There’s More To Tassie than Cascade and Apple Juice…

From afar, a mainlander could be forgiven for dismissing Tasmanian wine as friendly, environmentally sensitive, nuclear-free and generally non-irrigated, although heaven knows there is enough captured water there should ever the planet warm sufficiently to demand its usage for things other than electricity.

Looking closer, Tasmanian wine is dominated by three ‘large’ companies, Pipers Brook, Moorilla Estate and Heemskerk, while in comparison, the rest are struggling to free themselves of the ‘cottage industry’ tag. Some are succeeding valiantly, others will take longer to be taken seriously.

Five short years ago Tasmanian wine was the flavour of the mainland month. Winemaking inadequacies were justifiably dismissed as teething problems by the wine media, amid a growing swell of enthusiasm for some of the purest and most complex fruit flavours some of us had ever seen in Australian wine. Brilliant wines of unique class were released by each of the big three, and rave reviews were dished out to names like Marions Vineyard, St Matthias and Glengarry.

Tasmania is blessed with a large number of vineyard sites able to grow fruit of stunning quality from certain varieties. Since its climate is on the edge of marginality as far as wine-growing is concerned, site selection is of prime importance. Only the very warmest and most sheltered vineyards, placed to receive the maximum sunlight will adequately ripen the later-ripening grape varieties such as cabernet sauvignon. Oddly enough, since it is a Germanic variety, Tasmanian riesling also seems to struggle for flavour, structure and intensity. The less said about its muller-thurgau, the better.

Generally speaking though, the earlier-ripening varieties of chardonnay and pinot noir are more suited to Tasmanian conditions. Both able to achieve full ripeness in terms of sugar content and flavour, they already contribute to a number of table and sparkling wines of international class.

So what has happened since the early days? There are now around twenty-five wine brands in Tasmania and others are champing to breach the market for the first time. Some wineries and vineyards have exchanged hands and the word is around that others are about to. The big three companies are still making wine as good, if not better than ever, and the smaller labels still promise the world.

Taking a glimpse from north to south, two of the state’s largest wineries, Heemskerk and Pipers Brook, are found a short distance apart in the Pipers River area. Both are most heavily committed to pinot noir and chardonnay, and Heemskerk is destined shortly to allocate half its entire crush to produce 5,000 cases of its premium sparkling wine, known as ‘Jansz’, made from these classic champagne varieties. In fact, Heemskerk is 50 owned by the French champagne house of Louis Roederer.

Heemskerk is also getting very close to international standard with its dry table wines from pinot noir and chardonnay. Its highly-talented young French winemaker, Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon, has worked miracles with recent vintages, 1991 especially.

Further down the road, Andrew and Sabrina Pirie’s team at Pipers Brook continue to make wine at a very high level. A 1991 Sauvignon Blanc is coming through with great integrity of fruit and balanced oak while the 1991 Chardonnay is a rich, fully-ripened wine of richness and balance, a showcase for cool-climate chardonnay. The best spot in the vineyard is reserved for the Summit Chardonnay, which in 1991 produced remarkable fruit, hand-made into a tiny quantity of tight-knit complex characters and rare richness, easily worth the $40 per bottle tag and the ten-year wait for maturity. The 1991 Pinot Noir, tasted ex-oak, confirms Tasmania’s aspirations for fleshy, complex pinot noir destined for the top shelf.

Other wines of interest from the Pipers River area are the pinot noirs of Delamere which are evolving towards complexity and richness, the unusual whites of Rochecombe, made with a secondary fermentation a la Swiss technique, of which the Chenin Blanc is an arresting alternative as a food wine, and the improving richly-flavoured chardonnays and pinot noirs of La Provence.

On the western edge of the Tamar estuary are found the vineyards of the Tamar River, of which the best-known names are Marions Vineyard and St Matthias. Others to look out for are Notley Gorge for their chardonnay and Holm Oak for their cabernet sauvignon.

Of those on Tasmania’s east coast, Freycinet stands out as a producer of serious pinot noir and cabernet sauvignon, thanks to its mesoclimate of unexpected warmth. The vineyard is naturally basin-shaped like a sun trap and its classy 1990 cabernet sauvignon is a classy wine of international pedigree.

Surrounded by the suburbs and hills of Hobart and the Derwent River is Moorilla Estate, about to re-establish its name on the basis of sensational forthcoming vintages of pinot noir and chardonnay. Its gewurztraminer, in sadly short supply, is brilliant for its freshness and elegance. After the hot 1990 season come the 1991 and 1992 pinot noirs, the former still in oak and yet to be blended, the latter just through fermentation when tasted. Both will set new standards in richness and complexity for this winery whose high reputation is easy to justify.

The valley of apples, the Huon Valley, can also grow quality fruit of another kind. I have been impressed with some of the cabernet sauvignons of the Elsewhere Vineyard and the Panorama Vineyard for their structure and style, the Panorama 1990 especially for its affordable price around $13.

Since it is far too small and cold to ever depend on making large volumes of wine for its survival, the Tasmanian wine industry has only one option – to secure a niche based on its individual quality alone. Therefore it must overcome two problems. Growers must put the right grapes in the right places, then winemakers must capitalise on their unique quality by converting them into wines of world class.

Too many Tasmanian red wines still display pungent and undesirable vegetative and herbaceous flavours – a result of inadequate sunlight, temperature and fruit exposure. In some sites this can be corrected by hard work redesigning the vineyard itself, but certain areas are simply too cold to produce adequate cabernet sauvignon – and indeed its white cousin, sauvignon blanc – on a consistent basis.

Then the ultimate challenge is to convert its quality fruit into a wine of commensurate standard. Slowly but surely more trained winemakers – again excluding the big three companies – are making wine for proprietors of Tasmanian vineyards. The quality of new names such as Iron Pot Bay, Holm Oak and Wellington attest to the ability of people like Andrew Hood to dramatically raise the state’s winemaking standards.

To put it bluntly, Tasmania still promises more than it has delivered in wine. Yet there is no escaping that it should still play an important role in Australia’s steady emergence as a quality wine producer of international standing. The rewards are there for the taking. Please login to post comment