At last year’s Australia Day tasting, varietal tables for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay reinforced how a new generation of winemakers are really starting to get under the skin of these Burgundian varieties (you can find my notes here). This year, I made a bee-line for Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley producers who are leading the charge. The name of the first producer tells something of the story - its about detail, working with individual parcels or vineyards, rather than adopting a melting pot approach. Here are my highlights:
Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
I love Pinot Noirs from the Mornington Peninsula – they are particularly lifted and fleshy, yet underpinned by a fine spine of tannins. Top cuvees are characterful and ageworthy – I was thrilled to taste Kooyong’s 2005s. The peninsula’s Chardonnays show good freshness too. Find out more about the region’s wineries here – some great videos bring the region and its winemakers to life.
Ten Minutes by Tractor
TMBT are based in the south of the peninsula at Main Ridge, whose hills rise to around 300m. Their highest vineyard, the Judd vineyard, is at 260m. TMBT derives its name from 3 vineyards, each owned by the founding families and 10 minutes apart from each other. In 2004, businessman Martin Spedding bought TMBT, entering into long-term leases with the families to secure the fruit and, since 2008, fruit is also sourced from the younger Spedding Vineyard at the site of the new cellar door and winery. Farmed organically from the outset the Spedding Vineyard was certified organic in 2009. Spedding, who is hands on, making wine with Richard McIntyre, plans to work the original leased vineyards organically too.
McCutcheon Vineyard Chardonnay 2007 – a warm, low yielding vintage and this is plumper than usual, but it’s well done, with an underlying freshness to its melon and white peach fruit and creamy, textured palate. 20% new French oak. £29.65
10X Pinot Noir 2008 – a very cool year and this shows lovely a lovely intensity of bright red cherry and berry fruit wed to silky tannins. £23.80
Judd Vineyard Pinot Noir 2007 - this higher site produced an intense, floral and heady wine – incredibly different from the Wallis, with ample black fruits and a savoury edge to the finish, supported by firm but ripe tannins. Very good. £44.95
Wallis Vineyard Pinot Noir 2007 – Spedding told me that, because of very low yields in 2007, vineyard expression was particularly intense. It seems drier than the Judd but I’m assured it’s just the concentration of miniscule yields – 0.5t/acre in 2007. Because the fruit is locked in, dark and compressed, this looks slightly woody now with cinnamon spice. It doesn’t sound promising but actually, because there’s a freshness, all the component parts are there for this to emerge triumphant when it’s ready. And for me, that’s a sign of a great wine and a mark of Australia’s progress with Pinot Noir – not jammy and upfront, but structured and ageworthy. £44.95
Terrific wines. My only beef is the price – imported and sold retail by Bancroft Wines, they’re a touch steep even taking into account the quality, small volumes and greater viticultural risk of working in a cool climate region. Be good to taste some older vintages to see how they hold up.
Yabby Lake
Established by the Kirby family in 1998, Yabby Lake’s 40ha vineyard includes 21ha of Pinot Noir and 10ha of Chardonnay. The Chardonnays are good, but the Pinot Noirs stood out for me. “Prince of Pinot” New Zealand’s Larry McKenna (ex-Martinborough, now Escarpment) consults and, in July 2008, the Pinot expertise was ratcheted up even higher with the appointment of Tom Carson as Chief Winemaker. Carson forged a reputation for Pinot Noir at Yering Station after working with the variety at Tim Knappstein and Coldstream Hills. He has regularly worked vintage in Burgundy.
Red Claw Pinot Noir 2008 – a lifted nose and palate with blackcurrant, red berry and savoury beetroot. A really nice edge of tannin adds a note of gravitas. Well done and a good buy at £14.50
Pinot Noir 2008 – good extract here, this shows dark, spicy (star anise?) berry fruit with earthier plum notes and a firm backbone of tannins. It’s just a touch muddy at the moment – I suspect it will benefit from another year or two in bottle and keep several years. Promising. C. £24
Yabby Lake wines are imported and sold retail by Swig.
Kooyong
Made by Sandro Mosele, Kooyong’s wines were the first to get me really excited about the Mornington Peninsula. Vital but by no means loud, they unravel layer by layer depending on mood – sulky or seductive. Either way, they entice, drawing you back to the glass and, as this tasting showed, they reward keeping. Check out their website here for a plan of the vineyard, which was planted by owners Giorgio and Dianne Gjergja in 1995. Divided into parcels, the top single vineyard wines generally hail from the same plots each year.
Faultline Chardonnay 2007 – tight, mineral, quite racy with good texture and depth with traces of honey on a long finish. Very good.
