Now and then
As we enter a whole new decade, we ask a range of esteemed producers to reflect on the big changes from their time in wine, and share their hopes for what lies ahead.
Esteemed producers reflect on the shifts over their careers, and what they hope is still to come.
Kathleen Quealy QUEALY WINEMAKERS, MORNINGTON PENINSULA, VIC
Together with husband
Kevin McCarthy, Kathleen is responsible for pioneering pinot grigio in Australia, and continues to explore new varieties and techniques.
How do you see the state of the Australian wine industry right now?
I think it’s undergoing a disruption, where there’s a disregard for pedigrees of variety, region and maker, which have always been the things you invested in with wine. We’re living in an era where people who are looking for a $30 wine are wondering whether they’ll buy a beautiful chardonnay from the Adelaide Hills or, say, a montepulciano rosé with a picture of a dog on the label, and they’ll go for that. It’s a shift away from provenance, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing because it’s bringing more people to the industry.
I think Australia is attracting the next generation in a very different way, with storytellers and label designers putting together a whole new proposition. Right now, people are also putting a glass of wine to their nose and asking how much whole bunch is in it, but surely the industry, for all its disruption, still has to be about grape varieties and regions. There’s a massive learning curve going on and the pendulum will swing back.
What do you see as among your greatest achievements so far?
That pinot grigio worked! It was an obscure variety when we planted it, but we had a feeling it would shine on the Mornington Peninsula, and its success in the region was immediate. Our instincts were based on climatic data. In the late ’80s, the Australian industry was still growing, making and drinking warmer-climate wines, so pinot gris became active in the cool-climate frontier.
Is there anything you hoped might have shifted by now?
One thing that hasn’t changed is the participation of women. It’s still a very, very small number and that’s a real pity. I think the wine industry is missing out on a lot of skill, creativity and intelligence as a result. It would do all the men a lot of good if they had a little more competition around them.
What do you hope still lies ahead?
I’d like to see people appreciate it’s not all about the winemaker. The industry is much smarter than people think. I always say it’s like a sporting team, made up of the growers, viticulturists and winemakers, the people who sell it, the marketers, the business side – they all contribute largely to the end product. It’s not really about one fabulous person doing it all. For us, the vineyard is king, but in Australia it tends to come second. The other big issue going forward will be packaging. We’ve had the disruption where we went from cork to stelvin, so it’s possible that can we can replace all those glass bottles with something else recyclable. I think that’s just as important as what we do with the wine in the bottle.
d’Arry Osborn
d’ARENBERG, McLAREN VALE, SA
d’Arry joined his family winery in 1942, aged 16, and remains active in the winery today, with son Chester heading up the business. What are some of the bigger developments that changed the way you worked?
Without a doubt, the use of controlled yeast instead of wild yeast, which can be great, but also dangerous to the wine. There’s been a lot of research and work done as to what yeast to use, so that meant we got much cleaner wines. The minimal use of sulphur dioxide also came in when I first started, which also helped control the wine.
We only had horses when I started, so it was very slow. We got our first tractor in 1947, and that was my pride and joy. Over the years, we’ve changed our system and now go through the vines much more gently. We used to work the soil a lot, which destroyed its texture and wasn’t very good for it, so that’s changed completely. Also, power came on this property in 1952. Before that we had our own lighting plant for lights.
What do you consider to be among your greatest achievements?
When I first started making wine, it was all for the big companies and sold in bulk. It wasn’t until we designed the label in 1959 and put our name on it that we made wine to drink, not just for the big boys to blend. But they all had trained winemakers who used to help me – the industry was very friendly. Max Schubert [Penfolds winemaker and creator of Grange] asked me to lunch not long before he died. I said to him, ‘What’s all this about? I haven’t seen you in years!’ And Max said, ‘I wanted to tell you that your wines were the most like Grange that we bought.’ I thought that was very kind of him. They bought a lot of our wine in those days. The first major award I won was in 1969 with the Jimmy Watson Trophy [for their 1968 Cabernet Sauvignon], which in those days was ‘the’ award. That was a great thing because it put our name in front of people.
What still excites you about the industry today?
