Here’s one for those of you who enjoy the best-kept secrets in wine. Duncan McGillivery, who used to ply his trade with the Hardy Wine Company, has crafted a couple of delicious wines at Deakin University’s Waurn Ponds campus, a few kilometres west of Geelong in southern Victoria. Both will feature regularly around the Oliver barbecue and kitchen table this coming summer. Waurn Ponds Estate’s Shiraz 2005 and Chardonnay 2006 are unpretentious, Francophilic in style and quite delicious. While the Chardonnay has a little more attitude and polish, each are easy to enjoy and as I am likely to confirm, exceptionally easy to drink. It’s my view that when spending between $15-20 for a bottle of wine you’re looking for genuine varietal character, a totally sound product and perhaps a particular aspect of character or personality. These two wines deliver all of that, by the bucketload. Planted in 2001, the Waurn Ponds Estate vineyard is actually located on the campus at Deakin. It’s deliberatly managed to crop around two tonnes to the acre, to use the old vernacular, which is impressively low. Given the full Burgundian treatment, the Chardonnay is barrel fermented, given a full (but impressively restrained) malolactic fermentation, extended on-lees maturation and only saw the insides of new French oak casks. Given its slightly more modest depth of fruit, the Shiraz experienced an intelligent level of only 25% new oak, the rest in second and third-use cooperage. Again, all was French. Only 100 cases were made of each of these wines. They’re a snip at $17.50 apiece from the cellar door, which can be contacted on [email protected] or by phone on 03 5227 2143. Not for a moment would I suggest they’re the best wines you’ll drink this summer, but for their combination of flavour, price and distinctive character, they’ll take a lot of beating.
