It happened to Coonawarra in the early 1970s and to the Yarra Valley in the early 1990s. And now, albeit on a different scale, it’s Margaret River’s turn to lose its innocence. Led by substantial new vineyard developments well off the region’s traditional beaten track and by the construction of its largest winery development of Palandri, Margaret River’s viticultural and winemaking landscape is undergoing a major and irreversible facelift. It’s virtually impossible to get an accurate handle on the extent of new vineyard plantings in Margaret River but their collective size is spectacular. While some have been developed by wineries seeking to extend their own vineyard resources and others by experienced growers with contracts to winemakers, a huge proportion has been initiated by tax-driven investment schemes and then implemented by viticultural consultants. Many of these schemes exist without contracts to growers and due to their poorly considered and resourced establishment are unlikely to attract companies interested in making quality wine. Palandri is an extremely aggressive development funded from Perth which has almost raised its full target of $52 million. It expects to produce and sell well in excess of 100,000 cases of wine from its third vintage in 2002. In my under-statement for the month I suggest that this would in itself represent a very significant marketing achievement. Clearly the largest winery in the region, it is initially set up to process 1,500 tonnes of fruit, but will be expanded to 3,000 tonnes by 2002, giving it a big-time 220,000 case capacity. Latest news is that Palandri expects to make 750,000 cases by 2005; fairly impressive for a brand that does not yet exist in early 2000. Its directors expect to export half of Palandri’s output and predict an annual average return to its investors of over 30% over eighteen years. Hmmm! Interestingly, Palandri owns no vineyards in Margaret River, but is instead developing a 120 ha vineyard in Mount Barker which its prospectus suggests would supply 80% of the company’s requirements by 2004. Clearly that is no longer attainable and as witnessed over the 2000 vintage, Palandri will inevitably rely to a large extent on Margaret River fruit sold through the speculative market to supplement its own resources, thereby providing a market for fruit grown by various speculative and non-contracted vineyard developments. It’s hardly going to get hold of premium Margaret River fruit with this approach. Palandri’s wine will retail at three price points. Blended red and whites plus a rose, broadly sourced within WA, will be offered between $12-14. Blends of Margaret River and Mount Barker fruit will retail between $15-18, while estate-grown Mount Barker wines will be over $25. While I cannot see any advantage that Palandri might bring to Margaret River’s reputation for quality, I’m less concerned over the extensive vineyard developments spearheaded by Evans & Tate and Vasse Felix on former farmland near Jindong, about fifteen km to the north-east of the region’s traditional northern focus around Willyabrup. Jindong is a very different place to the more established Margaret River vineyards. It’s northern and more inland location makes it warmer and less influenced by coastal breezes. It’s too far northerly to receive the cooling southerlies on summer and autumn afternoons but its nights are cooler. Daily maximum temperatures at E&T’s Lionel’s Vineyard are typically two to three degrees higher than the company’s older vineyards at Redbrook near Willyabrup and further south at Devil’s Lair, while overnight minimum temperatures are often a degree or two lower. It’s also less cloudy than further south and there’s less rainfall. So its grapes ripen earlier, and differently as well, producing riper, punchier, if perhaps less complex fruit flavours. At this time Vasse Felix has 140 ha under vine at Jindong, while Evans & Tate has access to 226 ha from various sites including its own 110 ha Lionel’s vineyard. These developments are largely found on deep fertile soils formerly used to farm potatoes, plus other sandy and gravelly alluvial soils of great vigour. Vines grow extremely quickly in this part of the world and I can still feel the astonishment I experienced when watching shiraz being harvested at 4 tonnes per hectare, only to be told that the vines were a mere eighteen months old. Evans & Tate winemaker Brian Fletcher expects around half of his Jindong fruit to go into wines of Barrique 61 and the Two Vineyards Chardonnay quality, which both retail around $18, but harbours hope that the other half will be of sufficient standard to make the more expensive Margaret River label. While some may scoff at this idea, some Jindong merlot I recently tasted was at least the equal of the wine from the company’s Redbrook vineyard at Willyabrup, and Penfolds have already purchased young vine Jindong cabernet sauvignon at what they have classified as Bin 407 quality. While I fully expect Jindong to produce large and reliable crops of fully ripened fruit of a quality at least comparable with that of Padthaway in South Australia’s south east, it has a job ahead if it is to grow wine regarded amongst Margaret River’s finest on a consistent basis. In reality, the main difference between the expansion of the Margaret River region and that of one such as Coonawarra is one of cartography. While the developments in Margaret River are unquestionably changing the geographical focus of the region in a very visible and even controversial way, most of Coonawarra’s recent expansion has virtually been tacked onto its existing plantings. Frankly, I’d rather the new vineyards at Jindong than much of what has been shoved into the ground at Coonawarra. At Coonawarra the long and fractious argument over its tightly contested boundary enters its fourth decade, while at Margaret River this sort of debate is entirely meaningless since the region’s officially recognised extremities are already broad enough to contain a tremendously varied range of climates, soils and topographies. It’s what’s in the bottle and at which price that really counts and the market will ultimately decide. The huge number of ordinary wines which presently sell for over $30 per bottle in this country only exist because of a combination of overseas demand, a temporary shortage of good Australian wines and an hysterical and indiscriminate market apparently willing to buy anything from anywhere, irrespective of cost. This situation will not last and those wineries over-pricing their wines will inevitably lose out. Of more concern to me is that when a region like Margaret River evolves as it is into several distinct sub-regions, that these regions are fairly and accurately classified and applied to wine labels. These distinctions will help consumers know what they are buying, and they can then decide for themselves if the wine’s quality justifies its price. A number of sub-regional divisions have been proposed for Margaret River and most are based on substantial knowledge and experience. The sooner they are amalgamated into a cohesive plan, the better. Then, when a sub-region like Jindong produces a terrific wine for $25 a bottle, it can receive all the credit it’s due.