Grenache is suddenly a great variety! We’ve always loved it, but you didn’t promote it because it wasn’t considered good enough. It was always more of a bulk wine, but dry-grown grenache makes lovely wine and it’s now recognised very strongly, and I think it’s incredible that it is.
Could you ever have imagined anything like the d’Arenberg Cube on your property?
No! I never dreamt that. Chester does a lot of international work and sees these sorts of things, and he realised after we got the restaurant going in the old house that we could do something else. I said no for about five years because of the cost – it’s upset my bank balance a bit!
What do you see as one of the industry’s big challenges?
It’s interesting to see the Chinese discovering Australian wines like they have. It’s a massive population, so it’s obviously a fantastic market for Australia, but also a little exposed to world trade, which could backfire at some stage because of its instability. That’s always a worry to me if you’ve got so many eggs in one basket.
Brian McGuigan RETIRED VIGNERON, HUNTER VALLEY, NSW
Brian worked his first vintage in 1960, helping his winemaker father at the former Penfolds winery in Dalwood. After moving on from McGuigan Wines, he remains involved in various projects, including his daughter’s business,
Lisa McGuigan Wines.
What are some of the biggest developments from your time in wine?
I was fortunate to come into the industry when a revolution was taking place. These included innovations such as stainless steel, the use of refrigeration, and the use of gas to expel oxygen from contact with juice or wine. It was a time of a great revolution, when the big companies could glean that the industry offered a future for producers of whites like Rhine riesling, traminer and moselle. Industry leaders could see they had to change their methods from making fortifieds to The table village wines, of Solutrewhich
Pouilly, Loire Valley was much more precise and demanding.
surrounded by vineyards. We’re also lucky to have irrigation on our vines from a pipeline from the Hunter River to Pokolbin that went in during the 2000 drought. We’ve now got 160km of pipeline and, from that, our vignerons irrigate our vines, and filter and sterilise the water for winery use.
The other revolution is in the marketing and scope of our wines worldwide.
When I started, it was all about making wines for Australians. We then had so many Europeans come here from a wine background, and they changed our thinking and eating habits – they really led that charge.
We also had many people visiting from the US and UK, asking why they couldn’t get our wines back home, so that led to us exporting our products to the rest of the world.
How do you see the Hunter Valley’s place right now?
It worries me because we’ve lost some of the major producers we had way back then. We don’t have Penfolds, Rosemount or Hardys anymore, and those big producers had the marketing momentum to drive the region. But the Hunter is still doing extremely well, especially with semillon, chardonnay, shiraz and, to a lesser degree, verdelho. We need to continue to find new opportunities because wine is a fashion product, and people’s likes and dislikes change every decade. We must work as a region and individuals to lead that charge, and not try to catch up with the innovations of other producers.
Is there anything you hoped would have changed by now?
I wish we’d been more innovative with white wine to overcome the staggering success of New Zealand sauvignon blanc. We didn’t do it and we will repent that for a long time. We should have been far more innovative and taken it on with something we could have produced as readily as New Zealand has with sauvignon blanc.
What do you hope still lies ahead for the Australian wine industry?
I hope it goes from strength to strength. The Australian industry is more flexible than more established international regions. We are prepared to deliver what people want and aren’t restrained by tradition. Australian wine is cheaply produced – relative to other parts of the world – but offers great value for money. I think the export drive still has legs, so long as we continue to lead and innovate.
Halliday Winemaker of the Year Vanya has spent 30 years as head winemaker at the winery her parents established, and is one of the country’s leading biodynamic producers.
When looking back at your early days, what are some of the biggest differences in how you used to work?
We had no fax or email – just the phone, and that was a landline. We also didn’t have any computers or offices to speak of – just the winery, with its big heavy equipment. We didn’t get many visitors back then, and when people did come, we tended to spend all day with them, sometimes up to several days! And people in the industry had very strong personalities, and it was always all men in the cellar.
What do you hope still lies ahead for the Australian wine industry?
I hope for even greater wine grown sustainably, without chemicals, and with a love of the land. Hopefully, people give more back than what they take from the land.
I wish we’d been more innovative with white wine to overcome the staggering success of New Zealand
sauvignon blanc.
