Andrew Spinaze ‘Spinna’, as he is known, is head winemaker for Tyrrell’s, the Hunter Valley-based wine company which has enjoyed such a wonderful decade in the 1990s. ̩ Andrew Spinaze has made wine at Tyrrell’s since the very hot vintage of 1980. ̩ In 1985 he was promoted to assistant winemaker, before taking over as senior winemaker in 1989. He delegates much of the hands-on red winemaking to Andrew Thomas, but remains the company’s hands-on white winemaker. ̩ For over 15 years Spinaze has been responsible for the Vat 47 Chardonnay, one of the company’s most successful wines and a darling of the judges at the Royal Sydney Wine Show. ̩ Under Spinaze Tyrrell’s Vat 1 Semillon has held its place at the forefront of the unique and rather idiosyncratic Australian style of Hunter semillon. ̩ Tyrrell’s growing support band of chardonnays is remarkably consistent, especially with the Moon Mountain and Old Winery labels. Similarly, the company offers a wealth of other fine semillons including the Stevens, Lost Block and Futures labels. ̩ Spinaze also oversees the making of the Hunter’s most reliable range of shiraz-founded red wines. Tim Knappstein By moving from the Clare Valley to the Adelaide Hills, Tim Knappstein has not only avoided a winemaking mid-life crisis, but has reinvented himself as one of Australia’s most respected cool climate winemakers. ̩ Tim Knappstein commenced his winemaking career in 1966 at the Stanley Wine Company in Clare, remaining as winemaker until after the 1976 vintage. His, brilliant array of rieslings under the famous Bin 5 and Bin 7 labels are still considered benchmark wines and although red wine was only a small proportion of Stanley Leasingham’s production, the Bin 49 Cabernet Sauvignon, Bin 56 Cabernet Malbec and the Bin 61 Shiraz were often highly rated. ̩ With his mother as a partner, Tim Knappstein established Enterprise Wines in 1976, shortly releasing a string of definitive Clare Valley rieslings and supple, reserved cabernet sauvignons in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The company was sold to Blass in 1986, which later sold out to Mildara in 1991. ̩ In 1981 Tim and wife Annie Knappstein began to establish their 26.3 ha cool-climate Lenswood Vineyards high in the Adelaide Hills. ̩ Knappstein has since become one of South Australia’s two best makers of pinot noir and sauvignon blanc, while his Chardonnay is one of the country’s finest and most complex. Philip Jones In a nutshell, Philip Jones makes Australia’s best pinot noir. His Bass Philip label is scarce, sought after and expensive, yet such is the care and attention to detail that Jones vests in his wine that he has yet to make a profit. ̩ Although he initially purchased his property near Leongatha in Victoria’s South Gippsland area to make a cabernet blend, Philip Jones has shown the self-confidence to take Australian pinot noir into hitherto unchartered waters. He developed his site before the region had any reputation for table wine and remains its only maker of outstanding pinot noir. ̩ Jones fervently believes in non-irrigation and yields which by most Australian standards are impossibly low. It’s no accident that his wines are the only Australian pinot noirs with the concentration to match great Burgundies. ̩ Following a typically French approach, Jones tends to make his various pinot noirs in much the same way, thereby enabling different parts of the vineyard to express their particular characteristics. Naturally, the best wines are bottled separately. Jones has observed that the same part of the vineyard tends to contribute most to his premier ‘Reserve’ label. ̩ No other Australian pinot noir ages in the bottle as well as Bass Philip, which after around eight years of age often reveals a strength of pure, spicy dark cherry fruit with the ultimate gamey and autumnal expressions of pinot noir. Rick Kinzbrunner Rick Kinzbrunner is a winemaker’s winemaker, the maker of Australia’s best chardonnay, one of our more outstanding pinot noirs and a surprisingly sophisticated blend of red Bordeaux varieties. ̩ Giaconda, Kinzbrunner’s tiny vineyard actually faces the wrong way, if conventional wisdom is to be observed. Yet Kinzbrunner knew all along that he needed a cooler south-facing site near Beechworth for the length of ripening required for the classically European styles of wine he wanted to make. His wine could hardly stand further apart from that of mainstream Australia. ̩ Kinzbrunner’s Pinot Noir was his first wine to attract considerable attention in the late 1980s, reaching something of a zenith with the 1992 vintage. The 1997 wine could match its strength and