The wine in question was the Craiglee 1872 Shiraz, which Halliday tried in 1993. Here’s his glowing 95 point review:

Some browning evident, as one would expect; an ethereal, complex bouquet of gum leaf and dry grass with both spice and mint progressively emerging. The palate was remarkably complex with flavours of cardamom, spice and again a touch of dry gum leaf. The structure was superb, the finish good. (James Halliday, Australian Wine Companion, 1 November 1993)

Not surprisingly The Wine Front’s Campbell Mattinson discovered a fascinating story behind this amazing wine. Here’s a brief recap.

The original owners of the winery, the Johnstone Family, decided to keep bottles of the Craiglee Shiraz 1872 aside after it won a prestigious award at an exhibition in Vienna in 1875.  Fortunately the bottles were placed in the winery’s dark, strikingly cold cellar and left undisturbed until the early 1950s.

None other than the late John C Brown of Brown Brothers tasted the remarkably preserved 1872 vintage in the 1970s. According to current owner and winemaker Pat Carmody, Brown told Pat’s father that “any vineyard that could produce a wine that drank that well after 100 years in the cellar had to have something about it.”

Initially not keen on the idea of turning their sheep-grazing property over to vineyards, a disastrous wild dog attack on the sheep forced the Carmody family to reconsider. In 1976 Pat decided to plant some shiraz vines on the Tullarmarine side of the family farm in Sunbury – the closest wine region to Mebourne’s CBD. (Craiglee – in the lee of the craig by Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front, 19 October 2005)

Today this very special vineyard is once again producing wine that has wine critics and connoisseurs raving. One Aussie Wine’s David Hawkins, our occasional New York-based contributor, thought the Craiglee Shiraz 2006 was the pick of the night at a recent Wine Australia shiraz masterclass in New York. In her report, Victoria and Tasmania: Competition is Good June 2011, the Wine Advocate’s Lisa Perrotti-Brown said “I have to give Craiglee a mention because Patrick Carmody has produced some incredible wine in 2008 and 2009.”

Carmody told Mattinson: “I’ve always worked with the monkey on my back. Can I produce a wine that will live a 100 years?” But the baggage hasn’t stopped Carmody in his quest to bring out the magical qualities of the vineyard that led to the creation of the phenomenal 1872 vintage.

Mattinson notes that, interestingly, the 1872 vintage was made from young shiraz vines (only the third crop); a testament to the special features of Craiglee’s unique terroir that Langton’s Andrew Caillard MW highlights in his description of today’s Craiglee Shiraz:

Planted on alluvial river flats close to Jackson Creek, a tributary of the Maribyrnong River, the soils comprise sands over river stones. Since the 1985 vintage, the wines have shown extraordinary consistency of quality. It is quite a different wine to any other, reflecting its own unique site. The wines have earthy/pepper/raspberry and black olive aromas, tightly structured palates and iron-like tannins. They age well as they become more earthy and complex with softer tannins and length. (Craiglee, Sunbury, Langton’s )

Fortunately Australia makes its own world acclaimed marsanne. Selected for one of my favourite wine books, 1001 Wines You Must Try Before You Die, the Tahbilk Marsanne is also a wine that develops superb complexity with bottle age. And like the Chapoutier De L’Orée it is made from very old vines. In fact, Tahbilk has the largest single holding of this rare variety in the world and its plantings are also some of the oldest, dating back to 1927.

Tahbilk is located in the Nagambie Lakes region of central Victoria. It is Victoria’s oldest wine-producing estate. The original ‘White Hermitage’ marsanne cuttings were sourced from the St Hubert’s Vineyard in the Yarra Valley in the 1860s. Incidentally 1860 shiraz vines are still used for the winery’s other flaghship offering, the highly regarded ’1860s Vines’ Shiraz.

