More than twenty years after its first vines were planted, people still wonder what Padthaway is. A new, strange-sounding grape, perhaps? Or else an expressive viticultural term of abuse? It’s not hard to imagine a green-fingered grape-grower informing the bearer of bad meteorological tidings to “Get Lost and Padthaway!”, is it? Watching Padthaway grow up is not unlike observing the progeny of two totally dissimilar and divorced parents with entirely different ambitions for their offspring. Seppelt and Hardys planted their first vineyards mainly to red grapes, Lindemans to white, mostly riesling. By the time I arrived at Lindemans Padthaway in 1980 as an agricultural science student, much of its remaining red vines were being converted to white. The process began with a team of us vineyard hands hacking quite unprotected through panels of heavily-foliated shiraz vines with a chain saw, in a fashion which may have raised at least an eyebrow at the Department of Labour, I’ll bet. If ever there was an Australian wine region that needs a dose of pr, this is it. Most punters would be totally unaware that (i) Padthaway is a very large South Australian wine region planted to serious acreages of premium grape varieties, (ii) a huge number of low to mid-priced and even premium wines made by Lindemans, Seppelt, Hardys, Orlando, Wynns and other large companies contain hefty proportions of or even exclusively Padthaway fruit and, (iii) Padthaway now produces at least as many grapes as Coonawarra, a region to which it bears a great many geographic similarities. The reasons come abundantly clear once you understand that there is only one winery at Padthaway and it is very small; Padthaway offers only limited cellar door opportunities for travellers; many wineries only use the region’s name in small print, if at all on their labels; several large wine companies took a long time to realise it was better suited to white grapes than red; the grapegrowers there have frequently chased quantity rather than quality; the place itself is somewhat off the beaten track, and for many years a schism between Seppelt and Hardys on one hand and Lindemans on the other meant that the southern end of the region was known and marketed as Keppoch. All this despite some glorious and well-priced wines made by Seppelt, Hardys, Lindemans and others in a range of styles from late-harvest rhine riesling, sauvignon blanc to chardonnay; the presence of one of Australia’s great weekend-getaways in Padthaway Estate; huge vineyards investments by Australia’s largest wine companies; the recent acknowledgement by Lindemans, Seppelt and Hardys that Keppoch and Padthaway do in fact comprise a single region; plus the odd surprisingly good red wine. But now that Padthaway appears ready to emerge as the quality wine region it undoubtedly is, it still has to face what may be its greatest challenge. If Australia is to provide for a potentially global market of flavoursome, well-made and well-priced chardonnay, as many of our industry prophets are predicting, where will the grapes come from? Will Padthaway be expanded to meet the challenge, or will other potential viticultural goldmines like Cowra and Orange be given the nod instead?