richness. ̩ Giaconda’s Chardonnay evolved from a variant of Chablis to mainstream Mersault, breaking new ground in 1996 and 1997 for an Australian expression of this variety. Painstakingly achieved by taking risks and taking care, its remarkably powerful core of ripe fruit is superbly integrated with the complexity derived from oak, lees contact and malolactic fermentation. It stands as the wine that pushes out the possibilities, the benchmark for Australian winemakers who are prepared to move away from the safety of the commercial blueprint. John Brocksopp and Bob Cartwright Viticulturist John Brocksopp and winemaker Bob Cartwright have together fashioned every Leeuwin Estate Chardonnay since the first vintage made in 1980. They represent the definitive winemaking team of grower and maker, each with an acute understanding of the role each other plays in the making of Australia’s highest-profiled chardonnay. ̩ Leeuwin Estate Chardonnay has achieved a global reputation as Australia’s most prestigious white wine. Many would say it’s the real ‘White Grange’. ̩ It’s a remarkable achievement that with only the possible exception of the 1984 vintage, that every Leeuwin Estate Chardonnay ever made has performed at or close to the highest level in Australia. ̩ As a team, Brocksopp and Cartwright have been at the forefront of innovation, trial and change in premium Australian chardonnay. It’s likely that more Australian winemakers have been influenced by Leeuwin Estate Chardonnay than any other contemporary white wine. Ed Carr Ed Carr is a relatively unsung winemaker who first made his name under the Southcorp banner, being responsible for the excellent quality and consistency of Seaview’s sparkling wines, Blanc de Blancs and Pinot Noir Chardonnay especially, plus the affordable and reliable sparklers sold under the Killawarra brand. He has since spent five years at BRL Hardy, revolutionising its approach to sparkling wine. ̩ Carr has not only overseen a massive increase in sparkling wine production at BRL Hardy, but a comparable improvement in quality as witnessed under the popular Sir James, Yarra Burn and new premium Arras labels. ̩ Although he has access to substantial volumes of Yarra Valley fruit for his sparkling wines, Carr has steadily increased his use of fruit from a range of different sites in Tasmania. ̩ Carr has burst out of nowhere to make one of the country’s leading sparkling reds, the Leasingham Classic Clare Sparkling Shiraz, a wine which last year broke the Seppelt deadlock on the trophy for the best sparkling red at the Royal Melbourne Show. Andrew Hardy A protege of Brian Croser’s, Andrew Hardy spent more than a decade at Petaluma before being set loose to breathe new life into one of South Australia’s favourite labels, Knappstein. Initially established by Tim Knappstein, a fellow contender for the 1999 Qantas/The Wine Magazine Winemaker of the Year, the Knappstein brand and facilities are now a part of Petaluma Ltd. ̩ Andrew Hardy has returned Knappstein to the elite group of riesling makers in the Clare Valley, with several exceptional recent releases. Furthermore, under his influence the spicy, savoury Gewurztraminer has re-asserted itself as one of the few world-class Australian examples of this variety. ̩ Hardy regrafted shiraz vines back to shiraz, after nearly two decades of serving as rootstocks for chardonnay. The results have been nothing less than spectacular, with the premium Enterprise Shiraz now worthy of a place amongst the best contemporary wines from this sought-after variety. The manner in which he has introduced the thickly concentrated fruit to new French oak has been extraordinary. ̩ Virtually the entire Knappstein range shows the benefit of Hardy’s enthusiasm and talent and his burning ambition to achieve the most from 100% Clare Valley fruit. Steve Pannell The youngest finalist for this year’s award, Steve Pannell is just 34 years of age. That hasn’t stopped him from becoming chief red wine maker for BRL Hardy, on merit. ̩ Having cut his teeth with Wirra Wirra and Tim Knappstein, Pannell has been at the forefront of BRL Hardy’s return to prominence as a major maker of top-class red wine. ̩ Pannell’s credits include the Jimmy Watson Trophy-winning Eileen Hardy Shiraz from 1995, a wine which reflects this label’s incredible transformation into one of the country’s most prestigious brands. ̩ Pannell was named by the English wine magazine Decanter as one of the wine world’s 50 most influential people going into the next millennium. ̩ His efforts with the Tintara label have created one of the most stellar of all Australian shirazes and most expressive