Since 1925 the winery has been owned by the Purbrick family. Here’s the Canberra Times Chris Shanahan’s assessment of the multiple award-winning special release 2003 ’1927 Vines’ Marsanne, a wine that’s designed to age for 30 to 40 years:

Winemaker Alister Purbrick’s late grandfather, Eric, built Tahbilk’s reputation for Marsanne, a Rhone Valley white variety. Alister Purbrick worked alongside his grandfather after graduating as a winemaker, eventually taking the reins. Over time, he finessed the potentially long-lived style, brightening and freshening the fruit in the basic Marsanne and absolutely mastering it in this special bottling from the Estate’s oldest Marsanne vines.

At 10 years, it remains absolutely fresh and vibrant – the mouth-watering, citrusy flavours showing barely a hint of honeyed aged character. At 11.0% alcohol, it sits lightly on the palate and invites another mouthful.

The 2003 ’1927 Vines’ Marsanne is available from the winery for $44.95 per bottle. The 2006 ‘Museum Release’ Marsanne is available for $19.75 and  the regular release bottling, the 2012 Marsanne is available for $15.45.

Merrill Witt, Editor

Photo Credit: Tahbilk

Victoria continues to be Australia’s center for innovation and experimentation. Home to some of the country’s brightest young winemaking talents, I am repeatedly impressed not just with the overall quality of wines coming out of this region, but the individual expressions. This vast region has much to offer in terms of incredibly diverse terroirs, including patches capable of producing wines that reach the absolute pinnacles of greatness. But such vineyards can malinger into insignificance unless they are managed by people with real vision. It is this combination of incredible viticultural potential and the dedication of inspired winemakers that continues to make this region Australia’s region to watch. (Australia’s Victoria and Tasmania: Watch this Space by Lisa Perrotti-Brown, eRobertParker.com June 2012)

Perrotti-Brown’s observations resonated when I read Dalwhinnie winemaker’s David Jones refreshingly candid assessment of the dismal 2011 vintage in Victoria’s Pyrenees:

We actually did make a small amount of Moonambel Shiraz and Moonambel Cabernet but when the wines were finally ready to be bottled and tasted on the bench alongside the impressive 2010′s and glorious 2009′s, we just thought No! we would be kidding ourselves and doing our Eagle Eye members and supporters a disservice by releasing these wines. Enough said.  (Vintage Notes, Dalwhinnie Eagle Eye Newsletter)

Integrity is definitely another hallmark characteristic I would add to describe Victoria’s best winemakers! I can’t imagine how difficult and financially painful the decision to throw away an entire vintage of red wines must have been!

But fortunately for Dalwhinnie fans the news was not all bad. Dalwhinnie’s wine have a reputation for being quite tannic when young, which makes them great candidates for cellaring. To compensate for the lack of a 2011 vintage of its flagship shiraz and cabernet, Dalwhinnie has released its museum stock of the 2003 Moonambel Shiraz and Moonambel Cabernet. Holding back ageworthy wines for future release looks like another great innovation!

Fortunately, in contrast to 2011, 2010 was a stellar vintage for Dalwhinnie as well as southern Australia as a whole. Jones describes Dalwhinnie’s The Eagle Shiraz 2010, a single vineyard wine now in its 9th vintage, as “the best Eagle to date.” And the Wine Advocate scored another of the winery’s single vineyard expressions, The Pinnacle Shiraz 2010, an outstanding 97+ points – the highest score the winery has received in the publication to date. Here’s Perrotti-Brown’s impressive review:

Very deep purple-black colored, the 2010 The Pinnacle Shiraz has aromas of creme de cassis, violets, bruchetta, yeast extract and roasted nuts with whiffs of mocha, menthol, potpourri, aniseed and cloves. Medium to full-bodied and packed with taut, muscular black berry and savory flavor layers, it has a firm structure of grainy tannins and lively acid, finishing very long. Consider drinking it 2014 to 2025+.  (The Wine Advocate #201 June 2012)

Merrill Witt, Editor

The Cellarit Wine Market has a selection of back vintages of the Dalwhinnie range. Check the winery for availability of the Dalwhinnie The Eagle Shiraz 2010.

