Discovering Frogmore Creek

While too many vineyards and wineries are using the tags of ‘organic’ and ‘biodynamic’ more as a marketing tag than a genuine commitment to quality, there are positive signs that Frogmore Creek, Tasmania’s first organic vineyard, is doing it for all the right reasons. Located in the surprisingly warm Coal River Valley, also home to the well-established signature brand of Domaine A, Frogmore Creek was developed by a group of Western Australian farmers who conducted extensive research before settling on their ultimate location in Tasmania.

The 436 ha property has an estimated 180 ha suitable for viticulture, so the Frogmore Creek team isn’t thinking small. They are gearing up for a projected 45,000 case production, with a 12 ha olive grove on the side.

One of the group is Tony Scherer, who manages Frogmore Creek’s vineyard. A pioneer of the American organic fruit and vegetable industry in the 1970s, he brings to the table fifteen years experience as an organic food producer in California and was a founder of the Compost Company, the first organic composting company for agriculture in Western Australia. He has consulted to several vineyards in Margaret River, including Cullen, and Cape Mentelle.

It’s still very early days to be able to measure the contribution to wine quality of an organic or biodynamic approach to viticulture. There are still not enough vineyards of top potential being managed with organic and biodynamic principles to get a precise read. It would be intriguing, for instance, to taste several vintages of wine made in exactly the same way from parcels of fruit taken from virtually identical sections of a vineyard, but managed with traditional horticultural principles, organic and biodynamic ones respectively.

Having said that, time and again I have seen myself the differences in soil health and texture that repeat themselves when people have changed from an old-fashioned and relatively thoughtless approach to viticulture to organics and biodynamics. But would the same have occurred without going the whole hog, by just taking a more fastidious approach to viticulture with modern technical means? Maybe yes, may be no. Impossible, in many cases, to say.

Just because a vigneron has adopted a biodynamic or organic philosophy in the vineyard, there is no necessary reason for them to make better wine than their neighbour who might not. There are simply too many other variables involved.

That said, several recent Frogmore Creek releases show significant potential. While its 2004 Chardonnay is to me a typically herbaceous Tasmanian expression of this variety, backed by nuances of sweet corn and green olive, its Riesling 2004 is a delightful expression of what Tasmania could be making much more of. With appreciable residual sugar, it’s perfumed and floral, with a bright, tangy and citrusy palate that finishes with lingering pear and apple flavours over fine, chalky phenolics. I like its balance and freshness, and the fact that had I not known it was Australian, I doubt I would have guessed it.

I have also enjoyed the Pinot Noir from 2004. It’s perfumed and musky, with appealing floral aspects to its spicy fragrance, and suggestions of undergrowth. Its palate is fine, supple and fleshy, with varietally correct flavours of black and red cherries and dark plums, backed by restrained oak. The best aspect about the palate is its underlying structure of fine, firmish and just slightly gritty tannins that provide a pleasing weight of backbone and substance. It’s not a pinot about to fade or disappear.

Typical of many emergent brands, they tried too hard with the Reserve Pinot Noir from 2003, as well as the sparkling wine from that vintage. Both suffer from an over-abundance of ripe fruit, and both lack tightness and shape. The sparkling wine is excessively broad and overdeveloped, and possibly has too high a pinot noir content. The Reserve Pinot Noir, like so many wines with a ‘reserve’ label, has far too much oak.

However, it’s early days for Frogmore Creek. With some refinement to its sparkling wine, and some evolutionary fine-tuning with its Riesling and Pinot Noir, winemaker Andrew Hood should be able to take this label upwards. These are the styles that Tasmania should become best known for, and it’s already off to a good start.

Unlike most Australian vineyards to have adopted organic principles, Frogmore Creek was set up this way from scratch. It takes time, especially in such a complex process as viticulture and winemaking, to be able to pinpoint precisely what effect results from what innovation, but there’s already something about the fruit quality, structure and intensity of Frogmore Creek’s early wines that should encourage its owners.

I believe that in a decade’s time we will all be much better placed to understand the effects of organic and biodynamic philosophies in vineyards good, bad and ordinary.
Regardless of that, much of what is being carried out under these banners are done in the name of less chemicals, a genuine love and respect for land, a sense of guardianship for future generations, and a conviction that quality will ultimately come from a process that cares for the soil and nurtures the vine. In itself, that is a very good thing.

Tasting Note for Frogmore Creek Pinot Noir 2004 Please login to post comment