Destinations: France, 48 hours in Cannes
13 October 2020
Nature’s artworks: incredible fossils at auction
13 October 2020A Sense of History
Australian wines have more longevity than you might think – and there are some high-quality offerings among them
A
ustralian wine used to be a bit of a joke. Literally. Four decades ago, Monty Python’s Eric Idle put on his best faux-Bruce Aussie twang to introduce television viewers to the dubious pleasures of Château Chunder and a 1970 Coq du Rod Laver (as recommended by the Australian Wino Society).
Australian wines have more longevity than you might think – and there are some high-quality offerings among them
A ustralian wine used to be a bit of a joke. Literally. Four decades ago, Monty Python’s Eric Idle put on his best faux-Bruce Aussie twang to introduce television viewers to the dubious pleasures of Château Chunder and a 1970 Coq du Rod Laver (as recommended by the Australian Wino Society).
The sketch still worked when I first encountered it in the mid-1980s, but already things were changing in the UK as iconoclastic wine retailers such as Oddbins championed the increasingly high-quality wines coming out of the Barossa and McLaren Vale.
A generation on and Australian wines have achieved near-ubiquity in wine aisles across Europe and are on the lists of everything from local brasseries to the finest Michelin-starred restaurants. For many, though, it remains something of a young upstart, especially when compared to the history-laden bottles of the Médoc or the Côte d’Or.
Delve a little deeper, however, and you’ll discover that this is about as unfair as Idle’s assessment of Perth Pink: ‘This is not a wine for drinking, this is a wine for laying down and avoiding.’
Indeed, a swathe of family-owned wineries across the vinous heartland of South Australia were planning their first harvests in the far-off days of the mid-19th century when penal transportation from the UK was still in use.
Today, an affiliation of a dozen of these producers, Australia’s First Families of Wine, boasts a combined winemaking experience of more than 1,200 years. The impressive roll-call includes names such as Brown Brothers (1857), Tyrrell’s (1858), Tahbilk (1860), Henschke (1868) and McWilliam’s (1877).
Longevity, of course, is no guarantor of quality, and the story of fine Australian wine as we know it today, is a more recent phenomenon. The turning point is debated by wine historians, but a period of fierce experimentation and technical advances during the 1950s was arguably the most crucial time.
Leading this winemaking revolution was Penfolds (founded in 1844 by an English physician emigré) and its charismatic chief winemaker, Max Schubert. The pioneer of innovative techniques partly learned in France, Schubert was the man behind one particular Penfolds wine first produced in 1951 as an experiment.
Australian wines have achieved near-ubiquity in wine aisles across Europe and are on the lists of everything from local brasseries to the finest Michelin-starred restaurants
Sadly, Penfolds Grange Hermitage was a critical flop and Schubert was banned from producing it later in the decade (but defied his bosses and made it in secret instead). Renamed simply Penfolds Grange after 1989, it has become indisputably Australia’s most celebrated wine – and a bottle of that 1951 experiment was auctioned for just over A$50,000 (£33,000) in 2004.
Grange grabs the headlines (along with the many other Penfolds ‘Bin’ wines dating from that period and from the years since), but there is far more to Australia’s winemaking heritage. Nearly a century before Schubert’s ground-breaking work, German-born refugee Johann Christian Henschke was planting vines high in the Eden Valley, producing his first commercial vintage in 1868.
Some of those vines, remarkably, are still producing grapes in tiny quantities, and they form the backbone of (for some) the finest wines produced in Australia: Henschke’s hen’s teeth-rare Hill of Grace Shiraz and its superb sibling, Mount Edelstone Shiraz.
Let’s keep this in perspective: of course Australia’s winemaking history has neither the breadth nor the depth of that of France. After all, Samuel Pepys namechecks Château Haut-Brion a generation before the first European is recorded to have set foot on Australia’s shores. But it’s a heritage that should nonetheless impress even Messrs Idle, Palin, Cleese et al, and one that has spawned some truly fine wines as a counterbalance to big, modern brands such as Jacob’s Creek.
Which, by the way, can trace its history back 175 years...
Words: Staff
Four impressive vintages
Tyrrells Vat 1 Hunter Semillon 2004(£27.50, The Wine Society)
Is there any finer expression of this often overlooked grape? Hunter Semillons combine texture, citrus fruit and great delicacy and poise, developing into a gloriously honeyed, waxy wine that can last decades. Buy a case and chart this fabulous wine’s evolution one bottle at a time. Henschke Hill of Grace Shiraz 2005
(£350, The Wine Society)
In the pantheon of historic Australian wines, arguably the most sought-after beyond Grange. Marrying guts and velvety elegance, this is a remarkable wine from a remarkable vineyard, where the oldest vines go back a century and a half. Great vintage, too. Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz 2009
(£42.95, Lea & Sandeman; £49.00, Frazier’s Wine Merchants)
Dubbed ‘Baby Grange’ because of its maturation in barrels previously used for Australia’s most legendary wine (and because of its relative affordability). Remains benchmark Australian winemaking, blending Cabernet and Shiraz from an array of locations to produce a wine of great structure, perfume, fleshy fruit and spice. Jim Barry The Armagh Shiraz 2004
(£90, Mill Hill Wines)
Nearly 50 years after Jim Barry bought his first vineyards there, the company he founded remains a standard bearer for the Clare Valley. The Armagh remains his masterpiece – a huge wine of brooding power, densely packed but with a beguiling aromatic character.