Of the 12 alternative varieties we sampled from wineries around the world, one of my favourites was the first wine on show, the Grace Koshu Hishiyama Vineyard 2009 from Japan. Robinson noted that three wineries in the world have ‘Grace’ in their name, the other two being the Grace Vineyard near Sacramento in California and the Grace Vineyard in Shanxi province China. (Ah, just realised she may not have been aware of Cape Grace Wines in the Margaret River?)

Unusually, women have senior roles at both the Grace Vineyard in Shanxi and Grace Winery in Japan. China’s Grace Vineyard is run by Judy Leissner, who took over in 2002 from the winery’s founder, her father CK Chan. Ayana Misawa is the winemaker at Grace Winery and daughter of Shigekazu Misawa, one of the pioneering proponents of the Koshu grape in Japan.

At 31 years of age Ayana already has an impressive resume. After studying at the Institute of Oenology and Viticulture in Yamanishi, she completed further studies at the University of Bordeaux and South Africa’s Stellenbosch University. Ayana also spent time working at prestigious wineries in South Africa, Argentina, Chile and Australia, including a stint at the Mountford Estate in Waipara, New Zealand with the highly regarded Taiwanese-born winemaker CP. (Coincidentally we enjoyed a bottle of the 2009 Mountfound Estate Pinot Noir with friends at dinner this week.)

Recently Grace’s wines have been winning recognition both in Japan and abroad. The four year old example we sampled was elegant, finely tuned, minerally and remarkably fresh. Several of the panel members remarked that the subtle fruit flavours were reminiscent of Chablis, and the wine’s modesty and simplicity was almost Zen-like in character! A perfect accompaniment to the light and delicate flavours of Japanese cusine.

The wine hails from a single vineyard, Hishiyama in Katsunuma, located in the Yamanashi prefecture at the foothills of Mt Fuji. Here the high elevation concentrates the grape flavours, and the use of the recently introduced, densely spaced Vertical Shoot Position (VSP) training method insures the grapes ripen evenly by encouraging airflow through the vines and better sun exposure. Robinson mentioned that sometimes rain hats are affixed to each bunch to protect the grapes from rot!

Koshu is a thick skinned grape and purplish-pink in colour. Research confirms that it is over 90% vitis vinifera, meaning the grape is European in origin and suitable for winemaking. It likely arrived in Japan with Buddhism about 1,000 years ago via the Silk Road through China. Winemaking first started in Japan in the 1870s, with Katsunuma as its birthplace and still the most important area for wine-making in Japan.

Ayana is the fifth generation of Masawa family to make wine for Grace Winery (Cho Budoshu in Japanese), which was established by her family in 1923.

Merrill Witt, Editor

Photo Credit:  Portrait of a Young Winemaker: Ayana Misawa of Japan’s Grace Wines by Don Winkler, International Wine Review Blog, 3 December 2012

When New Zealand winemakers’ Blair Walter (Felton Road) and Nick Mills (Rippon) opened their address with a very loud and captivating rendition of the Maori Haku, the stage was set for a very lively debate about whose pinot reigns supreme? (Wished I taped it, but my photo of Nick Mills give you a bit of an idea!)

The audience was collapsing with laughter while the two Australian winemakers on the panel, Michael Dhillon (Bindi) and Nick Farr (By Farr and Farr Rising), looked on with bemusement! No, unfortunately, they hadn’t prepared an Aussie comeback! (C’mon Aussie c’mon perhaps?)

The subsequent discussion, led by wine critic Nick Stock, was fascinating so I thought I’d share a few of the highlights:

Clonal Variety vs Vine Age - New Zealand vs Australia

Farr noted that due to stricter Australian quarantine rules, New Zealand has had the edge when it comes to choice of clones.

But according to the Australian winemakers vine age can compensate for the effects of less clonal variety. The vines of the MP6 clone used for the Macedon Ranges’ Bindi Block 5, for example, are now 18 years old. Dhillon believes he has seen increasing complexity, minerality and balance with each subsequent vintage of his wine.

