Few significant Australian wine regions are as poorly understood as Langhorne Creek, the not insubstantial red wine region south of Adelaide that for so long has provided the backbone for now-traditional labels like Wolf Blass and Stonyfell Metala. It’s difficult to trace the fate of most winegrapes grown in Langhorne Creek, since most are blended away with fruit from other regions to support large national brands owned by our major wine companies. Orlando Wyndham, for instance, has a huge new development in Langhorne Creek whose crop is virtually earmarked for Jacob’s Creek in its entirety. While its light has almost been perpetually hidden by an almost impenetrable bushel, I’m of the opinion that Langhorne Creek’s name is about to become more widely appreciated. I am not infrequently critical of certain Mildara Blass labels for failing to deliver on their potential but Saltram’s winemaker, Nigel Dolan, who is also the maker of the company’s historic Stonyfell Metala brand, has revitalised this once sought-after label. With some first-rate wines from Lake Breeze, for the first time since the excellent Wolf Blass Grey Label Cabernet Sauvignons of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Langhorne Creek’s name is now linked to red wine of genuine and consistent quality. While the standard white label Metala red blend has performed very well since 1994 and hit a high point in 1998, Dolan’s greatest achievement yet with Langhorne Creek fruit has been the black label Shiraz 1996 made from Arthur Formby’s original plantings in 1890. It’s the definitive modern Langhorne Creek red – dark, concentrated, spicy and briary, whose sheer opulence of heady flavour is belied by its extraordinarily smooth and silky palate. I bought a box some years back and refer to it occasionally when simply wanting to drink something totally approachable, delicious and undemanding. It always leaves me shaking my head, wondering how Langhorne Creek might be regarded today if over the last twenty years other wines of this calibre had been made from its substantial resource of genuinely old shiraz plantings. It’s also one of those wonderful quirks of fate that the very wine that Nigel Dolan is in the process of restoring to its original lustre was in fact created by his father, Bryan Dolan, in the early 1960s. Langhorne Creek owes its ability to grow fine wine to the presence of the large water system of Lake Alexandrina, itself replenished by the Bremer and Angas Rivers. The cool southerly breezes which blow back over the huge lake moderate summer temperatures. Furthermore, back in the 1860s viticultural pioneer Frank Potts created a unique irrigation system by effectively diverting some of the Bremer River’s flow over his 12 ha vineyard during winter. While the large recent plantings in Langhorne Creek typically use more conventional drip systems of irrigation, some of the older vineyards still irrigate in this remarkable way, so reminiscent of the Nile in Egypt. Unlike northern Egypt, Langhorne Creek has a relatively mild summer which enables fruit not only to ripen fully in all but the rarest of vintages. Perhaps the time will come when more of Langhorne Creek’s red wine will be bottled alone without blending away to augment the deficiencies of fruit from other regions. Then more of us will come to appreciate their ripe, sweet minty fruit flavours, the elegance they typically retain, their fineness and the soft approachability you wouldn’t usually associate with a region of its northerly latitude. Bleasdale Frank Potts arrived in Langhorne Creek in 1850, founding Bleasdale a decade later. Still in the hands of his family today, Bleasdale remains not only a maker of fine, elegant and occasionally excellent red wine, but a genuine wine museum based around the original red gum cellars and equipment made by the Potts the original to make and mature his wine. Led by the occasionally excellent Frank Potts blend of red Bordeaux varieties and the sumptuous Bremerview Shiraz, Bleasdale’s red wines marry an appealing approachability and suppleness when young with the fine tannins and tightness required for medium to long-term maturation. Bremerton When Craig and Mignonne Willson planted their first eight acres of vines on the Bremerton Lodge property they bought in 1985, they had little idea that by the year 2000 they would have another 100 acres of vines planted between 1992-1994 and a 40% stake in another 175 acres of vineyard in the region. While most of the family’s fruit is contracted to other makers, by 2000 the production of their own Bremerton label had increased to 20,000 cases. Winemaker Rebecca Willson oversees the production of a couple of promising regional reds in the assertively oaked Old Adam Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, made in a rich, ripe and almost plush style for this region. The 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon (17.0, drink 2006-2010) is stylish and modern, with intense minty black fruit and fine astringency. Lake Breeze Another long-established regional family, the Folletts have grown grapes for the last seventy of their one hundred and twenty years at Langhorne Creek. They commenced making their own wine in 1987 and have stamped their own richly fruited and substantially oaked stamp on some very consistent wines from cabernet sauvignon and shiraz, the best of which are released after several years under the ‘Winemakers Selection’ label. From 1998 come two excellent and relatively inexpensive reds in the fine-grained, deeply flavoured and very stylish Cabernet Sauvignon (18.2, drink 2006-2010+) and a richer, more forward, dark and musky Bernoota Shiraz Cabernet blend (17.9, drink 2006-2010), whose smoky American oak is the perfect foil for some mouthfilling spicy cassis and plum fruit. The wines retail around $23 and $20 respectively. Temple Bruer Its idiosyncratic range of wines, which includes a Shiraz Merlot, Reserve Merlot, Cornucopia Grenache, Cabernet Merlot, Botrytis Riesling and Riesling (both from the Eden Valley), has made significant forward strides in quality over recent years.
