Ever since he bought Brian Croser’s Oenotec winemaking consultancy business, Gary Baldwin has been one of the most sought-after technical minds in Australian wine. Today he’s a partner in the successful Wine Network Australia consultancy, which he heads with David Wollan. He was a finalist in this year’s Winemaker of the Year Award, jointly held by Qantas and The Wine Magazine. He’s also a regular wine show judge and opening batsman for the Forty-Niners. It’s fair to say that his scores to date this season don’t really reflect how well he has been hitting the ball. Is Australian wine out of control? No, not really, but it could easily become out of control because signs are now emerging that it might be starting to go downhill. The main problem I perceive is that for the first time in some time, considerable stocks are in the cellars, in all sorts of shapes and forms. There are bulk wines and old wine stocks lying around – some people are even a couple of vintages behind with their chardonnay – and that really concerns me. The industry collects figures about stocks to sales ratios, and they’re going up and up. Not everyone wants to recognise that, however. Quality is indeed an issue, but part of that issue is that we haven’t had as good a series of vintages in the last couple of years as some might think. 1999 was not really a very good season overall; neither is 2000 very good. So, part of the issue is vintage quality, but part is also that some people have taken their eyes off the ball. We are making more wine than ever before, but are we making more great wine? Much of the extra wine we’re now making comes from young vines, but again I wouldn’t under-estimate the effect of the hot spells in 2000 and 2001 and the stress they caused in the vineyards. That’s not always recognised in Australia. Vineyards are being hurried along, especially those in well-known areas, where people are trying to get them made into key wines. The successful brands are out there and everyone wants more of them, so people are pushing the boundaries. It’s not exactly answering this question, but related to it is that I’ve been astounded by the quality of bulk red wine available right now. Some of the wines are quite stunning. All around the industry there’s bulk wine for sale, and this hasn’t always been the case. Three years ago you couldn’t find any bulk wine at all; but the stocks are certainly going up. Would you be entering the wine industry as a producer right now? I would only do it if I had the money to back it up and had a clear focus about what I wanted to make and at what price it was to sell. Just entering the industry because it sounds a good idea has never been more dangerous than it is now. Where would you contemplate establishing a commercial vineyard today? I’d pick the areas where there would be a higher percentage of successful vintages and also where there would be a high return. If I wanted to grow cabernet sauvignon then I’d still pick Coonawarra or Margaret River, where there are not too many bad vintages, and where there is already a track record and the risk is low. What new regions impress you the most? Kangaroo Island, for a start. It’s right out of the box and the fruit potential looks terrific. The effort in places like Heathcote is astounding and in this case I’m sure it will pay off, provided growers have got water. We’re now seeing some wonderful fruit in big volumes, which in the past was just a trickle. Also in Victoria, Harcourt should be good, while I was impressed with the fruit I saw recently in Bathurst, NSW. I thought it was too cold up there, but there is a lot of winemaking to learn yet. Another region that for mine is a bit under-rated and not heralded enough is the Southern Highlands in New South Wales, but they have to get their site selection right. Do you see any broad-ranging problems with the quality of Australian wine? Yes, but I believe it comes back to vintage; a lack of freshness and stressed fruit character in recent seasons. Winemakers must be careful to retain fresh fruit in their wines and to keep them alive, and not to show stressed or dead fruit characters. Are medium-sized and large wine companies more interested in quality than quantity? If you really get down to it they are, but the problem is one of economic imperative. Concerned about economic pressure – whether it’s real or not – they are either hurrying things too much or taking shortcuts; making decisions based on economic rationality and not quality. It’s not surprising, is it? Of more relevance to me is that we have had three vintages in a row that are nowhere near as good as people think. Perhaps we will have a good vintage in 2002 and people will then say that the wines are fresher and livelier and better again, and that producers are doing better. Across the board, however, the average has probably slipped. Vintage is the main factor, exacerbated by financial pressure. What are the most important roles of wine shows today? Their prime role is the improvement of the breed. To help producers learn more and doing a better job at being competitive, and having their breed checked all the time. Wine shows aren’t fooled by the publicity some brands achieve, and as such can keep some producers on track, providing a genuine yardstick by which they can measure their wine. It’s not the only yardstick, but it is a valid one. One of the problems with shows is that there are too many wines, and as a result there’s too much pressure on judges. If we could get a better system, I’d be behind that. Trouble is, it all gets very difficult and complicated. I would support in principal the idea of having a stratified show system based around a sequence of events a wine would have to go through to get to the top show. But it’s a long way off, and perhaps it’s too much of an ideal. What is it that the great winemakers have that the others don’t? Two things: a clear vision of what they want to achieve, plus the dedication to apply the attention to detail. They do the little things; they taste every barrel and not just a few. At the sharp end, these are the important things. As a consultant I find it a problem that a number of younger winemakers don’t have that vision. Once they do, everything then falls into place; they learn the processes and come to an understanding that there are other ways of doing things than they might first have been taught. If there’s something you’d improve overnight about Australian wine, what is it? I’d like to see many winemakers stop using raw oak. It’s reached the stage for many people that they compliment a wine by saying it isn’t too oaky, and that annoys me. People make the assumption that putting 100% of the wine into barrels is over-oaking. Actually, it’s the quality of the oak, the time the wine spends in oak and the quality of the fruit that’s important. Regrettably, too many wines are badly treated with poorly handled oak chips or staves – which is really a management issue related to people being in a hurry – but at the end of the day these over-wooded wines are wines that simply show a lack of fruit.
