Regional Flavours in Wine

`IWhen I was first getting interested in wine I used to listen long and hard to those `in the know’, which at the time meant anyone who had drunk wine seriously for more than two or three months. I suppose it is a measure of the affection that I and thousands of others have for wine that we have gone on avidly consuming the stuff having been infused with evocative descriptions like `Hunter Valley sweaty saddles’, the `cowsheds of McLaren Vale’ and the like – all of which sounded about as attractive as drinking manure.

Wine’s regional characters aren’t necessarily as dramatic as these, and quite frankly, with the increasing use of modern techniques both in winery and vineyard, it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify wine regions, let alone individual makers. Keep that in mind next time you botch it up at wine options games. Everyone does these days.

Consider Australian winemaking twenty years ago – we had loads of stuff appearing from the Barossa and McLaren Vale, dribs and drabs from some warmer Victorian regions, loads of Hunter shiraz and semillon, Houghtons White Burgundy and Porphyry Pearl. Tasmania had yet to be discovered, and the Adelaide Hills were full of orchards. Coonawarra was the only cool climate. There weren’t that many players in the game, were there? Consequently the job of indentifying various regional wines was considerably easier than the mammoth effort confronting the wine-buff of the 1980’s.

Some poor chap in Melbourne could have awful difficulty just distinguishing the various regions on his doorstep. Imagine trying to accurately pick your way through a range of chardonnays – from the Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula, Geelong, Romsey, Sunbury and Macedon regions? Many times more difficult than the difference between an Eden Valley rhine riesling and a Hunter semillon, isn’t it?

Anyway, regional characters do still exist in modern wine, thank heavens, so let’s take a look. Point One is whether it is a regional character or not. I have mentioned the favourite joke of the wine buff, the Hunter sweaty saddle, but that’s really quite unfair these days, and those in the Hunter really haven’t made the point loud enough.

Sweaty saddle flavours are a combination of reduced sulphur faults, volatile acidity a rich, meaty wine style and bottle age – which in short means that after a few years most warm-climate wines which begin life with a little rotten-egg smell and a trace of the vinegars can develop this character with time. The Hunter certainly isn’t the only wine regional capable of this liquid phenomenon, so I don’t regard sweaty saddles as a regional character.

The McLaren Vale cowshed character, which I am certain would be regarded as the most gross insult by the modern winemakers of the region, can be attributed to much the same thing, but seeing that the region produces different grapes to the Hunter, the same thing expressed itself in a different way.

A more recent phenomenon is the jamminess of Coonawarra reds, which although present in the district for some time, has come into its own during the 1980’s. One of the possible reasons for its increase is the extent to which Coonawarra’s vineyards are mechanically pruned. Mechanical pruning produces many more bunches, of a smaller size, and also increase the range of ripeness present in the grapes at harvest. When the average ripeness of the crop suggests it’s is ready to pick, it is inevitable that some berries will be over-ripe, and others more immature. The over-ripe berries may be responsible for the jammy flavours, which leaves me in some doubt as to whether the character is truly regional or not.

While on the subject of Coonawarra, it is interesting to note that the mintiness once thought typical of the region seems to have dissipated. The modern cabernet merlot blends certainly don’t show it as much as the straight cabernets of the past. Perhaps people took note of this because Coonawarra was one of the first cooler regions to receive significant plantings of cabernet sauvignon, and it can be demonstrated that `mintiness’ is one of the characteristics of that grape.

When considering these regional characters, and whether they exist or not, think firstly of the region’s climate. It is certainly true to suggest that the warmer the climate, the larger the production generally, and the less distinctive the regional influences. I would defy anyone to regularly discriminate between well-made examples of table wines from Sunraysia, the Riverlands and the MIA. Because warm to hot regions produce fruit with less intense flavours and less complexity, differences in fruit from warm region to warm region become harder to identify.

Cooler climates are perhaps easier, although as I have indicated, their proliferation and modern technology tend to reduce the whole identification thing to a guessing-game.

Let’s take some of the more modern regional influences, beginning with Tasmania and New Zealand. Both wine areas to speak of them broadly have had problems with excessive vegetative flavours in their wine, which at worst resembles rotting vegetables. Careful site selection for warmer slopes, coupled with intensive trimming and hedging of the grapevine canopies creates more warmth, sunshine and better ripening for the fruit, with less greenness. Nevertheless, wines from these regions, especially from cabernet sauvignon and sauvignon blanc, tend to be greener than most.

Central Victorian red wines frequently show a pronounced eucalypt-menthol-mint flavour. This is either attributed to soil residues or to the presence of eucalypt oil droplets blowing in from adjacent forests, with the current trend of opinion in favour of the latter. It is quite apparent in reds from Bendigo, the Pyrenees and Mansfield.

In Clare there is a similar character – this time eucalypt-menthol-cream, and I suppose it has similar origins. But to me, the combination of eucalypt and cream always suggests a Clare red{ wine.

The Margaret River has typical rich, spicy smoothness, and a quite different creaminess, for which I have yet to receive a convincing explanation.

The Mornington Peninsula in Victoria frequently displays a spiciness to its wine, especially in the lighter reds of the region.

Now to finish as I started, with the Hunter. Many have written that no matter how differently or individually they start, good Hunter wines all end up the same. To some extent this has been true, and the regional influence has dominated the effect of grape variety, and even to some extent, winemaking technique. The whites finish soft, rich, honeyed, toasty and mouthfilling; the reds earthy, spicy, leathery and weighty, in both cases seemingly regardless of grape variety.

But as I have suggested, this is changing with the steadily improving technology and winemaking ability right across Australia. So remember these excellent excuses next time you pick a Margaret River chardonnay as Eden Valley, a Clare rhine riesling as Mt Barker, a Coonawarra cabernet as Yarra Valley, and so on…

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