Notes from Australia - Note 1 Western Australia IS Isolated

Tourist photo! I just couldn't resist it...

Many of you will know that I have just returned from a two week tour of vineyards and wine makers in Australia. It was a humbling and uplifting experience. I say this because I am of the opinion that I am in a privileged position whereby I can just drop in and visit with some of the worlds greatest wine makers and find that they are keen and happy to share their wines, ideas and thoughts with me. Sometimes they even give me the feeling that the privilege is theirs! For the past two weeks Australian wine makers did themselves proud. This is Note 1 of 25. Over the course of this series I hope to show you why I was so impressed and to share with you some of the craic and the adventure that I travelled through this month.

NOTE 1: Western Australia IS isolated - but its wine making is very classy and really well informed!

I now know why so many travellers miss out on Perth - it's a long way from Adelaide! About 3000kms actually. As many of Australia's wine regions are centered around Adelaide it's no surprise it can be a genuine cash saving exercise not to visit The West. Great thing is though its only 17 hours from Heathrow and you can crawl into your leaba in Perth just after midnight local time. My companions on the plane heading on to Melbourne were in for no sleep at all....

Our WA destination was The Margaret River. (I travelled with Gary O'Donovan of the O'Donovan Off Licence chain in Cork City - what goes on tour stays on tour...right Gary?) No time for other areas such as Swan or Great Southern. We drove. It's an easy (and quite boring) three and a half hours. As we saw our first vines it dumped the first decent rainfall onto the region in five months!! It didn't really stop raining until after we had left (100mm over the next 24 hrs!) Clearly, this brought forward our questions re rainfall or the lack thereof in Australia.

The region seemed wild and scrubby. In the rain, and away from the coast, I didn't feel any magic. I just felt isolated. Well, that was quickly dispelled by Bill Martin of Clairault Wines whose eyes twinkle when he tells you why he moved his family, first from Athlone in Ireland ('74) to Australia and then to a vineyard (1999) with no prior experience other than a lifetime of selling product in the drinks trade..... I quickly formed the opinion that first impressions are not always the best to rely on ... Bill LOVES everything about the place!

Pumping over a fermenting Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 must at Clairault Wines

Clairault has put a lot of work into its vineyards which cover about 50 hectares planted now. Bill's son, Brian, took us on a tour of the vines where we saw rolling hillsides with fantastic aspects, soils and of course elevation. In short it felt like a really good place to grow vines. Mind you, it wasn't so long ago that many industry 'expert's reckoned it a fools exercise to even try to work vines in these parts... 'Experts' eh?

Bill Martin (left) with his thoughtful and very interesting winemaker Will Shields

Clairaults wines show a fine SBB (Sauvignon, Semillon Blanc) an excellent restrained Chardonnay, where fruit drives the wine forward; a 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon that won't disappoint but folks get hold of the 2003 Estate Cabernet Merlot, it's a dream with beautiful balance and tremendous fruit character on the palate.

Bills wines show fruit that dance well on the palate and yet rely on good wine making to bring the finished product together. I wondered whether this was a theme worth bringing home -Margaret River wines are very much a product of their place and reflect a relatively cool climate style of wine but cannot exist without a close cooperation between man and his environment.

Bill was not short on comment and agrees when he says that Western Australian wine making , "has become sophisticated and very familiar with the notion of regionality....it needs to as Brand Australia was probably too successful and consumers looked for Australia rather than for specific Australian styles." He reckons that this needs to change quickly as Australia is producing too much wine. "Government sponsored Management Investment Schemes should never have been allowed near the wine trade. They brought in very ill informed people to the trade and now many of the 'Investment Vineyards ' need to be grubbed up (pulled from the ground)".

Bill sees small and family owned operations in WA having it tough but doing a lot better than the 'big guys'. "Breweries and wine don't mix. Fosters will have to get out (of the wine trade)"

As it was pouring rain outside I couldn't resist asking how WA was doing in relation to water! Not too bad was the answer. Clairault has four quite large reservoirs which fill up over the winter and effectively supply them with all of their water needs. In addition they have put a lot of effort into maintaining a healthy and water retentive soil throughout their vineyards. This has entailed a lot of work with composting, very low levels of spraying and minimal irrigation. See lots more on this at www.clairaultwines.com.au It shows in the wines.

