Back from the Red

Time wasn’t so long ago that if you wanted a decent red from one of the larger Australian labels you’d want a very good reason to think about Hardy’s. Penfolds certainly, Lindemans quite possibly and Seppelt maybe – but Hardy’s?? There’s only so much Nottage Hill you could drink, and what else did they make?

Enter stage right the BRL Hardy wine company of 1995, represented by its chief winemaker, Peter Dawson, head of a new and energetic winemaking team which includes Richard Rowe and Steve Pannell, the talented son of Moss Wood founder Bill Pannell.

Dawson is a modest guy who finds it hard not to look too excited when presenting the new BRL Hardy red wines, a stable whose new thoroughbred reds has helped to make BRL Hardy the second most successful exhibitor in national wine shows after the Southcorp group. Not bad when they’re only our third largest maker – behind Southcorp and Orlando. Dawson’s not happy, though. He wants his company up at the top.

These are some of the wines he hopes will get him there: the Eileen Hardy Shiraz, the Thomas Hardy Cabernet Sauvignon, the Chateau Reynella Basket Press reds, the Leasingham Classic Clare reds and the consistently under-rated Houghtons Gold Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. Their marketers have been barking about them for some time, but today you really can put a case for Hardy’s red wine.

‘With all our top reds we’re striving for richness and concentration of fruit flavour and to achieve that you need exceptional fruit in the first place. Then you have to take a hand-made attitude to winemaking’, says Dawson.

Perhaps the most acclaimed to date of the new generation Hardy’s reds has been the Leasingham brand’s ‘Classic Clare’ range of Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon. Sourced from the old Schobers Vineyard, they really demonstrate what dryland vineyards are all about – concentration of flavour, richness and balance. Having recognised its blunder in removing the popular Bin 56 Cabernet Malbec from the market, Hardy’s have also re-established it with a vengeance. Bin 56 is back, along with a delightful Bin 61 Shiraz, another old and fondly remembered label.

Top wines need top fruit – you can’t avoid that reality – and BRL Hardy hasn’t. Like most large companies they don’t grow all their own grapes, but unlike many others they’ve analysed the quality of each block they buy from. Looking forward to their anticipated future growth, BRL Hardy has also purchased another 3,000 acres of new vineyard, some already planted, some not.

Although several have required major redevelopment, several new vineyards have clearly been bought to provide the building blocks for future additions to the premium red family. There’s an air of expectation surrounding BRL Hardy’s purchase of the 183 acre Omrah vineyard at Mount Barker WA, the 215 acre Hoddles Creek vineyard huge by Yarra Valley standards and the 235 acre vineyard at Pemberton WA in which the company has a half share.

Dawson’s team has put a lot of effort into identifying where their best fruit comes from and have taken measures to control yields, manage irrigation frugally and remove unwanted vine canopy to improve fruit quality.

Once inside the winery, Dawson keeps his blending options open for as long as possible by keeping different batches of wine separate for as long as they can. ‘It’s a key thing for us to identify the high quality parcels of fruit and to give every batch the best possible chance of maximising wine quality’, he says.

Despite their access to a technocrat’s playground at McLaren Vale, Hardy’s winemakers choose to rely on traditional techniques for their premium reds, including open fermenters and basket presses. Dawson’s a firm believer in basket pressing, which he says enhances a wine’s richness and sweet fruit qualities, complementing it with soft tannins.

‘We have also put a lot of work over last three years into the quality of our oak purchases. We’re more interested in buying good quality oak rather than just more oak for the sake of it. An integration of good oak enhances our reds without dominating them’, he says.

Later this year BRL Hardy will release the 1991 edition of its new flagship red, the Thomas Hardy Cabernet Sauvignon. This, the label’s third release, is its best yet – a complete, intense and refined red wine which sits neatly between the elegant and the powerful; a brilliant red which you can enjoy now or after a decade. It says everything about BRL Hardy’s achievements of the last three years, and about where they expect to go. Please login to post comment