Grenache may be staging a revival, chardonnay is taken as regularly as milk, mataro has been Gallicised to ‘mourvedre’, but there’s no doubt that the raciest, sexiest and most desirable red grape of the moment is still pinot noir. Life without pinot noir would be less fun, without risk and unpalatably bland – although that’s exactly what an ordinary pinot can taste like. Pinot is chancy, fraught with danger and despairingly unreliable, quite like most of the best things in life. Pinot noir remains the thing the Australian winemaker still wants most to get right. Apart from a few historical plantings of little modern significance, it’s been thriving in our soil since the early ‘seventies. Right now we’re spreading it around our cool climate countryside like a roulette player covering as many bets he can afford. At risk of sounding ungenerous towards the present generation of pinot prospectors, it should be stated that while it was once considered an achievement to make a pinot that tasted remotely like it was supposed to, there have since been enough Australian pinots of sufficient quality to set our sights considerably higher. This puts a certain pressure on the average winemaker, who finds his $25 Yarra Valley Pinot Noir regularly compared in tastings to the apogee of French Burgundy at well over $200 per bottle. But this is wine appreciation; a hedonistic and selfish process in which fairness simply gets in the way of a good story. Australian vineyards have proven regularly capable of producing flavours which fit into pinot noir’s relatively broad spectrum. In their youth, these wines might taste of dark cherries, plums, strawberries and raspberries, with the frequently earthy, tobaccoey and floral aromas that separate good pinot from other grapes. As they mature, they evolve towards the ethereal gamey expressions of fruit and oak that no other variety can approach. But there is much more to classic pinot than simply flavours themselves. Texture and touch are the elusive aspects. Top pinot has an almost sappy, fleshy softness to its mouthfeel. It can be quite firm and tannic, but if that’s the case, the tannins must be so finely and subtly integrated that they are almost noticed after, not during the taste. Pinot noirs should never display the chunkiness and overt tannin of a Barossa shiraz, for instance. Finally is the delivery of flavour, possibly the most difficult variable yet. Pinot flavour must be concentrated and sweet on the palate, yet never sugary or jammy. Try telling a chef to cook you a perfect fillet of venison, without a hint of game and see what sort of look he gives you back. It sounds difficult, and it is. Especially when most of our pinot vineyards are still far too young for serious wine, they have no previous history of viticulture, our winemakers are inexperienced and most of our clonal selections are outdated. To do as well as we have in such short viticultural time borders on the incredible. You need to be crazy to make it well. I can’t think of a single top Australian pinot noir which wasn’t made by someone I wouldn’t affectionately describe as a lunatic. Although some top makers of cabernet would have grounds for argument, pinot noir seems to attract the artists, the interpreters and the style leaders of the winemaking fraternity, itself ignored as part of Australia’s creative community and entirely forgotten by Keating in his Creative Nation statement. The best indigenous pinots have been made and will continue to be made by those who care less about the money it is costing them than what their wine will taste like. Pinot noir is the most labour intensive of all wines, since it has to be made in small batches and with as many different traditional techniques as possible, all of which pre-date the industrial revolution by several hundred years. Today, more than ever, we understand that wine is made in the vineyard. For top dry reds, pinot needs a warm enough climate to reach full physiological ripeness, but a cool enough season to ripen late and slowly. Just as the McLaren Vale is too hot, so are many parts of Tasmania and Macedon too cold. It all depends on the individual vineyard site, its aspect and topography. Rick Kinzbrunner’s fantastic Giaconda vineyard near Beechworth is found in an area considered too hot for quality pinot, so he planted it on a south-facing slope, contrary to all popular wisdom in southern Australia. Forget about making top pinot if you can’t see outside the dots. Our premier pinot noirs do come from the cooler climates, despite what Murray Tyrrell in the Hunter Valley might reckon. The cool climates doing it best are the Yarra Valley, Geelong and Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, followed by the Lower Great Southern area in Western Australia (around Mount Barker and Albany) and the Adelaide Hills in South Australia. Other cool climates doing it well include Gippsland and Macedon (Victoria) and the East Coast (Tasmania) while Pemberton (Western Australia) and Orange (NSW) are worth watching closely. Sadly, most Tasmanian regions have failed to build on their early potential. Despite its tiny proportion of Australian plantings, there’s more disagreement and feeling over pinot than with the rest put together. So, to settle some arguments and to ignite a score of others, here’s my Who’s Who of Australian Pinot Noir. Ashton Hills Stephen George is evolving towards a supple, fine, sweet pinot from Adelaide Hills fruit, rated very highly in Adelaide. Recent vintages have more flesh and weight. Potential for real class. Bannockburn