There are very good reasons why the Victorian vineyard of Taltarni is not better known in Australia and none of them have anything to do with any lack of quality. Taltarni’s picturesque home is in the relatively remote Pyrenees region, out of sight and often out of mind for it to develop a strong and parochial market in Melbourne. The Pyrenees has only a handful of small and medium-sized winemakers who naturally find it difficult to attract the same column inches in the press as the Yarra Valley and the Mornington Peninsula. Furthermore, Taltarni has never ostensibly followed a marketing trend in its 26-year existence. This company is moving along at its own pace. Consider that it’s 1998 and Taltarni is only now about to release its first non-sparkling wine from the world’s most sought-after white grape, chardonnay! It’s hardly changed its labels at all since its first release of 1977 reds and a recent tasting I attended confirms that while its modern wines sport more finesse and breeding than ever before, they’ve clearly all evolved from the same lineage. Taltarni was first established by a group of Ballarat businessmen, before passing into the hands of American investor John Goelet who also owns the famous Napa Valley wine producer, Clos du Val. That was back in 1972. The early efforts to increase the property’s area under vine were directed by the same David Hohnen who has since found considerable fame and fortune as the guiding light behind the evolution of Cape Mentelle in WA’s Margaret River region. But although Hohnen was actively involved from 1973-1978, Taltarni’s identity is inextricably entwined with the winemaking philosophies of a now expatriate Frenchman, Dominique Portet. If ever a man was programmed to make red wine, it is M. Portet. He has degrees in oenology and viticulture from Montpellier and worked in French and American wineries prior to arriving to take over the reins at Taltarni in 1976. But it goes back further than that. From 1955 to 1975 his father, Andre Portet, was technical director at one of the world’s most illustrious red wine properties, Chateau Lafite in Bordeaux. Furthermore, Clos du Val, Taltarni’s ‘sister’ operation in the US, was established and is still operated by Dominique’s brother, Bernard. Each brother now has a stakeholding in the enterprise he oversees. It doesn’t take long to accept the point that Taltarni’s red wines are well left of mainstream Aussie cabernet and shiraz. Instead, Portet has followed his own vision towards a particular style of red wine which he and his fellow winemaker Greg Gallagher have refined over two decades. There’s very little about Taltarni’s red wine that even suggests they’re Australian in origin. If, while sipping a mature Taltarni cabernet sauvignon by the shores of Lake Como my thoughts tended more towards the Napa Valley or Bordeaux, I’d be more amused than surprised. There’s no Coonawarra-like mulberry sweetness in the cabernet, no overpowering mocha-like barrel ferment influences and certainly no compromise to longevity by easing back on the influence of tannins. Portet also chooses his vineyard sites and harvest time to eliminate the minty eucalypt notes found in many Pyrenees reds, for the simple reason that he dislikes the character intensely. For much the same sort of reason, don’t expect an assault of sweet American oak when opening Taltarni’s shiraz. Its role model is more Rhone Valley than McLaren Vale and its style tight, restrained and complex, more ready to evolve over time than to provide instant gratification. Open a mature Taltarni red, let it breathe adequately and then take a pleasurable, but thoughtful sip. These are wines for the thinking drinker. They’re about strength, but also about refinement and balance. They’re about complexity, evolution and mystery. Like the Bordeaux reds of Dominique’s enviable upbringing, they’re designed to be cellared, for the duration. They rarely open eyes when young, even today, except when exceptionally warm seasons lend themselves to an almost opulent development of fruit. To focus so singly and successfully on the making of such cellaring wines is to understand not only about how to make a wine which appears balanced in its youth, but also one which is equipped to evolve over a long period. Penfolds, Wynns and Mount Mary, to name a few, understand the art, and so does Dominique Portet. What I find most fascinating about his approach to bringing up wine is his philosophy towards oak, an approach I believe to be entirely unique in Australia. Once they’re fermented out, almost all of Taltarni’s red wines, irrespective of their quality or likely destiny in the company’s small hierarchy of labels, is matured in very large and old oak casks for around six months. During this time they are carefully watched, every step of their evolution monitored by Portet and Gallagher, until they’re able to decide what sort of oak, in size, origin and age, each vat of wine will be gradually introduced to. In this way it’s virtually impossible for a Taltarni red to be over-oaked, something I’ve never seen under this label. Additionally, Portet’s slow, patient and gradual introduction of more assertive oak components from newer and smaller casks ‘builds’ the wine’s structure and complexity in a manner of great control. The top wines ultimately receive around 50% maturation in new oak and their extended time in barrels also adds greatly to their long-term stability and cellaring potential. ‘Instead of trying to quickly load up a wine with wood, we do it on a progressive basis which lets is evolve with oak. But we are trialling the use of new small oak with a small percentage young wine and the results are quite exciting’, says Portet. ‘We keep wines longer than most, but we’re very gentle with them. It’s usual for us to keep them for two years after fermentation. But our wines are richer and more powerful; they need more oak.’ While the 1995 Taltarni Cabernet Sauvignon is a typically firm, brooding long-term red, the 1996 wine, still in cask, looks an absolute beauty. Its heady, creamy aromas of rose petals, red and black berries and cedar precede a sumptuous, savoury palate with typical fineness and restraint. It’s tight, long and strong and is a worthy entry into your little black book of future prospects. You might also keep an eye out for the 1996 Shiraz, whose highly spiced aroma of venison, sweet cherries and sour plums is delightfully married with cedar and vanilla oak. Looking more French than Australia, it reveals delightful purity and clarity of bright, translucent spicy red berry fruits, balanced with tight, firmish tannins and balanced oak influence. ‘I’m trying to be more international in style and I don’t worry about being known as a French wine made in Australia’, says Portet. He could do an awful lot worse, and so could you.
