Of Dal Zotto and the Italian Push

A flick through any Australian telephone directory will rapidly confirm this: there is an Italian community over here that is alive and well. To go much further than that, one could suggest that over the last twenty or so years it has become positively fashionable to flaunt any level of Italian heritage you might have, no matter how insignificant it might be. A number of friends I knew years ago as Richard or Claude today answer their telephone with a heavily accented: ‘Buon giorno, Ricardo here’, or ‘Eh, this is Claudio’, before the now-statutory farewell of ‘Ciao’, where once a simple ‘good-bye’ would have sufficed.

On the other hand, the same investigation will confirm that there isn’t nearly as significant a representation of French living amongst us.

So why are most of the wines grown in Australia made from French varieties? Isn’t this just a little odd, especially when so many of our best and most popular restaurants are based on Italian cuisine, and with the stark reality no wine happens to go with Italian cuisine like Italian wine itself?

Simply put, we grow the grapes we do because they were the first introduced here or, like chardonnay and sauvignon blanc, Australians responded to a world-wide demand for them. To this point in time, most of the slowly-growing demand for wines from native Italian grapes has been satisfied by Italian wine itself, much of which is very price-competitive in today’s market.

Most of the major Italian red grapes are now reasonably well represented on the Australian wine scene, but it would not be realistic to suggest that the Italian makers with good export sales to Australia should start getting worried. Just as Australian winemakers showed when pinot noir was first introduced here, you don’t go making wines with transplanted varieties that taste and feel as if they’re related to the original versions overnight.

It takes time to track how the varieties perform in unfamiliar vineyard sites and then match them to the most appropriate terroirs. Then you need to absorb and deploy centuries of winemaking traditions and techniques in a matter of years, often doing things to fruit that you would never dream of if it were cabernet, shiraz or merlot. And then the fine-tuning begins, a process that really takes decades.

Given all that, Australia’s performance is not so bad. Our table wines from Italian varieties tend to be fruitier, more forward, overt and obvious in their flavours than their Italian counterparts, which are typically tighter, drier, more reserved, savoury and complex.

A couple of classic examples are made by Otto Dal Zotto indeed the name he was born with at his family’s eponymous winery in Victoria’s King Valley. Like many other families of similar origin, the Dal Zottos formerly grew tobacco, but changed direction over the last twenty years. Otto Dal Zotto was born at his family’s vineyard at Valdobbiadene near Veneto in northeastern Italy, and today his sons Michael co-winemaker, Julian viticulturist and Christian sales and marketing have joined the business.

Having bought their property at Cheshunt in 1987, Dal Zotto planted chardonnay, merlot and cabernert sauvignon, but in 1994, the year of the first Dal Zotto wine, he made a momentous decision that his family will never regret. He introduced to the vineyard several Italian varieties, namely barbera, sangiovese, pinot grigio, prosecco and arneis.

Arneis is an ancient variety from Alba in Piemonte in northwest Italy. It was recently saved from extinction by a few notable Barolo makers, and with releases under labels like ‘i’, Pizzini, Rochford, Kingston, Brown Brothers, Box Stallion and Dal Zotto, has found a niche in Australia. Traditionally used in Italy to soften out the occasionally coarse tannins of nebbiolo, its typical varietal flavours include pear and almonds.

A rare treat, since it’s hard to find other than direct from the winery, is Dal Zotto’s 2005 Prosecco, the first such wine made in Australia. It’s a lightly effervescent and entirely fruit-driven sparking wine of delicate flavours and aromas. Rather than duplicate the yeast-derived influences of Champagne, Prosecco undergoes its second fermentation in tank, and thankfully so.

The best Prosecco hail from Dal Zotto’s native Valdobbiadene, and they are 100 made from the prosecco variety. Little wonder, then, that Dal Zotto’s is also straight prosecco. Its aromas of pear and fuji apple reveal some delicate spicy dustiness, while its intensely flavoured and soft-textured palate culminates in a lingering savoury finish of cinnamon and clove. Wrapped in refreshingly tangy acidity, it has just a faint hint of sweetness. Please login to post comment