Chardonnay is a household wine in Australia, but when you consider which Australian chardonnay to accompany your forthcoming fillet of poached trout a la moutarde hollandaise, it’s unlikely you would decide on a Cowra chardonnay unless you happened to live there. That’s where you could be going wrong… Enter stage left Welsh-born front man of Australian wine, Len Evans. “Who says you need a cool climate to get flavour in a wine?”, he challenges, having neatly and expertly expectorated the 1991 Rothbury Cowra Chardonnay into an ice-bucket from several paces. “You need to cellar wines from cool climates for years to get the sort of depth this wine has in its youth. And then, after a few years in the bottle… Just look at that 1981! Bloody marvellous!!” The man is correct. I still find it extraordinary that the 1981 Rothbury Cowra Chardonnay, a wine made to fill a commercially-priced market niche, could evolve into such drinkably wondrous nectar only a decade later. And that’s despite knowing well what Houghtons White Burgundy can turn into when given half a chance. All the things that Len Evans is most pleased about in Cowra Chardonnays – flavour, richness and persistence – are undeniable. And although they’ve not the subtlety, finesse or elegance of premium cool climate wines, they do suit many foods and are simply a joy to drink. Cowra is one of several smaller wine areas dotted in a line from Wagga to Orange, just inside the barrier of the Great Divide. Essentially a warm to hot climate, it is best known for its chardonnay, typically peachy, creamy and melon-like, whose youthful tropical flavours ultimately prelude complex honeyed, toasty flavours of bottle age. To stumble through a tasting of Rothbury’s Cowra Chardonnay from 1981 to the present day is to watch the evolution of a wine. It’s easy to see why a Hunter valley-based producer like Rothbury gets so excited about Cowra, for its seasonal consistency is something to be envied. If the last decade is anything to go by, 1983 excepted, good year seems to follow excellent, and vice-versa. Although it’s such a young wine, the 1981 Rothbury Cowra Chardonnay is full of the peach-melon fruit that chardonnay abounds with in warmer climes. There’s some nuttiness and spiciness and on the palate some fairly hefty charred oak influence softened by the wine’s oily texture. It’s broad, rich and flavoursome, with fullness and easy-drinking charm. If anything the 1990 is better, with more figgy and perfumed vanilla on the nose to complement the statutory peach-like fruit. Soft, round and oily, the palate is generous and ripe, developing quickly. The sample of 1989 Chardonnay could have been a shade corky, so I’ll put the slight bilginess witnessed down to that. Although Evans says they’re all made in much the same fashion, you get the feel that the malolactic fermentation played a more significant role before 1989. Obvious malolactic signposts of butterscotch with hints of toffee and bacon shine through the 1988 like a light, but the wine is rich, full and smooth despite finishing a little short. Along with the 1981, the decade’s best was the 1987, which just goes to show how quickly a well-made warmer climate wine can become utterly desirable. It’s figgy, honeyed and richly flavoured, with a long palate and soft acids. It’s so powerful you could only serve it with strongly-flavoured dishes such as barbecued prawns, baked spatchcock or pork fillets. Although still hanging in, the 1986 is becoming quite madeirized, with a voluptuous palate still given zing by soft acids that refuse to roll over. The 1985 and 1984 showed their age by losing some fruit integrity and acids, while the 1982 was apparently content to show its maturity like a fading diva. But fading the 1981 was not. Complex, toasty and honeyed, with hints of figs and creamy oak, its a marvellously round and meaty wine, very much alive, with integrity and freshness. I’d buy it on sight in the future. So what does this tell us? Chardonnays from Cowra, Cowra Vineyards (the wine company) included, are well-priced and affordable wines which make good drinking while young, but even better drinking five years later. And the wines from great years, well, they’ve got a decade ahead. Off the beaten wine track, Cowra is a brisk forty minutes north of Young, the self-proclaimed Cherry Capital of Australia, and itself a blooming wine region. Preening itself splendidly under the first cherry-blossom of spring, as I hurtled through recently, Young rises out of lush rolling pastures, as if so positioned just to shake the journeying driver out of complacency or boredom. A living avenue of colour about a million miles from anywhere, Young presents an unexpected spectacle, many times more striking than the fairy lights in the trees of Collins Street. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of Cowra, which hides its horticultural under a bushel. You can move from one end of Cowra to the other without ever feeling that expectant tinge of excitement that usually accompanies a visit to a wine town. As I’ve suggested, Cowra’s image hardly does justice to its wine. The white Burgundian grape first captured attention there with the remarkable 1980 Cowra Chardonnay released by The College at Wagga Wagga and made by well-known winemaker Brian Croser. Cowra was also the source of fruit for the early Petaluma chardonnays, which today are predominantly made from Adelaide Hills material. The next great Cowra wine was made only a year later – the Rothbury Estate Cowra Chardonnay 1981 extolled above, made in the year that Rothbury commenced sourcing fruit from Cowra. The quality of that chardonnay must have impressed even then, for Rothbury purchased 36 hectares of mature vineyard a year later in 1982, which with graftings and further expansion now stands at 44 ha. Rothbury and its Chairman, Len Evans, are committed to Cowra. When you give the wines time and take a close look, you don’t have to be Len Evans to see why.