Terroir is Key

Of all the varieties pinot noir is probably the greatest communicator of terroir.  Not surprisingly, the winemakers said their greatest challenge is finding the right location!

Mills noted that for New Zealand winemakers achieving wines with good fruitiness is practically a given, as New Zealand’s dramatic diurnal variation is very good for sealing in flavour and colour. The right terroir is what gives the wines their coveted subtle flavours, complexity and structure.

Winemaker’s Influence vs a Non-Interventionist Approach

The belief that the best wine is made in the vineyard is what drives the quest to find the very best terroir. But how should the precious fruit be treated once it’s picked?

Walters is a great believer in less is more. For his Felton Road Block 5, his approach is gentle and light during every step of the winemaking process, preferring minimal intervention winemaking techniques like wild yeast, natural malolactic fermentation and bottling the wine unfiltered.

Farr begged to differ, arguing that boutique winemakers need to develop a distinctive house style if their wines are going to stand out in a crowded market place. Farr was not making an argument against the importance of terroir, I think, but taking a stand for the importance of the winemaker’s stamp. Interesting!

Age Worthiness of Pinot Noir

Dhillon said that over the years he’s learned that wines do not have to be overtly powerful to age well, noting that Bindi vintages from 1996 and 1997 are drinking really well at the moment.

Dhillon’s comments were further affirmation that the window for drinking ‘New World’ pinot noir is increasing (15 to 20 years perhaps), especially for the best made wines. (see also Cellaring Australian Pinot Noir: How long do they last? Cellarit Wine Blog, 13 June 2011)

And the Winner….

The winner of Whose Pinot Reigns Supreme? was, well, pinot noir! A dead heat for Australia and New Zealand for the lineup below. All wines are from the 2010 vintage (regarded as kind in both Australia and New Zealand) and were tasted blind in the following order:

Bindi Block 5 Pinot Noir, Macendon Ranges, Victoria 2010

Burn Cottage Vineyard Pinot Noir, Central Otago 2010

Ashton Hills Reserve Pinot Noir, Adelaide Hills 2010

Rippon Tinker’s Field Mature Vine Pinot Noir, Central Otago 2010

Freycinet Pinot Noir, Freycinet, Tasmania 201

Escarpment Te Rehua Pinot Noir, Martinborough 2010

Craggy Range Te Muna Road Vineyard, Martinborough 2010

Main Ridge Half Acre Pinot Noir, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria 2010

Pegasus Bay Pinot Noir, Waipara, New Zealand 2010

Bell Hill Pinot Noir, North Canterbury, New Zealand 2010

Mount Mary Pinot Noir, Yarra Valley, Victoria 2010

Curly Flat The Curly Pinot Noir, Macedon Ranges, Victoria 2010

Ata Rangi Pinot Noir, Martinborough, New Zealand 2010

By Farr Sangreal Pinot Noir, Bannockburn Victoria 201

Bass Phillip Reserve Pinot Noir, South Gippsland, Victoria 2010

Felton Road Block 5 Pinot Noir, Central Otago, New Zealand 2010

Merrill Witt, Editor

Last week’s New Zealand Wine in A Glass tasting in Sydney gave me a wonderful opportunity to sample some of the very best examples of New Zealand pinot gris. While I confess that pinot gris is not one of my favourite wine styles (I’m a chardonnay and riesling lover) these wines were a revelation. Enticingly aromatic and delightfully clean and crisp, most of the wines I tried revealed an added layer of complexity that made for a very intriguing tasting.

