It’s not often that I’m genuinely intrigued by the completion of yet another winery. Yet, in the case of Shadowfax, a brand-new winery and vineyard project given an appropriately equestrian name at the very horsey Werribee Park, I’m very, very interested. For a start, two of the more prominent names in the consortium behind this winery are Stewart Langton and Andrew Caillard MW of Langton’s Fine Wine Auctions, Australia’s two highest-profiled wine auctioneers. Through their Classification of Distinguished Australian Wine, Langton and Caillard have strongly promoted the quality aspect of this industry and anything less than first-class wine under the Shadowfax brand would perhaps dilute their message. All of which puts just a little pressure on the shoulders of Shadowfax winemaker Mat Harrop, an energetic young Kiwi whose most recent placement prior to this venture was as senior winemaker at Nautilus Estate in Marlborough, New Zealand, before which he had spent three vintages from 1994-1996 as winemaker for Brokenwood in the Hunter Valley, making some exceptional wines in the process. A Roseworthy graduate, Harrop has also spent a vintage as assistant to Jeff Grosset and has ‘done the flying winemaker gig’ in Tuscany and Moldova. Two months of a staple diet of cabbage soup at Moldova has tended to reduce his enthusiasm for this sort of winemaking, but he thoroughly enjoyed his Tuscan experience, much of which was at tiny red specialist of Riecine, working with the somewhat eccentric and thoroughly likeable English winemaker Sean O’Callaghan. If any winemaker were going to realise Langton’s and Caillard’s expectations at Shadowfax, this winemaker is that winemaker. He’ll also have the option of deploying Caillard’s qualities as a sounding board when wine styles are being determined. In addition to the winery itself, the Shadowfax group have planted eighteen acres of shiraz on their site at Werribee Park, for which they have obtained a fifty-year lease. It’s a warm, dry part of the world and its soils are surprisingly deep red clay loams overlying sand. However, having arranged to source fruit from ‘regions with established reputations’ with other varieties, Harrop will have more on his plate than shiraz alone. From the Adelaide Hills will come chardonnay and sauvignon blanc, from the Yarra Valley pinot noir, from Geelong more pinot noir and from the McLaren Vale more shiraz. Shadowfax will also receive fruit from a vineyard planted to shiraz and viognier for its own purpose at Tallarook in central Victoria, while other ‘bits and pieces’ will also be bought on a more ad hoc basis. ‘We’re relying heavily on growers and have targetted smaller guys willing to do the necessary work in the vineyard’, says Harrop. Last year Shadowfax made some wine including 300 cases of riesling, 300 cases of chardonnay and 200 cases of shiraz from Winchelsea, although its 500 tonne capacity new winery has just been commissioned in time for the 2000 vintage. It’s envisaged this vintage that the facility will process 50 tonnes each of shiraz and chardonnay, 40 each of pinot noir and sauvignon blanc and ten of riesling and pinot gris. Architect Roger Wood is responsible for what is, in an ever more cluttered world of winery concepts, a genuinely original winery design. The building is an arresting trapezoid shape of corten steel which has been specially treated to crystallise on its exterior into a typically rusty orange colour that looks as if it might have emerged overnight from the property’s similarly red soil. Stewart Langton compares its shape and colour to the appearance of an old shipwreck. The opening of its cellar door, located just over half an hour from the city of Melbourne, will coincide with the release of Shadowfax’s first three wines and possibly with the 2000 vintage Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris. I look forward to tasting and reporting on these wines.
