before the grapes are picked. And then in winemaking the growth of an enormous biomass of yeast and bacteria and finally the sedimentation process that occurs before the wine is bottled all tend to diminish the level of any residues that come in on the grapes.
“Fermentation is a cleansing process. Nobody washes grapes prior to fermentation. Nobody separates out the dust, spiders, beetles and the ants. I see little evidence to support the suggestion that a strictly organic approach to viticulture in our Mediterranean climate is likely to produce superior outcomes for the environment, producers or consumers.
“There is much to learn from those who teach an organic path and much to avoid in the silver bullet approach of the chemical industry’s quick fix.
“In farming, as in life, a healthy skepticism is required.”
In the winery, Erl’s philosophies continue. He said, “Organic vineyards are no protection against the worst offenders to our health; contamination after harvest.
“Crops of all types, regardless of their origins, are routinely treated with pesticides post-harvest to prevent spoilage by moulds, bacteria and insects.
“What is the point in producing a crop that has no danger of carrying potentially harmful chemical inputs if your first step is to add a toxic substance? That is how I look at the use of sulphur dioxide (SO2) winemaking.
“SO2 is commonly used in all winemaking, organic or otherwise, to minimize oxidation and bacterial growth. It is possible to produce superior wines using very little, or none at all, if all the available tools at the winemaker’s disposal are used.
“Handpicking to limit the exposure of juice to the atmosphere, inert gases, temperature control and judicious filtration will significantly reduce the amount of sulphur dioxide needed.
“The World Health Organisation has guidelines for ingestion of SO2. These guidelines can be exceeded by drinking wine with levels of SO2 permitted by law.
“This is not speculation designed to frighten or persuade consumers who know very little about the realities of farming or winemaking.
“This is a much more substantive issue than anything that relates to the treatment of the crop in the field.
“It is therefore a very sensitive issue for the organic movement.”
Erl said, “Tolerance to SO2, the principal preservative in wine, varies widely between people with most showing no ill-effects and others reacting strongly to it if levels are high.
“Symptoms include waking during the night with an itchy nose, asthmatic tightness, a cough or a headache.”
Many food products, dried fruit in particular, depend on SO2 to preserve colour and condition. Cask wine due to the permeability of the container has a shorter shelf life and some can have levels of SO2 approaching the upper legal limits of 350 parts per million.
“Like bee venom and many other irritants, your susceptibility increases with continued exposure. As you get older you’re increasingly likely to notice its effects,” he said. “The bottom line is while most people’s bodies can survive without strong reactions to SO2, it is not good for anyone.
“Our preservative free range of wines is the product of years of experience.
“Nothing has taught me more about winemaking than the effort to make wines that are free of SO2.
“I reckon the production of one preservative free (PF) wine should be mandatory for all winemakers.
“The capacity to produce a high quality PF wine tells a story about one’s technique.”
Happ’s first PF Red wine was made in 1994.
Now they are planting Tempranillo, Grenache and Pinot Noir varieties specifically for this range.
“This is frontier stuff. While there are many trying to be organic in the vineyard, very few are making PF wines or trying to be natural in the winery. For my money, the latter is the more direct approach to reducing the use of what might be called ‘doubtful chemical’ inputs.”
Happ’s other range of wines contain only the bare minimum of sulphites at release. They are well under the requirement of below 20 parts per million free sulphites set for European Organic wines.
Erl listed the following requirements for making wine using only natural wine preservatives:
Grapes in excellent condition; Carefully handpicked grapes; Speed of movement between the vineyard and winery; Clean conditions in the winery; Cool grapes at the crusher, chilled where necessary;
A healthy fermentation; Regular topping up of barrels to exclude air and maintenance of full tanks with a carbon dioxide cover (This gas is a natural product of yeast fermentation); Filtration to screen out organisms that could harm the wine, especially prior to bottling;
The presence of tannin, as in red wine, and to a much lesser extent in white wine;
Refrigeration to prevent microbial growth in bulk wine storage.