Farrago Chardonnay 2007 – this wowed me with its crystalline, pure citrus and apple fruit, minerality, persistence and length. Very finally etched – gorgeous!
Farrago Chardonnay 2005 – taut and textured, lean and mean, with white orchard fruits and a hint of smoke, it’s a little reminiscent of a 1er Cru Chablis. Packs a punch.
Estate Pinot Noir 2007 – lovely lift with ripe but succulent red and black berry and cherry fruit. Great line and persistence with a fine but firm seam of tannins. Very good. C. £19.95
Ferrous Pinot Noir 2007 – nice life and lift, with fine tannins and fresh acidity animating its cranberry and red cherry fruit. Quite silky on the mid-palate, it tightens up on the finish. Quite upfront now, but this has legs.
Ferrous Pinot Noir 2005 – the palate has fleshed out with a couple of years under its belt. Plummy with savoury morel, refined tannins and a mineral undertow. Drinking very well now and will keep 2-3 years yet. £27
Haven Pinot Noir 2007 – very tight, intense, firmly structured, youthful wine with tightly coiled, small berry and currant fruit. Powerful and compressed, this needs a couple of years to open up and strut its stuff. Very promising.
Haven Pinot Noir 2005 – showing savoury, gamey notes to its plum and red cherry fruit with textured, slightly drying tannins. A wine for the cellar or to decant and enjoy with food. Very good.
Meres Pinot Noir 2007 – though tight-knit, it’s not as compressed as the Haven, showing a
gorgeous purity of fruit on nose and palate. Fabulous potential.
Kooyong wines are imported and sold retail by Great Western Wines, who currently stock 2004 and 2005 single vineyard wines (for which prices given).
Yarra Valley
The Yarra Valley has a relatively established reputation for Pinot Noir. Latitude, coastal and altitudinal influences account for a lengthy ripening period, which allows sugar levels to rise gradually while still retaining natural acidity. Click here for more information on the Yarra Valley. Pinot Noirs have good flavour and acid balance. For me, they’ve typically been a little richer than those from Mornington Peninsula, if you like Cote de Nuit to the latter’s Cote de Beaune, though I think that analogy is becoming less and less true as individual producers produce single vineyard wines of greater detail.
In the Yarra in particular, top cuvées tended to comprise barrel selections of best fruit, given the royal oak treatment. But there’s been a sea-change, with a greater focus now on sub-regional or single vineyard wines. And this has ushered in an era of much more hands off winemaking – beauty over extract to maximise site expression (especially vis a vis oak, but also more whole bunch ferments, natural yeast and less filtering). At last year’s London Wine Fair a posse of winemakers, led by Tony Jordan of Domaine Chandon and Steve Webber of De Bortoli, presented a tasting to highlight this “refreshing new attitude of making wines with character and charm.” Though much Aussie Pinot Noir debate has focused on better clones, Webber said he’s currently more focused on terroir, given that new clones have yet to prove themselves. My notes below kick off with a few of the wines they presented from the Pinot-friendly 2008 vintage, followed by highlights from this month’s Australia Trade Tasting.
The Wanderer Upper Yarra Pinot Noir 2008 –Andrew Marks is the Wanderer – he also makes wine in Costa Brava (of course!) from 100 year old Carignan vines. This single vineyard Pinot Noir shows an attractive melange of sweet cherry and savoury flavours and, though creamy, has firm supporting tannins, with clove and spice. Good.
PHI Pinot Noir 2008 – PHI, a joint venture between De Bortoli and Shelmerdine produces beautifully layered, textured wines. Whole berry fermented, Webber bashes the stems a bit for a touch of “minerally” stem phenolics to balance the sweetness of the fruit and give a bit of grip. This is a perfumed, intense wine with lovely line and persistence to its red berry, blackcurrant and beetroot fruit. Long, rolling finish. Excellent.
Mayer Reserve Pinot Noir 2008 – winemaker Timo Mayer is German, not that you’d know it from his catch cry “bring back the funk!” A percentage of whole bunch fermentation lends some grip to nose and palate, but this is a delicate yet intense wine with an unmade feel to it. Dry but pretty. Different and very good.
William Downie Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2008 – Bill Downie struck out on his own in 2003 after working at De Bortoli and in Burgundy. One hundred percent Pinot Noir focused, his eponymous label includes terroir-driven Pinots from the Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula and Gippsland in Victoria. This is dry, delicate and intense with a savoury edge and touch of chocolate to its subtle plum and red berry fruits. Tight-knit and textured with a fine spine of tannin, it has the structure, concentration and balance to build in complexity and I’d expect it to reward at least 4-5 years ageing. Quite pricey at £36.95 at Liberty Wines.