grenaches. ̩ He has also had a role to play in the various pinot noirs released under the Yarra Burn brand and has helped rejuvenate Leasingham as a sought-after red wine brand. Philip Shaw Philip Shaw is the winemaking mastermind behind the extraordinary success of the Rosemount Estate brand across so many price points, regions, varieties and labels, from the Roxburgh Chardonnay to the Diamond Label Shiraz. ̩ Under Shaw’s guidance Rosemount’s Roxburgh Chardonnay has served as a standard bearer for Australian white wine in several of the world’s most influential wine markets. The Giant’s Creek Chardonnay and Show Reserve Chardonnay, each also from the Hunter Valley, reflect substantially different aspects of chardonnay’s character. ̩ Shaw has taken Rosemount Estate from its Hunter Valley base to make some of the greatest of all McLaren Vale shirazes under the Balmoral Syrah and Show Reserve Shiraz labels, some of Coonawarra’s best cabernet sauvignon (sold as Show Reserve) and into regions like Mudgee and Orange in NSW. The simply brilliant Mountain Blue Shiraz Cabernet from Mudgee has redefined peoples’ expectations from this region. ̩ Shaw’s dedication to deliver exceptional quality with his less expensive wines like Rosemount’s Grenache Shiraz and Shiraz Cabernet, not to mention the Diamond Label Chardonnay, serves as a standard for most of his competitors. ̩ Few Australian winemakers are accorded the respect shown Philip Shaw by his peers. So what does it take to be a winemaker and why are some of them so much better than others? In much the same way that those of us who are good at music are also often handy with computers, winemaking is part art, part science. The best winemakers are usually exceptional at both. It’s all too easy to dismiss the large scale winemaking conducted in some of our more gargantuan wineries which, to borrow a long-lost quote from Kevin Childs, exude all the rustic charm of a Kuwaiti oil well, as a cross between biochemistry and plumbing, but there’s much more to it than that. Similarly, as those at the leading edge of architecture are able to innovate in both art and engineering, our best winemakers push the limits of both art and science. With each passing year they are better equipped to do so, for not only does the constant refinement of new technology present offer new opportunities to makers, but the passage of each season adds to their own wealth of personal experience and ultimately to worldwide generational winemaking tradition. In its most basic form, winemaking is a food processing operation which converts grapes into wine. It’s a matter of supervising and manipulating a natural process which begins by extracting juice from grapes, fermenting them, before clarifying and stabilising the result to avoid spoilage in the bottle. Don’t begin without chemistry, microbiology or your biochemistry, since you’re dealing with yeasts, bacteria, sugars, acids and alcohols and a myriad of other flavour and analytical components, some measurable, some not. You also need confidence in your palate, since it’s often your best means of quickly assessing a situation and determining your next step. So you need to be something of a trained taster as well. Only the smallest Australian wineries are anything less than substantially mechanised. While many of the machines used in crushing, pressing, fermenting, filtering and cooling still require some degree of hands-on operation, most modern equipment is virtually programmable. Many can be completely controlled by computers, which may be located hundreds of miles away. And most of these machines are connected by a permanent or temporary network of pipes, pumps and hoses. So a modern winemaker needs to be something of an engineer, a computer boffin and a plumber as well. For the last decade the best Australian winemakers have become more involved than ever before in their vineyards, for it’s an established truth that you can’t make better wine than the fruit you have to begin with. The silk purse from a sow’s ear has well and truly been confined to winemaking mythology, for fruit quality is certainly the ultimate limiting wine quality factor. So the best winemakers are also in part viticulturists, a science in itself which demands an understanding of soils, climate, diseases, irrigation, soil chemistry, plant biochemistry and even entomology (the study of insect life). Still interested in becoming a winemaker? It’s hardly any wonder that until quite recently that the media tended to put winemakers on a pedestal. All winemakers, or so it seemed, were treated not so much as mere mortals but as special beings