The more you think about it, the less likely it will be that a single pinot noir could ever exhibit all of the infinite qualities one is supposed to look for in the variety. Buy two good pinot noirs, logic surely says, and tip varying amounts of each into the same glass until the result pleases you most. Blasphemy? Quite possibly, considering the stormy looks I received at the Exhibition of Victorian Winemakers in 1987. I had just publicly tipped equal parts of the Coldstream Hills Pinot Noir 1986 and the Hickinbotham Geelong Pinot Noir 1986 into a tasting glass – each wine respected at the time for being amongst the best pinot yet turned out in Victoria – and was enjoying the experience with considerable relish. The Coldstream Hills, I thought, showed all the fruit, the fleshiness and the sweetness; the Hickinbotham the concentration, the power and the integrity. If the match was not indeed made in heaven, it was at least somewhere over Port Phillip Bay. All of which inevitably leads the wine nut to the inevitable challenge – to create the Ultimate Australian Pinot Noir, the Aussie challenger to Romanee-Conti, the Antipodean Alternative to Aloxe-Corton. It’s an interesting exercise, and a game you can comfortably play in the safety of your own home. All you need is a mind untrammelled of preconceived inhibitions concerning the mixing of finished wines and a few dollars of spare cash. A measuring cylinder and a large, clean carafe should do the trick. Simply follow these proportions just as if my name was Margaret Fulton and you will end up with 750 ml of rather expressive pinot noir. Australian pinot noir is most frequently criticised for its lack of depth and grunt. A good healthy dose of Bannockburn 1991 will help to lay a keel of weight and richness over which we can add sweet and fragrant notes later on. Start with 75 ml of this wine, making it 10% of the blend, one of just three wines present in this proportion. Back this up with 60 ml of the St Huberts 1991, a more linear wine of excellent length and astringency and 45 ml of the Piper’s Brook 1992 Peillon (the new name for its premium pinot noir) for a good shot of typical Tasmanian acidity and our wine’s backbone is now complete. The other aspects of a top pinot noir’s structure relate to its fleshy, sappy quality rarely matched by any other grape. 60 ml of John Middleton’s luxuriant 1989 Mount Mary and an equal volume of David Lance’s brilliant and silky 1990 Diamond Valley Estate Pinot Noir and the French will begin to look nervous. Once we tip in 75 ml of Coldstream Hills Reserve 1992, the best yet from Mr Halliday, and whose oak has the scent of an expensive perfume, it’s time to commence the superstructure. Before we fine-tune the flavours, let’s consider some of the most sought-after fruit expressions of pinot noir. My short list includes black cherry, spice, stewed plum, tobacco, the scent of roses, plus earthy, gamey, animal odours and that indefinable sweetness that has absolutely nothing to do with sugar whatsoever. While it’s highly likely that many of these characters are present and accounted for by now, let’s make absolutely sure. Toss in equal parts (37.5 ml) of Moss Wood 1990, Bass Phillip Premium 1990 and the Wignalls 1992. The Moss Wood is a superb wine, with an accent of dark cherries. The Bass Phillip Premium, itself a little tight and lean, nevertheless brings delightful cinnamon-like spiciness. The best wine yet from this exciting Albany vineyard, the Wignalls 1992 will surely develop along the same gamey, animal lines of its precedessors, but retain its richness and integrity for longer. Into our thickening plot I would now pour the same quantity of Tim Knappstein’s Lenswood 1992, a wine almost resembling an Italian amarone, with distinctively dehydrated plummy and kernel characters. The Main Ridge 1991, a supple and fragrant Mornington Peninsula wine, can contribute to our blend’s sweetness of fruit, while the rose garden-like scent of the as yet unfinished Bindi 1991 (from the Macedon area north of Melbourne) will give further accent to its aroma and scent. Use 37.5 ml of each. For the final touches, add the same volume of Yarra Burn 1990, a firmer, balanced wine which reveals the tobacco-leaf aspect of pinot’s character. Then, for an extra dimension of earthy richness, that same quantity again of Balgownie Estate 1989, a pungent central Victorian wine with longevity and character. So far I have blended fourteen wines to create 675 ml of our ultimate Australian pinot noir. We need another 75 ml to fill a bottle, just enough space for a single mystical ingredient of great style and expression. It is the Giaconda 1992, made by Rick Kinzbrunner in the hills above north-east Victoria, and to my palate at least, the best and most complete single Australian pinot noir yet released. Our blend, once it’s stirred and not shaken, is now ready. It should be reverently consumed, as Alexandre Dumas once said of Montrachet, on the knees with the head bared. While I would not pretend for a moment that this dream pinot noir could realistically be fashioned in such a way, the thought process involved says much about the current state of pinot noir in Australia. Most of our top pinot noirs are monocru wines, made from a single clone in a single vineyard. We don’t yet have the blending resources available to the houses in Burgundy, themselves able to fashion or craft their blends from a multitude of different wines. With Australian pinot noir still in its infancy, perhaps we should regard most local pinot noir as we would an individual component. Perhaps it is indeed unrealistic to expect our winemakers to have already caught up with the hundred years of local knowledge instinctively on tap to each Burgundian cellarmaster. Taking this approach, we will at least come to appreciate the individual strengths and weaknesses of the increasing number of attempts to master the most difficult wine grape of all. By focusing on style, and putting aside the conventional Australian preoccupation of evaluating wines with points alone, our thought process also reveals a surprisingly broad spectrum of valid expressions of pinot noir across our most diverse wine regions, although wisdom would surely have it that our cooler regions are hovering closer to the ultimate mark. The chemistry, structure and flavour of pinot noir are almost so complex as to appear elusive. Unlike the Holy Grail, however, the answer might not ultimately lie in a single treasure.
