Winemaker of the Year Profile – Andrew Spinaze

It could hardly have escaped the attention of any serious wine drinker that the 1990s has been a golden decade for Tyrrell’s, one of the jewels in the Hunter’s crown. Since 1989 Andrew Spinaze has been at the helm of the company’s winemaking and although he says that everyone, wine journalists especially, have given the Hunter’s climate a hard time, it’s not really something that bothers him. After all, he’s hardly known anything else.

Having first thought he was going to be a chef, Andrew Spinaze managed to fall into winemaking. From the northern NSW coast near Lismore, he worked for a while at Arrowfield in the Upper Hunter in 1978 before taking a potshot at Roseworthy College’s wine marketing and making course in 1979 and 1980. ‘Ninety percent of what we did was winemaking, including practical work at a winery. Mike de Garis introduced me to Tyrrells and I worked there during the really hot vintages of 1980 and 1981. Six months later I was invited to return, which I thought I’d do for around twelve months’, he says. Eighteen years later, he’s still there and not going anywhere.

Given the importance of chardonnay to Tyrrell’s in the 1980s, it says something for Murray Tyrrell’s judgement that he allowed one of his senior winemakers, John Cassegrain, to persuade him to put the company’s entire chardonnay production into the hands of the raw and unproven Spinaze. From Vat 47 downwards, Tyrrell’s chardonnay has never looked back, hardly even sideways.

In 1985 Spinaze was promoted to assistant winemaker to Mike de Garis, then the company’s chief winemaker, before taking over as Tyrrell’s senior winemaker in 1989. While he delegates much of the hands-on red winemaking to his capable right-hand man in Andrew Thomas, he is still very much the company’s white winemaker.

When Spinaze began with the company it was crushing around 550 tonnes, while today its total is around 8,000. ‘My responsibilities have changed every year, which keeps you hungry’, he says. ‘Every five years Tyrrell’s has doubled in size.’

Like many winemakers, Spinaze clearly revels in the opportunities presented by a tough year. ‘1990 was the wettest vintage I’ve had here, but it made some brilliant semillons and even some great red. 1991 was a hot year which you’d think would be better for red, but I’m not sure it was as good as 1990.’ It doesn’t matter whether or not you prefer the reds of either vintage, but it’s only the best winemakers who are prepared to put on record their pride in their wines from the really hard years.

Andrew Spinaze says his biggest challenge is to work with other Hunter winemakers to raise the standard and image of the region’s semillon. Personally, he wants to make the area’s best, and since I’m already on record as saying he does, I hardly think it’s beyond his range of powers.

While Tyrrell’s Vat 47 Chardonnay is consistently one of the best made in Australia each and every year, virtually irrespective of the Hunter’s climatic vagaries, there is richness and consistency to be found in the company’s growing support band of chardonnays, especially in the Moon Mountain and Old Winery labels. Similarly, Tyrrell’s offer a wealth of fine semillons, from Vat 1 to the Stevens, Lost Block and Futures labels, each of which consistently performs at the highest level.

Add to this his role in overseeing the Hunter’s most reliable range of shiraz-founded red wines and it’s clear to see that despite his modest profile, Andrew Spinaze is one of this country’s better and most influential winemakers. Please login to post comment