De Bortoli
Steve Webber was Gourmet Traveller’s Winemaker of the Year in 2007, while his sidekick Sarah Fagan, won their Young Winemaker of the Year award in 2009. They’re quite a team, especially when you take into account the volume of wine produced at De Bortoli, Windy Peak has to be one of the best value Pinots on the market.
Windy Peak Pinot Noir 2009 – juicy and bright with some grounding tannin texture to balance the ripe, silky fruit. Very good, especially at £8.99.
Yarra Valley Estate Chardonnay 2007 – from the Dixon Creek vineyard, Chardonnay is early picked (at around 12-13.5% potential alcohol), which Webber tolds me not only maintains balance in terms of alcohol and acidity, but also makes for a malo without picking up buttery characters. I generally find this wine to be quite flinty and tight, but this has rounded out since release. It shows a good concentration of fruit salad (of the cooler, restrained melon and stone fruit, not tropical variety), with fennel hints. Oak (0% new) is used for oxygenation, to keep the fruit in check. Well done – an elegant, well-balanced wine.
Giant Steps
So-called because Phil Sexton sold his very successful Margaret River winery, Devil’s Lair in 1997, heading to the Yarra in pursuit of Pinot perfect terroir. He made the first Giant Steps wines in 2001 and continues to make great Chardonnay, working with several clones (5 for Pinot Noir). Innocent Bystander is the label under which he releases more forward, commercial styles.
Sexton Vineyard Chardonnay 2008 – 11 year old vines planted on duplex sedimentary soils on two north facing ridges of the Warramate range at 130 to 210 meters above the valley floor – a relatively cool site. It shows ripe stones fruits with subtle buttery notes with an underlying acidity which carries a long, persistent finish. Good.
Tarraford Vineyard Chardonnay 2008 – Chardonnay is planted on cooler south-east-facing slopes in a protected valley, which is generally cooler than neighbouring vineyards. This is finer and racier than the Sexton, with bright citrus, sweet melon and a tangy, leesy note and texture. Very good.
Sexton Vineyard Pinot Noir 2008 – my pick of the bunch, with lovely freshness to its delicately chocolate-dusted red fruit, supported by a very fine edge of tannin. A long, persistent finish reveals a hint of sous bois.
Sexton Vineyard Pinot Noir 2006 – spicy and ripe with an expansive, plummy, persistent and very savoury palate with a firm backbone of tannin.
Tarraford Vineyard Pinot Noir 2008 – richer than the Sexton Pinot, with generous plum, red berry and chocolate cherry truffle. Ripe, powerful tannins.
Gladysdale Vineyard Pinot Noir 2008 – tighter, more closed than the others on the nose. In the mouth it shows a good intensity of sweet, red berry fruit, supported by ripe but present tannins.
Mac Forbes
Mac Forbes brings an intensity to his work, which inevitably follows through in his wines. I was very sorry to miss him on his latest trip when he presented a tasting about his different Pinot Noirs which, apart from the first rung on the price point ladder, come from several vineyards, each with different terroir.
Woori Yallock Pinot Noir 2008 – at 100-145m, this south-facing upper Yarra vineyard is the coolest and, it follows, the last picked. Though it’s not uncommon to plant on own roots in Australia, the Yarra Valley has proved susceptible to phylloxera, so vines are usually grafted, but not these. Planted in 1995 on own roots, on grey loam on brown, gravely clay. This is a succulent Pinot with juicy plum and damson fruit and a green herbal edge which brings a note of restraint. Finely wrought.
Coldstream Pinot Noir 2008 – despite its name, this more northerly site is Forbes’ warmest Pinot vineyard. At Mount Mary, the vines face west-south-west and were planted (grafted rootstock) in 1999. My pick of the pair, showing bright, well-defined red fruits it’s nonetheless restrained and subtle, with textured tannins, which build on the finish. An elegant wine in the first flush of youth.
Coldstream Pinot Noir 2006 – a hot and dry vintage, this has hipsway, showing nice depth of red berry and plum/damson fruit with a fine (high cocoa) milk chocolate edge and earthy undertow to the finish. Ripe but present tannins. This wine impressed (me and readers) at a Waitrose Food Illustrated readers’ lunch at The Ledbury last summer, when it was a little tighter. It paired surprisingly well with lamb with miso-glazed aubergines, which I’d initially feared would overpower it. Not so, thanks to its intensity. I think the 08 will be better yet, but this is a very nice for the quality and complexity at £23.75 at Waitrose.
Sarah Ahmed
The Wine Detective
(Wines tasted 3 February 2010)