Pinot Gris is starting to hit its stride in New Zealand for a few reasons:

• As a relatively new variety in New Zealand (plantings have increased by 100% since 2006) only now are the vines beginning to gain a bit of age – an important attribute for adding complexity to the wines.
• Most of the top examples are made by New Zealand’s family-owned and artisanal producers who tend to treat the variety with kid gloves. For pinot gris, in particular, carefully managing yields and keeping crop levels low are vital for insuring quality.
• As happened with sauvignon blanc, winemakers are experimenting with new winemaking styles to increase complexity in their wines. Spy Valley, for example, makes its single vineyard label, the Spy Valley Envoy Pinot Gris in the Alsace-like vendange tardive style. The hand-picked grapes are fermented in old oak barriques and then aged on lees for seven months before blending and bottling. The resulting effect is a full-bodied slightly sweet palate of ripe stone flavours balanced by a lively acidity and a long spicy finish.

New Zealand pinot gris also represents excellent value for the quality. Most of the wines I particularly enjoyed retail for around $25. Here’s a list of my favourites:

Ara Single Estate Pinot Gris, Marlborough 2012 $25

Catalina Sounds Pinot Gris, Marlborough 212 $27

Greystone Sand Dollar Pinot Gris, Waipara Valley, Canterbury 2011 $25.95

Lawson’s Dry Hills Pinot Gris, Marlborough 2012 $26

Riverby Estate Pinot Gris, Marlborough 2011 $20

Stanrock Pinot Gris, Awartere Valley, Marlborough 2011 $18.99

  Merrill Witt, Editor

Note: Check WineSearcher.com for the best prices. The Greystone Sand Dollar Pinot Gris 2011 is available on the Cellarit Wine Market for $25 a bottle.

In a recent article in The Wall Street Journal wine writer Lettie Teague described Burgundian winemaker Pierre-Yves Colin of Domain Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey as a genius.

Colin, 40, is one of a growing number of new generation Burgundian winemakers who have been lauded by the critics for re-establishing Burgundy’s reputation as the benchmark for chardonnay and pinot noir. Through implementing biodynamic and organic viticultural practices and investing in sophisticated winemaking equipment, these boutique winemakers are now creating beautiful aromatic wines praised for their freshness, complexity and ageing potential.

Making Burgundy Affordable

Ah, you might say, that’s all well and good but who can afford Burgundy? Well one of the most surprising aspects of Teague’s article was her excitement over the lowly Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey 2010 Bourgogne Blanc. Here’s a snippet of what she had to say:

It’s not often that a winemaker’s genius can be detected in a bottle of basic Bourgogne. It would be like finding one of the world’s greatest speeches written on the back of an envelope. And yet, when I tasted the 2010 Bourgogne Blanc from Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey almost a year ago, it was like discovering the vinous equivalent of the Gettysburg Address. The wine was so good—possessed of an elegance, complexity and finesse far beyond its humble provenance (and $24 price tag)—that I immediately bought six additional bottles. (The New Master of Affordable White Burgundies by Lettie Teague, The Wall Street Journal 15 February 2013)

If you’ve seen the recent Stephen Spielberg flick Lincoln, you’ll remember that Abraham Lincoln affirmed every man’s right to freedom and equality in his groundbreaking Gettysburg Address delivered at the height of the Civil War. I can’t help thinking that talented winemakers like Colin are helping to even the playing field for wine lovers by creating fine quality Burgundies at affordable prices!

If you have trouble sourcing the Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey Bourgogne Blanc 2010 in Australia, don’t worry as some other great examples of Bourgogne Chardonnay have found their way to our shores. Boutique importer, Domaine Burgundy, for example, has the Phillipe Chavy Bourgogne Chardonnay 2010 available for $26.96 a bottle. Like Colin, Chavy is a small, innovative producer who vinifies and bottles his grapes in his father’s state-of-the-art facility. His 30 plots, covering approximately 8 hectares and representing 14 appellations within Puligny and Meursault, are all farmed using biodynamic principles. Chavy recently purchased a  special, hi-tech filter so as to avoid stripping the wines of their flavour before bottling.

