It’s not everyday you get to write a story like this. I’ve not often has the chance to break news of a small vineyard whose wines are as astonishing as their maker’s ability to have kept them secret for so long. To introduce a winery with more than a decade of classic wines behind it which until now has been known only to a small clientele of direct buyers and restaurants. It almost sounds to good to be true, but there’s a new name to list straight away amongst the very finest makers of Australian cabernet blends and sauvignon blanc-semillon: Yarra Yarra. First planted between 1979 and 1980, Yarra Yarra is a 2 ha dryland vineyard found in the Steels Creek valley, a warmer and northern extremity of the Yarra Valley. Its northern and north-east aspect, low vigour and low yields enable it to ripen fruit well and consistently, making wine at least the equal of its local peers in the cooler and wetter vintages. And now there’s going to be more of it since the 5 ha planted by owners Ian and Anne Maclean in 1996 and 1997 will increase its output beyond present mean levels of just 200-400 cases of red and 150-300 cases of white. Yarra Yarra’s flagship wine is its Cabernets, although its Sauvignon-Semillon is remarkably good. While it’s undeniable that many of the most sought after of Australian wines in these enlightened times are modelled more on those of the Rhone Valley and Burgundy, the wines of Yarra Yarra could well rekindle your affections for styles more akin to those of Bordeaux. Each is clearly made and intended as a food wine, yet I would not have to feel excessively indulgent to enjoy them on their own. It would be that easy. The Cabernets is a plush, stylish wine which in its best vintages marries the fineness, seamlessness and elegance of Mount Mary with the heady opulence of Cullen. There’s no better example of this than in the current 1995 release, a staggeringly good wine from a vintage which otherwise failed to create much of great excitement in the Yarra outside the excellent cabernet of De Bortoli. The Cabernets comprises between 20-30% cabernet franc and merlot and typically receives 40% of new oak, all of it French. It’s handled very gently and is bottled unfiltered, only with a light egg white fining. Unlike Mount Mary’s Quintet blend, some ferments are kept for extended maceration once dryness has been reached. Ian Maclean keeps portions of cabernet sauvignon and merlot aside from the best years, fashioning a Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and a varietal Merlot. While 1995 Merlot is exceptional, I’m less convinced by the reserve red. Next to the ‘standard’ blend it looks a little one-dimensional, and its 100% new oak treatment can look rather stark. Mount Mary’s Triolet blend is the only Australian wine with anything in common with Yarra Yarra’s Sauvignon-Semillon. Unashamedly modelled on Domaine de Chevalier in Bordeaux, where Maclean has worked and still maintains close contact, it’s a fleshy but tight-knit and minerally wine whose green melon, passionfruit and gooseberry fruit develops a toasty honeycomb and savoury complexity with time in the bottle. It’s usually 60% semillon, is entirely fermented in barrel and is given all French oak, one-third of which is new. Maclean discourages malolactic fermentation during the wine’s year in wood, during which it is left on lees and stirred constantly.
