Word is from those in the know that the determination of what will be known as the region of Heathcote is a done deal. The Geographical Indications Committee (GIC) is shortly to release its Interim Determination for its boundary. Although objections may yet arise, they are unlikely. Most of those who might have been considered likely to object have all but guaranteed a safe passage of the GIC’s decision. It should not be a protracted issue. It is unlikely not go to appeal, or even to court. It should not become another Coonawarra. None of which makes a lot of sense to me. If the decision is made to include in the new Heathcote region all the far-flung and geographically disparate vineyards whose owners insisted they should be included, then I for one have lost all faith in the processes involved. Why? Because it smacks of expedience at the expense of integrity. Who is at fault? The individuals responsible for drawing up the nebulous group of criteria known as Regulation 25 of the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation Regulations 1981, which list the various indices on which the lines that encircle Australian wine regions are entitled to be determined. Where did they get it wrong? They listed virtually every imaginable scenario, which in actual practice means that issues like where people have traditionally travelled to drink in pubs, play for football teams and go shopping on weekends have become as important as genuine viticultural criteria such as landform, climate, consistency of soil type and elevation. The system is failing to deliver a consistent set of decisions based on sound wine-related criteria and is in need of dire overhaul before our wine trading partners discover how farcical it is. The boundary around the Adelaide Hills has broadly been determined on the basis of altitude. Margaret River’s boundary was decided on the single issue of longitude. Still awaiting yet another appeals process, Coonawarra’s was broadly decided on consistency of soil type. The Yarra Valley’s borders are largely historical and political, the Barossa’s traditional and pragmatic, since the broader geographical indication still includes the Eden Valley plus a lot of land neither in the Eden nor Barossa Valleys. As for Heathcote, if the decision goes the way it’s likely to, whether or not you’re in the region apparently depends on who you are or how persuasive you are, or both. Or indeed what other neighbouring wine regions you’ve been left out of. Over the last twenty years, Heathcote has been a relatively small wine region centred around and just to the north of the small central Victorian town of the same name. Although its early vineyards were planted on a patchwork of different soil types, its best wines came from a series of Cambrian outcrops of red soils overlaying greenstone, whose wines shared distinctive and special characteristics. When, a few years later, it was discovered that comparable soils extended well to the north of the first planted outcrops – by some 50 km and more – it became clear that however it was ultimately to be defined, the region of Heathcote would only be determined after some serious thinking was done. If ever there was a logical parallel to the issue of Coonawarra’s boundary, this was it. The principal soil type travels north-south in an linear series of outcrops. Climate is a factor, since the further north you go, the earlier the fruit ripens, and the fuller, richer and thicker the wines become. Plantings have expanded exponentially towards the north, extending the apparent dimensions of the region. The people involved in the northwards expansion have simply over-populated the lobby group that wanted to retain a smaller sub-region around Heathcote itself. It took some considerable time for me to arrive at the conclusion that much of the outcrop of these soils should fall within the same wine region, but I have now adopted that view. The next issue is related to the use of the name of Heathcote: whether it is appropriate for the entire region, or whether it should best be used for a more localised sub-region. When it rejected the notion of a sub-region around Heathcote itself, irrespective of name, the GIC opened the door for Heathcote to be used as the larger regional name. The issue that concerns me now is the extent to which a large number of vineyards substantially peripheral to the special soil type of Heathcote are likely to be included within its borders, especially those around the townships of Tooboorac, Redesdale and Graytown. Not only does the inclusion of either of these townships grossly distort the shape of the region and make it incorporate large areas of land entirely different in form from the principal viticultural soil type, but much of the land the ‘extensions’ encompass is entirely unsuited to viticulture. The likely determination also makes an absolute mockery of the ongoing Coonawarra issue, for if ever there was another wine region that deserved to be shaped around soil-based criteria, this wine region is that wine region. If these far-flung vineyards are ultimately included in Heathcote, the GIC might as well have cut its losses and applied the name of Coonawarra to the entire southeast of South Australia. It is also impossible to evade the feeling that once the regions of Bendigo and the Goulburn Valley were set in cement through the GIC, the vineyards around Redesdale and Graytown are being shoved into Heathcote simply because the GIC has run out of options for them. Hardly a valid reason, I would have thought, but given the all-inclusive nature of Regulation 25, an easy decision to find some justification for. All the same, it’s difficult not to feel sorry for the GIC, whose hands are surely tied by the vague, all-encompassing and entirely non-specific nature of the criteria it is forced to operate within. Redesdale lies significantly to the south and west of the region. Despite the fact that one of its vineyards, Eppalock Ridge, has labelled its wine as ‘Heathcote’ since 1982, Redesdale has nothing in common with the area around Heathcote, or to the soils and aspects running northwards from it. Similarly, Graytown is found over two ranges of hills and twenty-five kilometres to the south and east of Heathcote. Its vineyards were formerly understood to be part of the Goulburn Valley region and are considerably closer to Nagambie than they are to Heathcote. Graytown’s wines are substantially different in texture, style and taste to those of Heathcote. So are its soils and landform. The key issue appears to be that Paul Osicka’s winery and others joined the Bendigo region as soon as it could after the region’s inception around 1980. Back then, Heathcote was considered to be a sub-region of Bendigo. Tooboorac is significantly later, cooler and its wine is substantially different from that of Heathcote. The largest vineyard at Tooboorac is Merindoc, owned by the mother of Stephen Shelmerdine, Chairman of the Victorian Wineries Tourism Council, Treasurer of the Victorian Wine Industry Association and a former Chairman of the Winemakers Federation of Australia. Shelmerdine is also listed as the owner of another large vineyard near Colbinnabin, towards the northern extreme of the proposed region. I have been assured by Rob Falla, manager of both Shelmerdine-owned vineyards near Heathcote and President of the Heathcote District Wingrowers Association (the grower body that has been pushing for the larger region to be named as Heathcote), that in all respects, especially those related to the regional debate, that he receives his instructions from Mrs Shelmerdine. Given it has little viticultural or geographical relevance to the rest of the Heathcote region, it would appear that the key issue that has nudged Tooboorac over the line is that its rates have been historically been paid to the Shire of McIvor (whose principal town is Heathcote) and that the residents consider Heathcote to be their principal town. Again, astonishingly, as far as the all-inclusive Regulation 25 is concerned, this is more than enough to welcome them into the Heathcote region. And probably enough to give them a T-shirt as well. The penultimate word goes to Ernie Sullivan, Registrar of Protected Names for the Geographic Indications Committee, who writes in the February 2002 edition of the AWBC publication The Wine Contact that: ‘The definitions of region and sub-region in Regulation 24 of the AWBC Regulations require the proposed area to have (measurable) homogeneity in winegrape growing attributes within and also to be discrete in those same attributes from adjoining areas of land.’ Sure they do.