Gary Farr has pioneered quality pinot with grunt in Australia and sits comfortably amongst our best makers of the grape despite a greenish trend in recent vintages. Farr works at one of Burgundy’s most progressive domaines each year and it clearly shows. Bannockburn is near Geelong, Victoria. Bass Phillip Phillip Jones is probably Australia’s most talkative Burgundy fan of all and it’s no coincidence his pinot noir from Gippsland is perhaps our most Burgundian yet. Look for multi-layered complexity and a hallmark of autumnal flavours after a couple of years. It is also entirely probable that the elusive and quite brilliant Bass Phillip Reserve Pinot Noirs sport the world’s smallest front labels. Coldstream Hills James Halliday’s style of pinot noir is a deeply-flavoured one constructed around clearly evident new French oak. His Reserve Pinot Noirs from 1991 and 1992 are excellent wines which may reveal the longevity missing from earlier vintages. At the forefront of the new Yarra Valley Pinot Push. Diamond Valley Unquestionably Australia’s unsung hero of pinot noir, David Lance has won more awards with it than any other local maker. That’s just the top of the iceberg. With Mount Mary his Estate Pinot Noir is the Yarra Valley’s most consistent at a top level, while the first two vintages of Close-Planted Pinot Noir hint of spectacular wines to come. Freycinet Ted Bull is a top maker of pinot noir from his heat trap-like site on Tasmania’s East Coast. Scarce as hen’s teeth, his is ripe and fleshy, with pristine fruit. Giaconda Rick Kinzbrunner is a regular worker of vinous miracles as his track record of some of Australia’s most seductive and Burgundy-like pinot noir confirms. A livewire pinot noir fanatic, he has a feel for the grape that few makers in the world would approach. Henschke Lenswood Certainly known for other great achievements, Steven (winemaker) and Prue (viticulturist) Henschke are in the top echelon of South Australian makers of pinot noir although they have yet to achieve the fleshiness of the top Victorians. Jeffrey Grosset Another who pushes Adelaide Hills fruit to the max, Jeffrey Grosset is a fast learner with a genuine flair for red wine. The best is certainly still ahead. Karriview Overshadowed in the publicity stakes by its neighbour of Wignalls and also made by the tireless John Wade, Karriview’s standard release is perhaps the better of the two, with great intensity and integrity of fruit. Potentially top-drawer, from the Lower Great Southern. Lenswood Vineyards Tim Knappstein’s Lenswood pinots have moved with great success from the over-ripe and stewy to more classical lines. This is possibly South Australia’s premier label. Mount Mary Oft-ignored in arguments about Australian pinot noir, if only because John Middleton and Mario Marson have been doing it so well for so long. These wines, some of which take considerable time to look their best, were the first in Australia to get Burgundians looking over their shoulders. Middleton exploits his vineyard’s remarkable clonal diversity to maximise complexity and varietal expression. Paringa Estate One of the emerging Mornington Peninsula heavyweights, made by Lindsay McCall. While I don’t rate it as highly as other top Victorian pinot noirs (or even Paringa’s superlative 1993 Shiraz) the sweet, intense 1993 vintage attracted much due attention. There is every conceivable reason to watch this space. Salitage A no-holds-barred and no-expense-spared effort by WA businessman John Horgan (younger brother of Leeuwin’s Dennis) to top the pinot charts. From the new region of Pemberton, Salitage has already created head-turners from the last two vintages. The 1994 is a voluptuous, velvet-smooth and concentrated wine of dark cherries and sweet oak. Scotchman’s Hill Darling of the Sydney bistro set, this Geelong wine offers immediate delivery of forward, punchy pinot fruit and frankly alarming drinkability. However, they don’t cellar that well and don’t make the top dozen. Seville Estate A long-term Yarra Valley maker of excellent but unashamedly Australian pinot noir, occasionally displaying mint and eucalypt characters. Good for the long term. Smithbrook Another name from Pemberton with an enormous vineyard and huge potential. The wine is made by John Wade and the fruit sold far and wide – even into the Yarra Valley. Stoniers With his intensely-flavoured, succulent and fleshy Reserve 1994, winemaker Tod Dexter confirms again that Stonier’s is one of the premier Mornington Peninsula makers of pinot noir. Tarrawarra This high profile Yarra winery turned the corner with the 1992 vintage, which proved you can make a powerfully-structured and truly varietal pinot noir without the extraction of its previous vintages or a pot of stewed tea. Wignalls Oddly, given its isolated origins near Albany, Wignalls is perhaps the most controversial maker of Australian pinot – especially with the show judges who either give it a miss or a trophy. Made by the ubiquitous John Wade, the wines are deliciously mouthfilling and fleshy while young, but drop fruit and length surprisingly quickly. This may have something to do with botrytis in the fruit. Nevertheless, the two Reserve wines released to date, from 1990 and 1993, are amongst the best two pinots yet made in this country. Yarra Yering Expensive and occasionally quite brilliant, these are idiosyncratic wines of incredible depth and flavour made by Dr Bailey Carrodus, who couldn’t give a hang about conforming to the expectations of the rest of the industry. Sometimes his pinots suggest he has a point.
