So why, all of a sudden, should we take Hardys seriously as a maker of red wine? After all, the only red wine from Hardys that most people can remember is Nottage Hill. The other week I tasted perhaps the greatest Hardys red of the last generation, the 1970 Eileen Hardy Shiraz. It’s still lively and fresh, with deep, dark rich fruits, softness, spiciness and grip. But while the rest of the 1970s and the bulk of the 1980s were less than glorious years for the reds of Hardys, they’re back from the dead, bigger and better than ever. The ‘nineties have witnessed the greatest turnaround in winemaking fortunes for a major Australian wine company since Wolf Blass worked it all out by winning three Jimmy Watson trophies in a row in the mid ‘seventies. With a full stable of the Eileen Hardy Shiraz, the Thomas Hardy Cabernet Sauvignon, the Chateau Reynella Basket Press reds, the Leasingham Classic Clare reds and the consistently under-rated Houghtons Gold Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, you can finally put a very good case for Hardys red wine. Hardys’ chief winemaker is Peter Dawson, a thoughtful, studious individual who deserves much of the credit. He contrasts the modern Hardys reds with the thin, berry-flavoured and essentially spineless reds of the early to mid 1980s (my words, not his) which despite their inadequacies, still created some pretty big winemaking reputations (his words, not mine). For those too young to remember, the 1980s were a wasted decade for most Australian red wine. Never before have our winemakers been blessed with ten consecutive years of such opportunity. The drought vintage of 1983 aside, which still managed to produce the greatest Grange of the decade, plus the cooler seasons of 1985, 1987 and 1989, the 1980s showed once and for all that Australia was a perfect place to grow grapes. It’s just a shame that our winemakers, armed with new technology and an uncontrollable desire to use it to fashion the ultimate in elegant wines, made them elegant to the point of invisibility. Hardys were just one of the dozens of culprits. Dawson believes that a major factor in the renaissance of Hardys’ red wines began in the vineyard. Hardys’ began a block by block analysis of their own vineyards, paid greater attention to fruit sourcing and have aggressively purchased new sites for vineyard development amounting to around 3,000 acres, plus pre-existing vineyards, such as the 183 acre Omrah vineyard at Mount Barker (WA), a 235 acre vineyard at Pemberton (WA, 50% share) and the 215 acre Hoddles Creek vineyard (Vic), which is enormous by Yarra Valley standards. Dawson believes that a major factor has been the block by block analysis and attention his company pays to fruit sourcing, enhanced by its aggressive purchases of new sites for vineyard development and existing vineyards such as the 183 acre Omrah vineyard at Mount Barker (WA), a 235 acre vineyard at Pemberton (WA, 50% share) and the 215 acre Hoddles Creek vineyard, which is enormous by Yarra Valley standards. ‘We put a lot of effort into identifying where our best quality fruit comes from and with our own vineyards, such as Padthaway, we’ve adapted viticultural management to maximise quality. This all relates to the management of yields, water management, canopy management to get the best fruit exposure’, he says. ‘Our premium red wine making is batch orientated, so a key thing is the identification of high quality parcels of fruit and their separation from the rest, giving every batch the best possible chance of maximising wine quality.’ Despite their access to the most modern of winemaking facilities at McLaren Vale, Hardys’ winemakers still rely on traditional techniques for their premium reds including open fermenters and basket presses. According to Dawson, basket pressing enhances a wine’s richness and sweet fruit qualities, complementing it with soft tannins. ‘We have also put a lot of work over last three years into the quality of our oak purchases. We now focus on buying good quality oak – which in trials has proven to give a positive contribution to wine quality – rather than just more oak for the sake of it. An integration of good oak will enhance our reds without dominating them.’ Perhaps the most acclaimed to date of the new generation Hardys reds has been the ‘Classic Clare’ range made under Leasingham label. Having recognised its blunder in removing the popular Bin 56 Cabernet Malbec label from the market, Hardys have re-established this brand with a vengeance. Bin 56 is back, along with a delightful Bin 61 Shiraz (another old and fondly remembered label), but the real excitement comes from the Classic Clare wines of Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon. These wines are sourced from the old Schobers Vineyard and Peter Dawson says they really demonstrate what dryland vineyards are all about. ‘The first releases from 1991 won unanimous and uniform support throughout the organisation and marketplace and were central to the rejuvenation of interest in Leasingham. We had support to invest in a more appropriate amount of oak, to redevelop the winemaking facilities at Leasingham and to alter our approach to every vineyard with a view to making at least Bin 56 quality wine.’ ‘With all our top reds we’re striving for richness and concentration of fruit flavour and to achieve that you need exceptional fruit in the first place and must take a hand-made attitude to winemaking. We pay great attention to detail, adopt a minimal filtration philosophy and keep the batches of wine separate for as long as we can to keep our blending options open.’ Under his direction Peter Dawson has a relatively new and young team of winemakers which he says have all been a positive factor in Hardys’ lift in red wine quality. ‘They’re yet to become set in their ways and are hungry to explore new frontiers’, he says. Richard Rowe has assumed duties at Clare, while the talented Steve Pannell, son of Moss Wood founder Bill Pannell, has been poached from Tim Knappstein to make the Chateau Reynella and premium Hardys reds at McLaren Vale. Just take a peep at the ’93s from Chateau Reynella and Classic Clare, the ’92 Eileen Hardy Shiraz or the 1991 Thomas Hardy Cabernet Sauvignon (shortly to be released) to see what they’ve done.
