Yeringberg 1863 - 2013

Yeringberg 1863 - 2013 from ALF on Vimeo.

This is a short preview of a film photographer Adrian Lander and I are making about Yeringberg, an historic winery and vineyard in the Yarra Valley, celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2013: the clip starts with a painting of vintage at Yeringberg in 1875.

Third generation vigneron Guill de Pury tells the story of how his grandfather established one of the Yarra's grand 19th century wine estates; of how the young Guill grew up surrounded by history and memories after the original vineyard had been pulled out; and why in the late 1960s he re planted vines on the site his grandfather had chosen, and started making wine at Yeringberg again.

Original music by Dave Newington.

- This preview was put together to accompany a feature story on Yeringberg in the Aug/Sep issue of Gourmet Traveller WINE Magazine.

Tapestry of terroirs too good for little boxes

600 million year-old Seacliff sandstone and Reynella siltstone
curl under the proposed development site; Chalk Hill and
Paxton vineyards (the green shaded blocks) are on the same dirt
across the road to the left of the picture
(detail from the Geology of the McLaren Vale Wine Region map)

The winegrowers of McLaren Vale are fighting to stop a proposed housing estate on precious vineyard land.

This isn't just another case of a bucolic wine region threatened by greedy urban sprawl. What's at stake here goes much deeper than that - literally.

The inconceivably old country under the proposed Seaford Heights development site is special: far better suited to the deep roots of a splendid vineyard than being smothered in yet more ticky-tacky boxes.

We know this terrain is special because in June the McLaren Vale Grape, Wine and Tourism Association - in conjunction with the South Australian government - published a detailed geological map of the region.

The map shows the history of the rocks and sands, the faults and tears, the rumblings and inundations that have shaped this country over eons. It also shows how the region's vineyards are now draped over this diverse tapestry of terroirs.

The map shows that the jumble of siltstones and sandstones under the controversial development site were formed up to 650 million years ago and that this ancient geological pocket is unique in McLaren Vale.

To wine lovers, of course, phrases such as "unique ancient terroir" start the saliva flowing, and the very high quality of wines already produced from this terroir - in the Paxton and Chalk Hill vineyards just across the road from the development site, on the same rocks - indicate this area has huge potential to become one of McLaren Vale's most prized viticultural sub-regions.

Unless, that is, these ancient rocks are covered in concrete and bitumen.

Australia's winemakers have realised that the key to a sustainable future lies in promoting unique regions and special vineyard sites.

We need to support this crucial development in Australia's wine history and to value the contribution to our shared culture of soul-soothing wines, redolent of the unique ancient soils they were grown in.

We need to protect our special vineyard sites, not cover them in little boxes.

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UPDATE: This article first appeared in The Weekend Australian on 4 September 2010. A couple of days later, the local Onkaparinga Council rejected the development application. The application is now in the hands of the state government.

Gathering the Hunter's heritage

Storm over the Brokenback Ranges, Hunter Valley

As you know, I’m a big fan of non-mainstream wines such as tempranillo and barbera and fiano. So when a group of Hunter Valley grape growers and winemakers interested in moving beyond their local stalwarts, semillon and shiraz, invited me to address a seminar on alternative varieties, I leapt at the chance.

Unfortunately, before the seminar I sat down to a tasting of wines from the Hunter’s Heritage Vineyard Register - twenty utterly glorious bottle-aged single-site semillons and shirazes from the region’s oldest vines. It was awesome: the soul-satisfying complexity of the Tyrrells HVD and Meerea Park Terracotta semillons and the soil-drenched depth of the Drayton Joseph, Tulloch Hector and Mount Pleasant OP&OH shirazes all made the most deliciously compelling argument for classic grapes planted in classic Australian terroir. I left the tasting glowing with patriotic pride: these unique traditional wines are nothing short of national treasures.

Which is not, let me tell you, the best frame of mind in which to sit down to a seminar on alternative grapes. Sure, we tasted some very nice examples of Hunter-grown viognier (the Little Wine Co.), pinot grigio and barbera (David Hook) and tempranillo (Audrey Wilkinson). But I couldn’t get the beautiful, lingering taste of those old classic wines out of my mouth. Why, I kept wondering wistfully (and, unfortunately, out loud), when you already make semillon and shiraz so brilliantly why would you bother even trying to do anything else?

The answer, of course, is commercial reality.

The fact is that while traditional Hunter semillon and shiraz may well be wonderful drinks, they’re hard to sell, even in the Hunter - especially in the Hunter. Most of the millions of tourists who flock here aren’t after authentic, savoury wines of terroir: they’re after a nice savvy blanc or fruity red to knock back after a hard day’s golf. And as most of the region’s wineries rely on these tourists to survive, the pressure’s on to comply.

So of course winemakers should be exploring the alternatives. But it would be a tragedy to see traditional Hunter semillon and shiraz sidelined or even killed off by market forces, victims of the region’s own tourism success.

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This article first appeared in The Weekend Australian Magazine, Feb 6, 2010.