As any eastward-travelling Melburnian will tell you, the gaps between the vineyards of the Yarra Valley are fast filling up. It wasn’t that many years ago that to visit a Yarra vineyard was to motor up some peaceful country lane in search of a small pioneering outpost of viticulture. There is would be, a few rows of regimented vines staunchly standing their ground as inquisitive livestock would curiously gaze through the fence onto what once was perhaps their favourite paddock of ryegrass and clover. Well, the ryegrass and clover are well and truly on the back foot, as the Yarra Valley has replicated itself many times over. Mile after mile of the Maroondah and Melba Highways, the roads which meander through the central valley floor, are slowly turning from cattle and sheep to wall-to-wall viticulture. Surely, if ever the Yarra Valley had a chance to be taken seriously as a wine region, that time is now. Nearly twenty years ago a small number of Yarra vineyards were already making, albeit erratically, some of the most startling wines yet seen in Australia. The Bordeaux blends of Mount Mary, Yeringberg, Seville Estate, Yarra Yering, St Huberts and Wantirna Estate had shown enough potential to suggest that Australia might at last have found a cool-climate area capable of consistently ripening these classic varieties. Joined that decade by names like Diamond Valley, Lillydale Vineyards, Yarra Burn, Warramate and Fergussons, the Yarra looked like it was on the march. Its early efforts of pinot noir were encouraging to the extent that for a while at least, Australian pinot was not taken seriously unless it came from the Yarra. A new wave of energetic development in the ‘eighties took the Yarra by storm. De Bortoli purchased the lowly Chateau Yarrinya and the valley was never the same. A fashion magnate established Tarrawarra, an engineer started Oakridge Estate, a corporate lawyer founded the immensely successful Yarra Ridge, a Champagne house founded Domaine Chandon, a medico set up Shantell and Australia’s most prolific wine writer, James Halliday, fled his Sydney and Hunter Valley nest to make his home and business at Coldstream Hills. The region’s largest single vineyard, Hoddle’s Creek, was established by a team of South Australian viticulturists, on some of the most marginal land yet planted in mainland Australia. The valley’s recent more significant arrivals include names like Yering Station, Eyton on Yarra and Yarra Valley Hills. Through their acquisitions, the larger companies of Southcorp Wines (Coldstream Hills), BRL Hardy (Hoddles Creek, Yarra Burn) and Mildara Blass (St Huberts, Yarra Ridge) have directly and indirectly encouraged huge plantings of premium grapes. With all this going for it, what could be missing? The answer is simple: more of the wonderful, mindblowingly great wine of which we know the area is capable. The great names of yesteryear have held onto and even improved their form. The reputations of Mount Mary, Seville Estate (now owned by Brokenwood), Yeringberg, Wantirna Estate and Yarra Yering are rightly entrenched amongst the most sought-after of Australia’s wines. Of the next wave, only Diamond Valley consistently makes first-rate wine, from pinot noir and chardonnay especially. Lillydale Vineyards, today a McWilliams brand, seems to have been placed in the bistro bracket, instead of onto the premium retailer’s shelves. While it is unquestionably one of the country’s most profitable brands, Yarra Ridge is another brand directed towards the cafe set where image and uncomplicated, ripe flavours are so much more important than the qualities expected of serious long-term wines. Coldstream Hills has become a reliable maker of premium chardonnay and pinot noir, although it is substantially less consistent with red Bordeaux varieties. Oakridge, presently undergoing a significant expansion, has made some outstanding cabernet blends, fine but variable chardonnay and a rather assumptively-priced merlot. De Bortoli is doing what it needs to do to further the Yarra’s reputation as a maker of premium wine. Its cabernet sauvignon is by far the most consistent of all but the truly small makers and its pinot noir has arrived as one of the valley’s finest. Beset by changes to its technical staff, Tarrawarra is justly renowned as a leading maker of long-term chardonnay, while its pinot noir is evolving into a strong, more powerful style of some merit. Along with the first three releases of Yarrabank (a project of Yering Station and Deveaux Champagne), Domaine Chandon’s wonderful sparkling wines have established the new Australian benchmarks. Now owned by Yering Station, Yarra Edge’s vineyard has also proven capable of excellent chardonnay and cabernet blends. Aside from this, there’s a lot of talk, a lot of hype, and not much happening in the bottle. Most of the brands whose virtues I have extolled have been at it for a decade or more. Where are the outstanding newcomers? Is there that much more money to made on the bistro wine list? The Yarra is clearly standing at the crossroads. With so many new Australian regions performing so well and so many first-rate new wines being crafted from mature plantings in established regions, the Yarra needs to pose a more persuasive argument in the glass if it is not simply to become tagged as yet another source of thin, over-cropped cafe plonk.