whose status extended far beyond that of us who might arrive for a day’s work in a tall city building or outside in a farmyard. Throughout the 1980s the Cult of the Winemaker had us in its grip, as we hung off their every word and rejoiced in their latest releases. None of which actually happens in traditional Europe, where winemakers are considered as valuable, if indeed essential components of a production process that began well before they ever became involved. The traditional European view is that wine begins in the mind of the owner or director of the company or property, its potential is determined by those responsible for growing the grapes, and its ultimate expression is then up to the winemaker, who closely follows or else develops upon an expression of style as determined by the owner or director himself. Just as most architects would not consider themselves to be leaders in fashion and design, it only falls upon a small proportion of winemakers to be considered genuinely creative and original. While the majority of buildings constructed follow the trend and style dictates of their period or are else unashamedly inspired by specific periods or traditions, most wines are also made to conform to widely accepted styles of the time, of which the most common these days are soft, fruity and moderately oaky chardonnays and shirazes. Without in any way belittling the skills of those who make such wines in incredible volumes to exceptional levels of consistency and drinkability, their daily work is light years removed from the innovators and style leaders and whose efforts invariably involve the taking of significant risks over a long period of time. It’s usually the small individual specialist makers like Bass Philip’s Philip Jones, Giaconda’s Rick Kinzbrunner, Lenswood Vineyards’ Tim Knappstein and Leeuwin Estate’s team of John Brocksopp and Bob Cartwright who pioneer and perfect the styles that other makers then attempt to duplicate or fine-tune into their own expressions. These are the makers with the vision and to create the lead; others are more content to simply follow instead. Consummately understating his case, Rick Kinzbrunner says his winemaking is largely a matter of attention to detail. It’s his view that even the smallest of shortcuts taken in fashioning a wine may equate to a diminution of quality by one to two percent. Not much by itself, he suggests, but take ten such compromises and you could easily lose fifteen percent of your quality. And that’s more than enough to make a serious difference. Philip Jones is so committed to the detail of every step in making his various pinot noirs that he has even caught himself hallucinating late at night, sorting out individual berries of fruit under a bright light on a stainless steel table. When you taste his wines that dedication and degree of attention could hardly be more obvious. On the other hand, some of Australia’s best winemakers are hardly known outside their own companies, since their work in making large volumes of excellent day-to-day wine is hardly going to attract the headlines. While it’s fair to suggest that there’s less art involved in processing huge tonnages of grapes to make everyday quaffing wine than in making a wonderfully complex pinot noir from a single cool-climate vineyard, some certainly do it better than others. Just look at what Rosemount’s Philip Shaw does with his Shiraz Cabernet and Grenache Shiraz, two of the very best and most interesting easy-drinking wines plying the trade for around ten dollars. These wines exhibit an intensity, suppleness and even a statement of style in a price range in which others are just simply trying to get away with what they can put into a bottle. The work of makers like Philip Shaw, BRL Hardy’s Steve Pannell and Tyrrell’s Andrew Spinaze crosses both boundaries. While each are actively involved in supervising the large production runs which represent the bulk of their employers’ turnover, each takes a personal responsibility for the top-drawer, more expensive and limited run wines which serve as their companies’ flagships. But either way, if you’re making millions of litres or just a few hundred dozen, you have to know what’s going on. Nature can work wonders in perfect years, but you can’t take a perfect year for granted. Sure, many of the world’s best wines are made with minimal human interference, but things tend to start going awry once winemakers pin too much faith in nature. It’s when things go wrong that the real winemakers get going and in most cases they fall back onto science. And that’s why the best makers judge themselves by their worst wines.
