It may have been the largest Australian vintage yet for premium varieties, but 1997 wasn’t exactly the bonanza Australian winemakers were counting on. But it could have been so much worse. Most Australian regions entered the summer with vineyards simply bristling with energy and potential, only for erratic weather to put the kibosh on high-yielding and high quality expectations. A late burst of sunshine saved the day for several important regions, but the national crop is still down around 10% from the 1996 high water mark of 885,000 tonnes. Recent plantings may have saved the country’s bacon. It was a vintage of three parts, says prominent winemaking consultant Gary Baldwin. ‘A cool 1996 led to poor bud fruitfulness while a cool, wet start to summer further reduced potential yield. Then it became extremely hot. Once the vines recovered, a long, perfect, late Indian summer ultimately helped to fully ripen small crops of high-quality grapes in the southern regions.’ South Australia, responsible for around half Australia’s total wine production, had a terrible start to 1997, reckons John Duval, Southcorp’s chief red wine maker and custodian of Penfolds Grange. ‘Once they recovered from the heat, our shiraz, grenache and mourvedre from the Barossa and McLaren Vale produced stunning fruit. Those extra few weeks allowed them to develop the richness and ripeness we expect.’ February’s heat and March’s lack of it held back Coonawarra’s harvest, but a ‘made to measure’ April gives Duval hope for the best shiraz in four years. But be warned: while Coonawarra cabernet from 1997 will be lean in style but intensely flavoured, there won’t be much of it. An angry Old Testament God took it out on the Hunter Valley in 1997 with deluge after deluge this summer. Semillons are likely to be lean and long-living, while the chardonnay lacks its characteristic richness. Not a year for Hunter reds. It’s likely that some of Australia’s best 1997 wines will come from the cool island state of Tasmania, far enough south from the sizzling mainland to experience a classic warm, ripe season. Gary Baldwin reports wines bursting with fruit intensity, especially whites and dry red pinot noir. Ten consecutive days over 95 degrees Farenheit caused many vineyards in Victoria’s premier table wine regions of the Yarra Valley and the Mornington Peninsula to shut down and begin senescence. While white wine quality is patchy, the alarmingly small red crops have unusually high ratios of colour and juice to tannin, creating the settings for a welter of Godzilla-like cabernets and pinot noirs. The best makers should have something special in barrel. Few Victorian growers have more fruit than average, but Mount Langi Ghiran’s Trevor Mast does. His yields are up 40% on 1996. ‘We’re told we’re odd’, he says, ‘so it’s about bloody time.’ Mast is excited about the intensity of his cabernet sauvignon and the way his old vine shiraz vineyards withstood the season’s challenges. Partially affected by heat stress and sunburn, the Margaret River’s reds lack their traditional power and structure, but have fared better than most of its whites. Pierro’s Mike Peterkin is however delighted with the flavour and balance of his 1997 chardonnay and expects other top vineyards to have done just as well.
