The array of winemaking talent eligible to win this year’s Qantas & Wine Magazine Winemaker of the Year makes rather a timely reflection of what it means to be a winemaker in 2001. The ten finalists present enough diversity of background, resources, attitude and role to have the job description for ‘winemaker’ stretching at the seams. Let’s look at why. Big company winemakers are very well represented, and led by none other than John Duval, chief winemaker for Penfolds and only the third ever custodian of Australia’s most prestigious wine, Penfolds Grange. He’s joined by Beringer Blass’ group red winemaker for its Australian operations, Nigel Dolan, plus BRL Hardy’s chief red winemaker, the energetic Steve Pannell. Genetics obviously has something to answer for, since both Nigel Dolan and Steve Pannell were born with winemaking pedigrees. Nigel Dolan’s father, Bryan, was Saltram’s winemaker throughout the 1950s before moving to Stoneyfell, where he created the ever-popular ‘Metala’ label. Both brands are today part of the Beringer Blass folio, and both are now the personal responsibility of Dolan jnr, who incidentally lives at his father’s old home of Mamre Brook House on the Saltram property. Steve Pannell’s father is Dr Bill Pannell, founder of one of Australia’s icon vineyards in Moss Wood. Pannell snr is today involved in Picardy, a new small vineyard in the emergent WA region of Pemberton, ably assisted by his other son, Dan. When judging this award it’s sometimes difficult to compare the various roles played by senior winemakers in big companies with the more hands-on requirements of winemakers in small wineries. The Duvals, Pannells and Dolans of this world delegate virtually all of the manual requirements of winemaking to their staff, which include a number of other qualified and talented winemakers, but are instrumental in determining the style objectives of the wines and the pattern of handling in the winery to achieve their intended results. Contrast that with the job descriptions of Stuart Anderson, Gary Farr or Clare Halloran, each of which closely monitor and participate in the processing of much of the fruit made for the small and small-ish labels they create. Although he now has the luxury of a machine to conduct his pigeage, or punching down of the cap of skins formed during the fermentation of his highly-rated Bannockburn pinot noirs, Gary Farr still operates it himself. Now entering his eighth decade, Stuart Anderson can still be seen climbing up the sides of tanks to pump over ferments at the Mount Gisborne winery, where he is a consultant. Much of TarraWarra’s recent improvement can be directed at Clare Halloran’s intense and personal tracking of every batch and ferment. Rick Kinzbrunner, Giaconda’s winemaker and a former finalist, once said to me that with every small compromise and shortcut taken in the winery you could lose about 1% of wine quality. Hardly enough to worry about by itself, but this could happen a dozen or more times for a single wine. The best wines are made by the small winemakers whose attention to detail is the finest and by the large company winemakers whose organisational and management skills let nothing slip by, even in some of the largest wine processing centres in the world. Jeffrey Grosset (1998) and Vanya Cullen (2000), two of the three former winners of this award, operate their own small wineries, while Rosemount’s Philip Shaw (1999) is now Southcorp’s chief winemaker. Joe Grilli is as fastidious a small winemaker as there could be, but he’s not content to put into practice merely what he was taught at winemaking school. Instead, Grilli has re-written more winemaking logic in a relatively short career than most top winemakers would in a lifetime. One of the greatest innovators Australian wine has ever seen, Grilli has pioneered such concepts as infecting grapes with botrytis after harvest; pruning the fruit from vines in warm areas to encourage a second crop to develop at a later, cooler time; introducing the Italian ‘amarone’ technique of partially drying red grapes before fermentation; and using old bottled red and fortified wine to create a base for red sparkling wines. Stuart Anderson describes himself as ‘retired’, but this former founder of the Balgownie vineyard in Bendigo, Victoria, still consults to at least four different makers in and around the Macedon region in southern Victoria. Gary Baldwin, on the other hand, is co-director of Wine Network Australia, the country’s largest and best wine industry consultancy, whose services include everything from making financial plans, designing vineyards and wineries, establishing infrastructure, making and bottling finished wine. With his partner David Wollan, Baldwin heads a large technical staff which is steadily growing to meet its constant flow of inquiries. While it is becoming increasingly difficult to retain a hands-on presence at all his consultancies, which include Stonier’s, Dalwhinnie and Voyager Estate, Baldwin has been instrumental in the improvement, refinement and commercial success of many companies large and small. With so many entering the wine industry without specific expertise in it, the consultant’s role is only going to expand. These days there’s a great deal of talk about the potential difficulties faced in the market by medium-sized Australian wineries and how they might struggle to find opportunities for distribution in major markets. Peter Lehmann is a classic medium-sized business, while Brokenwood is certainly too large these days to be classified as ‘small’. Their chief winemakers, Andrew Wigan and Iain Riggs respectively, cross the boundaries between those who work for the giants and the dwarves, in a production sense. Wigan has followed Peter Lehmann’s lead to refine a world-class folio of impressive red wines, including the benchmark Stonewell Shiraz, the greatly improved Mentor cabernet blend and the ever so refined new expression of Barossa shiraz, the Eight Songs. Riggs’ greatest achievement has been in the fashioning of the icon Hunter shiraz, the Graveyard, while the top-drawer ILR Reserve Semillons join the list of classic Hunter expressions of this variety. Peter Lehmann and Brokenwood both offer exemplary wines in the hotly contested $12-$25 range, the bread and butter of medium-sized and large wineries. How do you choose a winner from a list like this? Remember that the Qantas & Wine Magazine Winemaker of the Year is not a lifetime achievement award – but is designed to reflect the contributions made by Australia’s best winemakers over the last two to three years – and it doesn’t become any easier. Each of the finalists presents an excellent recent track record. But while several would have made worthy winners, we’re not at all unhappy with our final choice of Gary Farr. Gary Farr Winemaking talent can be expressed in a variety of different human guises. In Gary Farr’s case it comes across as a rather gruff and occasionally belligerent exterior confidently assertive in the quality of his own wines and perhaps less than tolerant of those who might contrive to find flaw in them. While some winemakers are happy to play the public talking head role, Farr would much prefer his wines to do the job for him. He makes them as if he was the only person ever going to drink them, and if others don’t enjoy them as much as he does, he’s not about to lose any sleep over it. There is another side of Gary Farr that doesn’t come out that often. Underneath the facade I’ve just described is a deep-thinking and emotional individual of genuine humility. There’s always been honesty in the surprise he registers when I’ve told him of the great pleasure I might have found from a particularly good vintage of Bannockburn. And I’ve never seen Farr as moved as he was when presented with the title of Winemaker of the Year, when for a few moments at least he was actually lost for words. His wife, Robyn, was hardly surprised at all, and later told me of how emotional he had become a few days before on learning that his eldest son Nick had for the first time shown genuine interest in one day assuming Farr’s role for both the Bannockburn and the Bannockburn by Farr labels. Gary Farr deserves the recognition this award has given him. His multi-faceted wines do everything that could be asked of them, reflecting the passing seasons, their excellent vineyard, and the very complex and unique character of their maker. More importantly, they’re bloody good to drink!
