A Decade of Domaine Chandon

Ten years after its first vintage, nobody yet knows how good Domaine Chandon could yet become. Has any other sparkling wine project achieved so much in such a short time, here or overseas? For its consistency from year to year, punctuated by steady improvement; for a range as diverse as champagne principals permit and for inspiring a global demand it couldn’t come close to meeting, Domaine Chandon is the indisputed pace-setter of top-drawer Australian sparkling wine. I’ve no doubt that its current range is the best collection of Australian sparkling wines ever assembled under a single brand.

Managing director Tony Jordan says that in 1985 when he began to develop the company and its first wines, it really had to develop its own market as well. Its undoubted success in convincing more Australians than ever before to consider our own alternatives to Champagne is one of the reasons so many exist today.

Moet et Chandon had actually processed an entire vintage before purchasing its 120 ha Green point property at Coldstream in Victoria’s Yarra Valley. Green Point was chosen because it was located in a cool climate suited to the Champagne varieties, its proximity to a large population centre Melbourne, for visitor and tourist access and for the scenic qualities of the site. Relax in the Green Point Room tasting the range while browsing on local goats cheese and bread and it’s difficult to fault the selection.

Export demand for Domaine Chandon – sold overseas under the brand ‘Green Point’ to save confusion with Domaine Chandon in the Napa Valley – initially caught the company by surprise. ‘Brands like Salinger and Croser have helped pave the way overseas for us’, says Tony Jordan, ‘but when we began it was to make for the domestic market only’. Green Point sparkling wines are now a common sight in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, Asia and Canada.

Moet’s senior blender, Richard Geoffroy, has been a welcome and invited influence as Tony Jordan and head winemaker Wayne Donaldson have gone about the business of determining wine style and working towards it. Convinced that wine complexity is in part produced by blending across varieties and vineyards, Domaine Chandon has gone about creating the largest pool of vineyard diversity in premium Australian wine, greater in spread I would imagine, than even Penfolds’ great red wine resources.
For its 1992 vintage wine Domaine Chandon took fruit from 19 vineyards, using 22 for the newly-released 1993 and around 25 for 1994 and 1995. ‘If we only used our own vineyard, we’d no doubt have greater seasonal variation. Access to this pool tends to flatten out any peaks and troughs, yet at same time enhances complexity’, says Wayne Donaldson.

To assemble its vintage blend, Domaine Chandon adopts Moet’s technique – basically one of negative assessment. ‘Firstly we look at all our components individually, then we blend them all together. We then remove components individually and try to determine the effect each has on the blend. Realistically, to look at all permutations would take six months, so we take into account our experience and understanding of the vineyards, especially those we are familiar with like Coonawarra, Delatite and our own’, Wayne Donaldson explains.

Richard Geoffroy is looking impart Moet style into the wine, without attempting to make it a Champagne. ‘I look to work the palate structure, to create creamy dry richness and good length’, he says. Tony Jordan looks for distinct and traditional aromas and for harmony between the varieties without dominance by either. ‘The name of the game is complexity, extra complexity’, says Geoffroy.

Domaine Chandon’s chief advantage over Champagne, says Tony Jordan, is that the Australian climate permits the creation of a vintage wine every year, something the French can’t do. ‘We never suffer a total write-off. We can’t go off the air.’ Please login to post comment