As we move further into 2000 we’ll soon see the wines which performed well over this largely troubled Australian vintage. Eden Valley riesling may prove to be a joker in a largely disappointing hand, so some attention may revert towards South Australia’s other classic riesling region. It may also put under the spotlight a company that was right in the thick of things when riesling first made headlines in Australia and which quietly continues to achieve excellence with the variety: Orlando Wydnham. It’s a mystery to me why its premier riesling labels of St Helga and Steingarten are not more sought after by the born-again riesling sect. Perhaps it’s an image thing, but Orlando’s wines certainly stack up against the rest. ‘Don’t pull out your riesling till you’ve spoken to Orlando’ said a recent advertisement targeted at independent South Australian grape growers. For riesling is important to Orlando, as important to its modern identity as its history of leadership and innovation. To this company at least, the idea of riesling as a diminishing resource is, at the very least, unconscionable. Orlando prides itself on being at the cutting edge of riesling technology. In the early 1950s managing director Colin Gramp became aware of the techniques of using pressure tanks for fermentation then being used in Germany, which gave the winemaker total control over the escape of carbon dioxide. Gas pressure is increased if it is retained, thereby slowing the rate of fermentation, resulting in livelier, fresher and more aromatic white wines. The equipment arrived in time for the 1953 vintage, creating a remarkable wine which revolutionised white wine making in Australia, and initiating the now famous series of Orlando Special Vintage Barossa Riesling. It didn’t take Orlando and other makers long to realise that refrigeration was a better and more efficient means of achieving this result, but Orlando maintained its status as the country’s leading riesling maker until a genius by the name of John Vickery began in the early 1960s to create a remarkable legacy of riesling for Leo Buring. In 1962 the Gramps took another step into the unknown by planting a vineyard high in the East Barossa Ranges on a site virtually without soil. ‘Steingarten’ was gouged out with machines and explosives from a slope of decomposed schist rock in the hills high above Rowland Flat. Its vines were close-planted in classic Mosel fashion, each vine individually staked and trellised accordingly. From its earliest days Steingarten’s wines were noted for their inconsistency. As you’d expect from such a vineyard, seasonal variation was rather an expressive thing. At one extreme the wines could be tight and austere, at the other ripe and made into a sweetish ‘spatlese’ style. Today the windbreak which offered relief to the exposed Steingarten site in the 1970s and 1980s is being replaced, but for the last seven years it has severely lacked water, creating tough-skinned grapes whose wines are so phenolic they need blending to more supple material. Steingarten, which remains Orlando’s flagship riesling, has become a blend incorporating 10-20% of fruit from the Steingarten vineyard. Its makers consider it the best 1,000-2,000 cases of riesling they can create. Chief winemaker Phil Laffer says he is looking for ‘purity of definition and restraint on the palate, creating a wine with sufficient staying power to cellar for twenty-plus years’. One of the best buys in Australian riesling has for years been Orlando’s St Helga. Largely sourced from the company’s own vineyards at altitudes between 400-450 metres, about 200 metres above the Barossa floor, its makers have resisted the temptation to beef it up into a fruitier style in its youth – which might have made it easier to compete against young rieslings from Clare – and have retained its more fine and restrained Eden Valley qualities. ‘What it’s costing us in sales right now will win us friends over the longer term’, says Laffer. ‘We’re sticking to our guns.’ Phil Laffer has put on the public record that of all the Orlando Wyndham wines, those which give him the most satisfaction are the Jacob’s Creek range. Count the Riesling amongst his favourites, for given its price and volume, it’s a pretty fair proposition. ‘People shouldn’t be surprised at how good it is if they knew where the fruit comes from. They’re all good regions and the wine is only made from free run. We bottle early to retain its natural carbon dioxide levels and look for that vibrant green colour’, he explains.