Commenting on the 2010 vintage as a whole, the Wine Advocate’s Antonio Galloni said that the “2010 white Burgundies are some of the most riveting young wines I have ever tasted…the 2010s combine serious fruit with equally intense acidity and minerality. These are white Burgundies with tons of energy, vibrancy and sheer depth.” (Elegance and Power: The 2010 White Burgundies by Antonio Galloni, eRobertParker.com, August 2012)

So yes, you can afford the create room in your wine budget for White Burgundy!

Merrill Witt, Editor

Matthew Pooley firmly believes that “if you have good fruit you will have good wine.” He has implemented some interesting innovations to improve soil health and sustainability. Peas, for example, are grown in between the vine rows to organically enrich the soil with nitrogen. Oats and rye grass complement the pea plantings by encouraging microbial matter and moisture retention in the soil.  (Pooley Wines scoops the pool by Margot Foster, ABC Rural News, 26 October  2012)

The Coal River Pinot Noir is made from 20 year old vines from the cool-climate Campania Vineyard on the banks of the Coal River. Established in 1985 by Matthew’s grandparents, Denis and Margaret Pooley, the winery is one of the oldest in Tasmania. Until her death in 2010 Margaret worked alongside her son John and grandson in the vineyards.

Of the award-winning 2011 vintage, Gourmet Traveller’s Wine correspondent Nick Stock offered the following critique:

It’s a mid-red wine with gentle depth and complexity. It opens up smoothly in the glass and delivers a very fragrant aroma with fine bright cherry and wild herbs, a waft of pepper, some earthy notes and a meaty edge too – the oak is discreetly balanced. The palate has terrific balance with smooth, ripe, supple tannins building to a fresh finish of crisp and lively acidity that helps to hold terrific length. (The Pinot Files: Express Yourself  by Nick Stock, Gourmet Traveller Wine, Dec/Jan 2013)

The Pooley Wines Coal River Pinot Noir 2011 is still available from the winery for $38 a bottle.

Take the Deutz Marlborough Cuvée range for example. Three of their vintage releases – the 2008 Cuvée Méthode Traditionelle Blanc de Blancs, the 2009 Cuvée Prestige Cuvée, Marlborough and the 2006 Cuvée Méthode Traditionelle Rosé - scored 97, 96 and 95 respectively in Gourmet Traveller Wine’s Top 100 New Releases for 2013. The three offerings retail for around $44 a bottle. (You’d be certainly hard pressed to find a vintage Champagne for under $100 a bottle!)

Why buy vintage Champagne/sparkling?

Fortunately, the rest of the world has followed the Champagne example of only making vintage sparkling in years when growing conditions are exceptional. Typically, the Champagne houses prefer to blend across vintages, as it insures a consistent house style.

But the point of making a vintage sparkling is to showcase the special attributes of an excellent vintage. These wines are individual examples to be judged in their own right rather than displays of a house style. In creating these special wines, Champagne houses and wineries usually lavish the wines with special attention.

Vintage Champagne/sparklings, for example, are typically aged longer than non-vintage wines before disgorgement. This is important because Champagne/sparkling wines owe their nuances of flavour and savoury definition to the time they remain in contact with dead yeast lees, which gather on the underbelly of the bottle while the wine is lying in the dank chalk cellars of Champagne or the new world cellars of the sparkling makers.

Bottle ageing is also a great substitute for dosage - the sugar traditionally added just before final bottling – because the ageing softens or rounds out Champagne/sparkling wine’s leaner characters. For the most part, vintage Champagnes/sparklings are drier than non vintage wines, and capable of developing in the bottle for years and even decades afterward.

Deutz is a famous, centuries old Champagne House now owned by Louis Roederer. In 1988 it formed a partnership with New Zealand’s Montana Wines to make sparkling wine in the Marlborough region. Winemakers and viticulturists from Deutz spent 10 years guiding Montana in the art of making sparkling wines in the traditional way. Much of the equipment used, including a specialised Champagne press, was imported to New Zealand from France.

The venture has proved extremely successful and in 1998 the Deutz Marlborough Cuvee Brut NV was named Sparkling Wine of the Year at the London International Wine Challenge.