Winemaker of the Year – Vanya Cullen

There could hardly be a more appropriate or popular winner of the Qantas and The Wine Magazine’s Winemaker of the Year for 2000 than Vanya Cullen, winemaker and manager at one of the most prestigious and sought-after of all Australia’s thousand-plus wineries. Popular not only because she’s a well-travelled ambassador for Australian wine who talks and tastes with disarming honesty, and appropriate since she’s an exceptional winemaking talent whose skills have been able to flourish within her family’s own business.

Like her mother, Margaret River pioneer Di Cullen, who was herself winemaker at Cullen until handing over the reins to her daughter, Vanya does her best to conceal her abilities behind an attitude of exceptional modesty. She was indeed the only person at who attended the presentation dinner staged at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art who was genuinely surprised by the outcome. And despite the fact that she’s been in charge of winemaking at Cullen since 1989, she still admits to bewilderment and surprise and bewilderment that she’s actually become a winemaker at all. That’s a little like Bryn Terfel saying he could always have gone down the pit instead. In case you reckon that’s a slight exaggeration, just taste the unbelievable Cullen Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot from 1998 and see what I mean.

It’s a measure of her standing in Australian wine that for the judging panel, comprising wine critics Peter Forrestal, Peter Bourne, Huon Hooke, Maryann Egan plus this humble correspondent, to elect Vanya Cullen as this year’s Winemaker of the Year was but the work of a moment. In typical form, she celebrated long and late at the post-dinner function at which she was persuaded to deliver, in her classically trained voice, a moving song she simply refers to as ‘Dad’s Song’, a tribute to her father and co-founder of Cullen Wines, the late Dr Kevin Cullen.

Indeed the night virtually became a Cullen family affair, since Vanya was not only accompanied by Di Cullen, but was seated next to her sister, Shelley, herself accompanying her husband and another of the ten finalists in this year’s Winemaker of the Year, Pierro’s Mike Peterkin.

Speaking as a member of the judging panel, it really was a matter of time before Vanya Cullen collected the award. One of the original eight nominations in 1998, its inaugural year, she has in the two short years since that time even managed to lift the Cullen standard to an even higher plane. I’ve no doubt whatsoever that the current new releases of Cullen wines are the company’s best collection yet. They also set a slight change in tack for Vanya Cullen’s wines, which in company with some pretty high-aptitude winemaking, appears to be even more focused than ever towards what the vineyard is saying.

Irrespective of how good a technician a winemaker can become, the greatest wines still come from the greatest vineyards. But the greatest winemakers are those able to fine-tune their approach around the subtle messages they receive but once a year from their vineyards. Approaching its third decade, the Cullen vineyard is mature enough and managed in such a way to produce expressive and low-yielding crops whose messages are clearly not wasted on Vanya Cullen who, against the prevalent trends across the Australian wine industry, relentlessly pursues fineness, subtlety and elegance across all her wines.

Where previous vintages over the last decade have been juicier, fleshy and punchy wines considerably beefed up by high quality but assertive oak, there’s an appealing leanness and fineness about the 1999 Cullen Sauvignon Blanc Semillon and the two vintages that precede it. There’s been a similar evolution with the Chardonnay, which has moved away from the fleshiness and texture of the exceptional 1996 vintage and the unusually low-cropped and concentrated 1997 wine to a more lean and austere expression in both 1998 and 1999. Their fruit is more subdued, but hardly less expressive.

The jewel in the Cullen crown is the classically elegant and refined 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot, a cut higher even than the astonishing 1995 wine. If there’s an evolution from these two exceptional vintages, it’s seen in the quality of their tannins and balance, moving from the almost uncompromisingly firm extract in the older wine to the impressive restraint yet weight of tannin seen in the 1998.

As Winemaker of the Year, Vanya Cullen joins past winners in Jeffrey Grosset and Rosemount Estate’s Philip Shaw in a small and exclusive club of rare class. If somebody would stage a dinner of their very best wines, I’d happily walk many a mile to get there. Please login to post comment