There’s no doubt about it. You need attitude to make quality wine. So it’s clearly the attitude of the largest winemakers in Australia that stands them apart from their equivalents around the world. In no other country apart from ours do the largest wine makers strive to such an exhaustive degree to make the very best wine in the land. One never hears much of companies like Piat and Calvet who, like the other large wine producers of France focus their attentions squarely on a lowest common denominator standard of quality. Nor do the giant Italian companies pick up the headlines for anything other than the quantity of what they make. Over in the USA there is a company called E & J Gallo which makes more wine than this entire country, much of which is sold in flagons. For Gallo, bigger is better. It leaves the business of making premium wine to smaller fry. Against this background one must concede that Southcorp Wines, Australia’s largest wine company, clearly shines out. Through a series of corporate amalgamations last decade, the Southcorp stable now envelopes under a single roof such notable wine brands as Penfolds, Lindemans, Seppelt, Wynns, Tollana, Hungerford Hill, Seaview and Leo Buring, several of which are still at the forefront of Australian wine today. It would almost be impossible to begin this discussion without referring to Penfolds Grange, the ‘Hermitage’ now removed to comply with sensitive EC feelings towards the use of this name. Grange is a systematically made and blended wine which no other company could duplicate. It represents an exhaustive selection of the cream of each year’s crop from the vast vineyard resources of the Southcorp group and is treated with kid gloves from inception to insertion into bottle. After a decade of less memorable wines from the 1970s – 1971 and 1976 excluded – several extraordinary wines since 1983 have seen Grange return to its former leadership status in wine quality. To think that Southcorp, which in 1994 crushed around 31% of the 640,000 tonnes used in Australia for wine production, could go to so much effort to make around just 5,000 cases of a single wine, is a remarkable thing. To Grange add the likes of Penfolds Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon, Penfolds St Henri Claret, Penfolds Magill Estate, Wynns John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon, Lindemans St George Cabernet Sauvignon, Lindemans Limestone Ridge Cabernet Shiraz, Seppelt Dorrien Cabernet Sauvignon and Seppelt Show Sparkling Burgundy. Rather a drinkable lot, eh? The latest is that Penfolds’ winemakers have been tossed the gauntlet. Their challenge is – within a period of five to eight years or so – to fashion a white wine of equivalent quality and stature to Grange. Not your everyday request, but again reflective of the way this remarkable wine company sees its place in the world. One of the lesser-sung Southcorp brands has been Seaview, a McLaren Vale-based brand which has generally been used as an unspecific label for cheaper table wine and for Australia’s most popular sparkling wine. Named after the company’s two founders, the new Edwards and Chaffey label puts the Seaview name right into the top Australian bracket. It includes the sparkling pinot noir-chardonnay blend that was until now known as Edmond Mazure, plus a couple of top-flight reds from cabernet sauvignon and shiraz respectively, both deserving trophy winners at major wine shows. Both reds are made entirely from McLaren Vale fruit, for the brand is being considerably re-directed towards its regional origins, and both display intense, exemplary varietal flavours set against a smart background of new oak. Try them, but give them rich meat dishes or aged cheddar to accompany. It’s something of a relief for me to taste the new Lindemans Coonawarra Pyrus 1991, the wine which traces its origins back to the day in 1986 when a 1985 blend sample won the Jimmy Watson Trophy that year (for being the best one year-old red at the Melbourne wine show). Lindemans expected to win the trophy, but with the St George Cabernet Sauvignon of the same year. The ‘Pyrus’ concept was concocted with amazing speed to save the day. With the fabulous Limestone Ridge 1991, which reveals more richness of fruit and length of palate than I have seen in Lindemans Coonawarra reds for years, it is to be hoped that Lindemans are back in town. For a decade and more the thin, simple berry nature of its premium wines has been of great concern of mine. Perhaps this great wine brand can ride again on the quality of its current releases again, and less on its reputation. More elegant and refined wines these, try them with lamb or grilled veal. Fortunately our other large wine companies are not about to concede all the high ground to Southcorp. Although the more recent vintages of its premium Jacaranda Ridge, a cabernet sauvignon from Coonawarra, have yet to be released, the dramatic recent improvement in Orlando’s St Hugo Cabernet Sauvignon have raised the standard for an Australian red wine around thirteen to fifteen dollars. A stronger, more concentrated and robust wine than the Lindemans Coonawarra reds, it will easily handle any rich dish based around red meat from grills to casseroles and roasts. Orlando’s Lawson’s Shiraz, sourced from Padthaway, the relatively unsung wine region north of Coonawarra, is a polished, supple red wine which doesn’t take to long to develop delicious fleshiness and flavour. It’s Padthaway’s best regional red wine. Like another big company wine of great distinction, Hardys’ Eileen Hardy Shiraz, it’s terrific with game meats, especially venison and kangaroo.