So, environmentally friendly grapegrowing, thoughtful winemaking and oh yes, an excellent cellar door restaurant. Over the next few notes I hope to show that these are recurring themes right across the whole of the Australian wine trade. In the meantime Note 2 will give you lots more on The Margaret River where Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and (relatively) cool climate viticulture and wine making really is world class.

A water reservoir at Clairault Wines, Margaret River.
Then I saw my first kangaroo!

Lots more on the Margaret River in Note 2

Guest Blogger Sarah Wright on the brilliant Cotes de Castillon

Before I left for Australia recently - a lot more on that soon! - Sarah Wright contacted me with a view to publicising the school of wine she is working with in St Emilion at the top retailer Vignobles & Chateaux. www.le-package.com Sarah used to work here in the Irish wine trade and for the past eight years has been busy making herself very useful in Bordeaux. Check out the wine school and read on for Sarah's very cool Guest Blog where she tells us why the Cotes de Castillon deserves to be regarded as one of Frances great wine regions.

Having been lucky enough to work for some of the greats in the Irish wine world: Findlaters, when they were still Findlaters, and James Nicholson in Crossgar to name but two, I took it upon myself in 2002 to learn a little more about the production side of things, my appetite whetted by the WSET Diploma and vintages in South Africa and California. And so I debarked in Saint Emilion for a six-month ‘stage’ under the watchful eye of Nicolas Thienpont at Châteaux Pavie Macquin and Larcis Ducasse.

Eight years and a winemaking diploma later, I am still here, though no longer chez Thienpont and no longer doing daily battle with pumps, barrels and budgets. I could write some flowery prose about the allure and uniqueness of Saint Emilion wines, but there are many (way too many) others who have gone before me and so I would like to introduce, or possibly reacquaint you with the wines of the Côtes de Castillon.

Situated about 11km to the east of Saint Emilion, the Côtes de Castillon (since 2007, part of the AOC Côtes de Bordeaux) has witnessed an influx of Saint Emilion worthies over the last decade or so with the likes of Beau-Séjour Bécot, Canon la Gaffelière, Château Pavie, Thierry Valette, and others snapping up vineyards at a fraction of the cost of those just a couple of kilometres down the road.

The Laithwaite/Wines Direct empire is also based in Castillon, with much of their wines being shipped into the beautiful old chai on the riverbank for aging, blending and bottling by English winemaker Mark Hoddy.

With the same grape varieties and both a landscape and terroir akin to that of its more illustrious neighbour, this AOC produces some of the best value for money wine to be had on the right bank of the Gironde. Due to a cooler climate, good vineyard management is the key to avoiding under-ripe tannins with green harvest and leaf-thinning the rule as opposed to the exception that it was not so long ago.

Economic crisis or no, it is pretty much a certainty that due to another outstanding vintage, Bordeaux 2009 will see prices soaring again and although some wines from Castillon have prices to match those of Saint Emilion, the overall jump in standards has rubbed off on many of the more reasonably priced producers.

You can’t really go wrong with any of the vintages from the last decade, just bear in mind that 2002 and 2007 are light and early drinking, 2004, 2006 and 2008 are very typical and enjoyable vintages and 2001 and 2005 are the showstoppers, each for different reasons and each with a price to match. Yes, I have left 2003 out. I think it is overrated and already starting to tire, thanks to low acidity levels. I remember talking to Robert Joseph during the 2003 primeurs and he said ‘The French have had to make an Australian wine, and have failed’.

There are many properties to look out for from Ch. Roque la Mayne and Ch. Peyrou at the reasonable end of the spectrum through to Clos Puy Arnaud and Ch. Pitray and on to the big guns of Ch. Clos l’Eglise, Ch. d’Aiguilhe, Domaine de l’A and Ch. Joanin Bécot to name but a few.

This appellation, along with Fronsac, is where it is all happening at the moment in Bordeaux, so grab the bargains while they still exist because Bordeaux being Bordeaux, prices will only go up.