It has no name, it will be white and it will be expensive. It will be released around the turn of the century with the pomp and ceremony of the Second Coming. Some have labelled it the ‘white Grange’. You can imagine how it began. It’s 1992 and we are up on the 23rd floor of Adelaide’s only tall building, the State Bank Centre. After a long meeting about its wine portfolio, Ross Wilson, keen wine enthusiast and Southcorp chief executive, is talking with the group’s chief white wine maker, Ian McKenzie. ‘We’re making the country’s best red wine,’ says Wilson. ‘So what’s stopping us from making the best white?’ The die was cast. A short while later Wilson and McKenzie agreed to embark on this remarkable project. McKenzie agreed on a loose timetable of around five years and Wilson confirmed that cost would not be an issue. Oak, fruit or equipment – whatever McKenzie needed he could buy. ‘We’re not talking about it as a ‘white Grange’,’ says McKenzie. ‘It’s not even going to be called ‘Grange’. We are however trying to make a white wine of the prestige and stature of Grange.’ It won’t be given away, either. ‘We have to justify the effort and prestige we will have put into it’, he says. So all Ian McKenzie needs to do now is to decide on which mix of grapes, where they’re to come from and how to make them. It’s the most intriguing exercise of its kind in the world today. Not hampered by the constraints of any appellation control system, McKenzie has been given carte blanche to do anything he wants to. ‘The best white wines in the world are the best white burgundies. They’re all chardonnays. Who’s to say that with a bit of semillon they might not be improved? The French can’t tell you. They’re not allowed to (do that). That’s one advantage we’ve got here. We can do this sort of experimentation in Australia. ‘Ultimately we’re more than likely looking at a multi-regional and possibly multi-varietal blend. We will probably finish up with a chardonnay or something with a high proportion of chardonnay. ‘Riesling’s a bit ho-hum. There isn’t enough interest in it in Australia, although once mature you can’t go past top Australian rieslings. Perhaps chardonnay has more to offer. Riesling is fruit-driven; you can’t stuff around with it. A winemaker has more opportunity to show some skill with chardonnay’, he says. So McKenzie and his team went to work. Deciding that nothing in the extensive Southcorp portfolio was experimental enough, he began to look outside. Besides, he says, until only five years or so ago, Penfolds winemakers made their whites a little like their reds – rich and powerful and constructed around very ripe fruit and oak. Penfolds generally sourced their white grapes from warmer areas, but unlike the true Grange, this no-name white wine is going to come from the cooler regions. ‘We’re not after traditionally Australian style wines. We’re looking for something with more finesse than that.’ Casting his net far and wide, McKenzie is combing the Adelaide Hills, the higher reaches of the McLaren Vale, the Eden Valley and Clare. Victoria is attracting much of his attention, especially the Yarra Valley, the Mornington Peninsula, the Strathbogies and Southcorp’s own property at Drumborg. McKenzie is also delighted with the chardonnay from the Southcorp vineyards in Tumbarumba (NSW) and says he will look very closely at some of the chardonnay from WA, especially from Pemberton. ‘The Hunter’s not consistent enough. It’s great in great years, but I wouldn’t like to rely on it. I can slip it in and out of the blend on an annual basis’, says McKenzie. Several parcels of semillon have already caught Ian McKenzie’s eye, especially some from the Adelaide Hills. ‘I’ve also been taken by a fabulous parcel from Kilmore, some odd bits from around the Strathbogies and I’m very interested in how they come up from the Yarra and Mornington’, he says. Adamant the wine will never be straight sauvignon blanc, McKenzie still says this grape may contribute some interesting characters to the blend. He’s keeping a watch on one particular wine from Macedon – a fruit-driven style given light oak to retain its herbaceous notes. Having made thirty or so trial wines for this project in 1994, McKenzie’s hypothetical recipe so far for ‘white Grange’ goes something like this. Take 80% chardonnay (possibly from Victoria), blend with 15% semillon (probably from WA) and add 5% sauvignon blanc (from who knows where?), from low-cropped vineyards at around 5 tonnes per hectare. Then it’s a question of what you do to it. Again, it’s far too early to say. McKenzie is experimenting with all sorts of techniques, from oxidative to protective handling, malolactic fermentation or non-malo, extended periods on lees, barrel fermentation and/or barrel maturation. He concedes that although he’s fiddling with some American oak, the wine will use predominantly French. Luckily for us, we don’t have to pay Grange prices to enjoy the benefits. Like the space race, this no-name project has its spin-offs. Already there is an excellent barrel-fermented Adelaide Hills semillon from 1993 on the market under the Penfolds label which justifies McKenzie’s faith in the concept. I just wonder if they’ll be able to stop us from calling the final outcome ‘White Grange’.