He said, “Good winemakers limit SO2 use as they know it produces sulphuric acid making the wine taste ‘hard’. Its most important use in winemaking is to knock back bacteria and wild yeast prior to fermentation.
“Harvesting by hand, the fruit does not get a chance to generate unwanted organisms before it is swamped with yeast at the crusher.”
Malolactic fermentation (MLF), a natural occurrence that can take place sometimes months after the initial fermentation, is often induced as a means of removing the sulphur dioxide binding compounds acetaldehyde and pyruvic acid and to prevent the fermentation taking place after bottling.
Bottle variation is a commercial risk where MLF has not been controlled either by inducing it in red wines or suppressing it in white wines.
“It should be noted that the natural preservatives alcohol and tannin are more potent and definitely more persistent than SO2. S02 does not inhibit acetobacter and nor does it stop brettanomyces yeast.
“A good clean ferment of clean grapes in clean containers and its removal from the influence of oxygen at the end of fermentation produces a very stable product. The problems begin with poor containers and oxidation after ferment.
“In comparison to white wines, making preservative free red is easier. There is more tannin in red wine, red often has a higher alcohol content and the need to prevent browning from slight oxidation is not as critical.”
It is a brave winemaker who sets out to make preservative free white wines in commercial quantities.
And Erl Happ has no fear of trying something different, but only after thoroughly researching every minutiae of information available.
He said, “At this stage it appears there are alternative routes to producing preservative free white wine:
Allow the wine to go through whatever yeast and bacterial fermentations are possible and then bottle what should be a stable wine.
The resulting wine will exhibit the influence of the malolactic fermentation (MLF) not usually seen in conventionally produced white wines where the
retention of fresh grapey characteristics is foremost.
In the process of converting the rather hard tasting malic acid to lactic acid a softer buttery characteristic is formed.
The MLF also reduces the level of stale smelling SO2 binding compounds.
The alternative strategy would involve close filtration and sterile bottling after the yeast ferment thereby seeking to avoid further fermentation and producing a wine closer to the conventional mould.
However, without SO2 in the bottle, the possibility of contamination by moulds and bacteria on the glass, in the air and on the cork are very high.
The result could well be a high degree of random bottle variation and a commercially unacceptable product.
“Our PF White presents the consumer with flavours that may be new to them. Even in the few wood matured chardonnays that are allowed to progress to MLF only a small proportion of the wine will be affected, and the overlying yeast lees and oak flavours will hide the MLF characteristics.
“Not so with our PF White that has been stainless steel.
“It is thoroughly infected, wholly fermented and exhibits the malolactic character in abundance.
“The wine appears softer in the acid dimension and the original grape character will be less pronounced.
“However, the stronger the character in the original grape, the more it will appear as a part of the finished wine. We have well-flavoured grapes and we think that shows.”
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‘A winemaker’s best tools are his nose and his palate’ - Erle Happ
The meticulous attention to detail in Happ’s winery makes it possible to create superb PF wines.
“At every step in winemaking one must be careful,” said Erl.
“Under what conditions will this wine ferment to dryness most safely and securely? “Is this the right tank? “Is this the right pump? “How can I minimize the number of handlings that put the wine at risk of oxidation?
“When quired?
is
oxygen
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“How can I bottle this product without air contact?
“How can I avoid damaging filtration?
“Is all fermentation complete or is there substrate remaining that will allow yeast or bacterial growth in the bottle?
“Is barrel storage priate for this wine?
“How old should the barrel be? “Is the barrel clean? “How do I store my dry barrels so that they stay fresh?
“Which are the right bottles and right closures?
“Is my equipment in good order?”
Erl summed up the magical process of wine creation with the following comments.
“A winemaker’s best tools are his nose and his palate.
“It can tell him what is going on at the moment, the stage a wine has reached, something of its history and its possibilities.
“It tells him whether the product will be palatable and the value that he should put on the wine.
“Nevertheless, a busy winemaker will maintain close contact with a good analytical laboratory and watch things like a hawk.”
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