Some winemakers get pretty poetical and lyrical about wine, especially their own, while others just tell it as it is. Iain Riggs is very clear about what he wants from and sees in wine, especially his own, and this clarity has helped to make him the winemaker, manager and judge that he is today. Iain Riggs arrived at the Lower Hunter Valley winery of Brokenwood late in 1982, just before the first Graveyard shiraz was produced. Prior to that, after a five-year stint at Bleasdale, Riggs was Hazelmere’s winemaker for two years, during which time he became a disciple of the Croser-Jordan school of winemaking of small winery techniques, milk-crates and cool rooms. Hazelmere was, along with Katnook Estate, one of this dynamic duo’s first big-time success stories in their Oenotec consultancy. Riggs’ 1982 Hazelmere Chardonnay was one of the first multi-trophy winning Australian chardonnays, winning trophies at Adelaide and Canberra, and notching the gong at the Bushing Festival caused Riggs and his wife to be anointed Bushing King and Queen. While Hazelmere folded later that year, it provided rich experience for Riggs, who says today that its lightly oaked blend of 1982 sauvignon blanc and semillon formed the basis for Brokenwood’s very successful Cricket Pitch dry white more than a decade later. Riggs was then channelled through the Croser-Evans-Halliday connection to Brokenwood, where he remains to this day. Instead of being daunted by the challenge represented by the Hunter climate, Riggs found himself pretty excited about it. Even to the extent of helping to redefine the region’s best wines of semillon and shiraz. ‘When I arrived I made sure a cold room was in place and that we had a big stack of milk crates. I cut my fingers galore, but made a semillon with immediate appeal and intense grassy varietal character.’ It didn’t last that long in the bottle, but Riggs learned something. He now makes two different Hunter semillons, one being up-front, herbaceous and approachable, the ILR Reserve being the other, a classic long-term wine which he wants to peak between five and twelve years of age. He makes the second by seeking more tightness and restraint and by ‘knocking out’ any herbaceous characters, or else ‘it ends up smelling like compost’. It’s for Brokenwood’s Graveyard shiraz that Iain Riggs collects most of his accolades. In Graveyard, Riggs has fashioned a true icon wine. Its presence enriches the company of premier Hunter Valley shiraz, yet it’s distinctive enough not to confused for any of the others. Although it can push the upper limits of ripeness and oak treatment for a Hunter shiraz, Riggs is looking to make a wine of medium weight and texture, never the opulence one might associate with the Barossa or McLaren Vale. ‘The style of the wine is palatability, balance and finesse, and similar in the way that semillon grows in the bottle, the wine just hangs there. You can see why the early winemakers called the style ‘burgundy’, it’s so soft.’ During his time at Brokenwood, Riggs has been typically frank about the Hunter’s strengths and weaknesses. He’s pushed the company into owning vineyards at McLaren Vale and his fondness for Yarra Valley pinot noir led to Brokenwood’s happy association with and ownership of Seville Estate. ‘The Hunter doesn’t grow decent floral varieties like cabernet, riesling, graminer and pinot, so we’ve had to get them from elsewhere’, he says. At Seville Estate Riggs has enjoyed making chardonnay from ‘wild stinky ferments’ and ‘mucking around’ with shiraz with ‘spicy black pepper and sometimes a white pepper background’. He also enjoys the relative freedom enabled by Brokenwood which has seen him heavily involved as a board member of the Winemakers Federation of Australia, President of the Winemakers Forum and Deputy Chair of Wine Australia since its inception. He’s also in high demand locally and internationally as a wine judge. As for the best wine he’s ever made? The 1986 Graveyard, he says, which might yet be pipped in time by a more recent achievement, the 1998.
