West End

For years I was guilty of sharing the same views on Griffith red wine as most Griffith winemakers. That view was that quality red wine from Griffith was virtually an oxymoron. We – speaking in the broader sense of the collective – have one man to thank for proving us all to be wrong, and his name is Bill Calabria.

There’s no more unlikely winemaker with a mission than Bill Calabria. Having left school at the age of fifteen, his father set young Bill to work in the family vineyard. At the time the Calabrias’ wines were made by a consultant, who after twelve months swapped Bill’s role with that of his brother in the winery.

Young Calabria didn’t fancy wine himself and still doesn’t. He didn’t really like the taste of alcoholic beverages, and when all is said and done, is actually allergic to wine. But accepting that his role in life was to work in the family business, he took a positive approach and began to teach himself by reading books on wine and winemaking. The more he learned, the more winemaking was demystified and the more convinced he became that his consultant didn’t have such a great palate.

Shortly thereafter, the ever-thoughtful Bill reckoned that he wouldn’t ‘make any more blues’ than his consultant winemaker and in 1975 managed to persuade his father and brothers that he was ready to make the wine himself.

Several years later an opportunity arrived to attend a two-day winemaking course conducted by Brian Croser and Andrew Hood at Charles Sturt University. ‘Those two days were the best two days of my life’, remembers Calabria. ‘I couldn’t have struck two better guys to touch up on the rough edges I had from my practical experience in the winery and couldn’t have learned more if I’d been at school for two years. Then in 1989, when Andrew Hood came to work at our winery, we both realised that we could make high quality red wine from Griffith. Not knowing what I do now about the vineyard and using some pretty ordinary equipment, we started winning medals in Canberra and Melbourne.’

But Calabria’s timing was flawed. It was a tough time for Australian wine and Calabria only just survived the depressed market that caused many a winery to go under. Unable to sell out, he opened up a bottle shop in Griffith and managed to hang in until the market improved around 1993. He then returned to the winery determined ‘to make serious wine’. He also arrived at a rather novel and ambitious strategy for a would-be maker of serious Griffith red wine: he’d start a new brand which would only sell wines that had won gold medals in open competition with wines from all over Australia.

Which brings us to the Three Bridges range, the premier range from what is now known as the West End winery. Calabria uses deficit irrigation to reduce his red grape yields to less than four tonnes per acre, tiny crops by local tradition. He uses a form of pressurised farrow irrigation, which he believes superior to drip. Drip, he says, doesn’t wash salt away, and he’s still able to stress his vines more than adequately. He’s also keeping the times he drags machinery down his vineyard rows to an absolute minimum and reckons his soils have improved vastly as a result.

The reds are open fermented, pumped over and finished off in oak. Pressings are kept separate until blending and the wines receive on average eighteen months in small oak, around half of which is brand new. They are typically deeply varietal in character, with unexpectedly lively and bright rich dark berry and plum fruit. Their oak contact gives them plenty of assertive smoky, chocolate and vanilla character and a creamy texture, but I’ve yet to encounter one I thought over-wooded. They’re firm and tannic, approachable when young but ready to take a couple of years.

The first Three Bridges red released was the 1996 Cabernet Sauvignon, which Calabria regarded as something of a litmus test. ‘They always said it was too hot to grow decent cabernet here’, he says, ‘so once we did, I figured we could do it with almost any variety.’ Shiraz has since been added to the range, and Merlot is on the way. Not to mention a Chardonnay, of which the 1999 edition won gold medals at five national shows, the 1998 two golds.

‘I set myself the requirement of gold medals to gain credibility for the region from wine judges, then writers, and then consumers’, says Calabria. ‘Perhaps if the wines from 2000 don’t make it I might have to change my criteria, but so far none have missed out.’

There’s no more worthy champion of Riverland wine. Just back from an international Sunday Times Wine Club tasting in London, Calabria proudly reports that his Three Bridges Shiraz won the popular voted for best wine of the show. ‘I hope I’ve set a good example for the region and I’m really pleased that others are now following suit’, he says. Please login to post comment