Brian Croser
TAPANAPPA WINES, ADELAIDE HILLS, SA
Brian has long contributed to wine education and research, and planted the first vineyard in the modern Adelaide Hills. He continues to drive new regions, sites and wine styles.
How different was the industry when you first started in wine? The Australian industry has virtually reinvented itself since I first made wine in the early 1970s. Back then, there were few wine companies and most were family owned, with roots in the 19th century. They primarily made fortifieds, although table wine was emerging. Australia’s vineyards were dominated by the fortified and distillation varieties, including shiraz, grenache, doradillo and the all-purpose sultana. From these, we made Claret, Chablis, red and white Burgundy, and riesling.
Very few wines had varietal or regional definition, and there was no Label Integrity Program (LIP) to test the validity of the claims. Tiny amounts of cabernet were grown – the most revered red wine of the time – and riesling, too. There was no pinot noir, merlot, chardonnay or sauvignon blanc, and minimal malbec. They were called “exotic” varieties when they were introduced in the 1970s, and were all planted in the same “fruit salad” vineyards, regardless of conditions.
So many regions were not yet planted, including Margaret River, Adelaide Hills, the Mornington Peninsula and Tasmania. Other lapsed cool-climate regions were just being re-established, such as Coonawarra and the Yarra Valley, constituting half of our 65 now-recognised wine regions. Even into the 2000s, the emphasis was on “branded commodity” wine, affordable and widely available, now rapidly changing to Australia’s diverse and unique fine wine offerings. What a change in a working lifetime!
What are some of the other shifts? The biggest is the emergence of fine wine consumers. When I started, beer, spirits and fortified wine were dominant, and bag-in-box table wine had just been introduced. The relentless demand for finer wine from increasingly well-travelled and educated people continues. The growth of wine literature and online discussion of fine wine has driven winemakers to harness their terroir and explain it. The collective voice of vignerons in the Old and New World, each promoting the uniqueness of their terroir, is a compelling global choir heard in a way no other product can emulate. The message is of a naturally defined, ageworthy product, infinitely variable according to site, varieties and vintage conditions, with personal authentic connection to the wine lover by the vigneron. Eat your heart out beer and spirits!
What do you hope still lies ahead? That we will be recognised as the world’s premier producer of fine wine – perhaps not in my lifetime, but not too far in the future. Why do I have that confidence? Because we have a unique diversity of terroirs unmatched on any other continent. Add to that our pioneering achievements, the deference to research and innovation, and support of the peerless education of our young vignerons. In Australia, the irresistible force of human endeavour is matched by the limitless possibilities of our inherited environment.
Sue Hodder
SENIOR WINEMAKER, WYNNS COONAWARRA ESTATE, SA
Sue joined this historic Coonawarra winery in 1993, and works closely with the wider team, including viticulturist Allen Jenkins, to continue its legacy.
What do you see as the most significant differences from your early days making wine?
A lot has changed! With all of the technical advances, there’s been a shift away from more simple measures like handwritten wine records – very detailed they were too. There’s also been the move from bottling all wines under cork to screwcap, which has achieved great results. And our 1990s vintages were less variable climatically.
Which developments have changed the way you work? The biggest have been through collaborations – with our neighbours in wine regions, with research agencies, wine shows and through international travel. We’ve learned so much over the years and, as a result, we’re able to adapt quickly. One example has been a deeper focus on single vineyards – the soil, water and way the vines are grown, and the taste of the grapes. It sounds simple, but we’ve made profound changes to our wines by seeking to understand the growing – and changing – environment.
What do you consider your greatest achievements? Contributing to 27 out of 62 vintages (so far) of a heritage wine label – Wynns Black Label Cabernet. The challenge, and focus, is ensuring the next 60 years are well set up to ensure this label’s rich heritage.
Is there anything you expected to have changed by now across the industry?
I thought there would be greater diversity of people working in wine – not just gender, but ages and nationalities. It is changing slowly, but still doesn’t truly reflect Australian society today.
What do you hope still lies ahead for Australian wine?
I’d love to see more young people choose agricultural professions and lifestyles; to grow grapes, make wine and live a good life in rural Australia. This will encourage a respect for the environment – of which winemaking is a part – and help to promote sustainable practices for future generations.