Tassie begins to reveal its potential

It’s finally happened. Tassie has really woken up. Today there are more reasons than ever before to take Tasmanian wine seriously. Where once there was just a frustrating mix of great potential with hype, over-priced and under-ripened rubbish, there is now a steadily growing population of fine, easy-drinking quality wine made under labels both old and new.

It would be patently obvious to the visiting wine-drinking Martian that Tasmania’s cool, southerly placement between the Australian mainland and the Antarctic ice cap lends itself more towards the varieties of chardonnay, pinot noir and riesling. On occasions some fine cabernets are made by producers such as Pipers Brook, Freycinet, Rotherhythe and Holm Oak, but the point is that top wines from this late-ripening grape are the exception rather than the rule.

Despite its somewhat chequered history, there’s no escaping the fact that Tasmania’s true red wine is pinot noir. It’s no accident why the current crop of top examples is as good as they are. The best Tasmanian makers are finally focusing on how to best accumulate flavour and ripeness in their vineyards. The best vineyards are now sited in warmer and less vigorous sites. The promising young vineyards of yesteryear boast mature vines today.

Over the years I’ve found reason to be critical at a lack of winemaking expertise evident in Tasmania. By and large, that issue has been corrected, especially with the arrival and impact of winemaking consultants like Andrew Hood. Hood, formerly of Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, not only operates his own brand of Wellington, but makes wine for so many different people he reckons he’s in charge of up to thirty different pinot noirs each year. Nobody in recent years has had such an impact in the improvement in Tasmanian wine.

Hood observes a better appreciation of different Tasmanian styles today. ‘I think there’s been a meeting of market and production. A lot of Tasmanian makers are heading towards more fruit-driven wines rather than the more ‘feral’ and cheap Burgundian styles and the market is starting to respond to that’, he says.

‘Our fruit has improved, our canopy management and our understanding of ripeness. When our fruit ripens properly the results are worth it. There’s more of an appreciation of the balance between quality and quantity. I’m not an advocate of rocky dry hillsides, but with pinot noir it’s so easy to lose quality with quantity. Our appreciation of fruit exposure and disease control is better than was just five years ago. It has led to better reds all over’, he says.

Another reason Hood offers for the improvement evident in Tasmanian pinot noir is the increased maturity of its vineyards. ‘The young vineyard syndrome can be attractive’, he says, ‘for you see a simplicity of intense fruit and colour in their wines. But as vines get past 5 and more years of age you begin to see their real inherent complexity as well as the retention of primary pinot fruit character.’ Now that Tasmania has several fully mature pinot noir vineyards, and not just those of Rotherhythe, Moorilla Estate and Pipers Brook, it’s possible to see the benefits quite clearly.

It’s Hood’ s belief that once it’s in the winery, you don’t have to do anything special with good pinot noir fruit. He says openly that provided the fruit is okay, pinot noir is not a difficult variety to make. ‘You often hear this cliched business of how pinot noir is such a heartbreak variety. But that happens most often when the fruit is not grown in the right areas and you have to push and shove to make it produce anything half decent. With good fruit, pinot is a pushover. It has extremely strong varietal flavours and you do get real complexity.’

Hood’s approach to making pinot noir would surprise many of the New World’s leading producers, who have leaned heavily towards a high percentage of whole bunches and stalks in their ferments, high temperatures during fermentation and a minimum of filtration. ‘You don’t need stalks and whole bunches with good fruit’, he says. ‘I use no whole bunches and virtually no pre-maceration fermentation. I’m making at least 30 different batches of pinot, so I don’t have the space or the resources or time to start these refinements. They all get the same treatment. At the end of the day, it’s amazing that we get such a different range of styles from different vineyards.’

Hood inoculates with cultured yeasts and doesn’t make any attempt to control ferment temperature, which never gets beyond the mid to high 20s degrees Celsius in Tasmania’s cooler climate. He presses the wines once the ferments are fully dry, returning all the pressings to the wine. Apart from a spell in stainless steel while they are finishing their secondary or malolactic fermentation, the wines remain in oak until bottling between December and March the next year, depending on how much oak influence they require. Leading US wine commentator Robert Parker would doubtless be horrified to discover they are all sterile filtered on their way into bottles.

Of the pinot noirs made by Andrew Hood, I’m most interested in the potential of the wines from the Elsewhere Vineyard, which simply burst with intense spicy berry fruit. The tiny east coast vineyard of Spring Vale produces finer, leafier pinot noirs from vines now beginning to show the benefits of maturity. It has only released three vintages to date, but the first releases of pinot noir from the Winstead vineyard, only 30 km north of Hobart, reveal a strength of flavour and character. Hood’s own Wellington label produces a fine and restrained pinot noir of delicacy and elegance.

Freycinet, the larger east coast producer, which is owned and operated by the Bull family, creates rich, fruit-driven pinot noirs of intense spicy fruit flavours, while Rotherhythe, for mine the leading Tamar Valley vineyard, releases mature pinot noirs of rare depth and complexity. 1994 was generally a fine year for Tassie pinot, but the 1994 Rotherhythe is truly something special. Pungent and spicy, it reveals an enormously complex spectrum of flavours from the traditional and the farmyard to the pristine, pure dark and maraschino cherry.

Two relatively new vineyards in Crosswinds and Orani both released fine, spicy and fleshy pinot noirs from 1996. Musky, wild and briary, the Crosswinds wine has a sweet, supple texture and firm, fine tannins.

They might have nothing in common with the traditional Australian riesling, but like the best from New Zealand, the Tasmanian expression of this premier white variety has a distinct connection to some of the wines of Germany and Alsace. The state’s undoubted potential with this grape reveals itself in slow developing floral, citrusy wines with long palates and a bracing freshness. The best examples are made by Winstead, Wellington, Moorilla Estate and Pipers Brook. Perhaps as the riesling bandwagon gains momentum, Tasmania might actually have discovered something to outgun its own chardonnay. Please login to post comment