Winemakers’ Hall of Fame

I think we’ve just about outlived them, but the ’70s and ’80s were the Years of the Winemaker. Logic was defied and grapegrowers all but forgotten as Australian winemakers were lionised above and beyond the status they were afforded in virtually every other winegrowing country, with the possible exception of New Zealand.

In case the pendulum actually swings back too far the other way and we begin to take winemakers and their often egocentric, eccentric and extraordinarily creative minds for granted, it’s high time someone initiated a Winemakers Hall of Fame, a loose catalogue of Australia’s best winemakers.

Of course there are winemakers and winemakers. Some, like Rick Kinzbrunner of Giaconda, get their hands dirty virtually every day of the year in the cellar or the vineyard. These guys and gals clean their own tanks, mop their own floors and scrub down their own presses.

At the other pole are the executive-style winemakers towards the top of the big company pyramids, like Ian McKenzie and John Duval, chief white wine and red wine makers for Southcorp Wines respectively. These gentlemen generally set stylistic parameters, taste frequently and communicate with a raft of other winemakers who actually do the dirty work. This type works long and hard, but you don’t see them with wine-stained hands at the end of vintage.

Bob Cartwright Although I don’t rate his other wines in quite the same league, Bob Cartwright could claim – if his modesty permitted him – to make Australia’s best and most consistent white wine, Leeuwin Estate’s Chardonnay.

Brian Croser Possibly the most paradoxical figure in Australian winemaking. A Paul Keating who can admit to his mistakes, not that they are all that common. Although the Petaluma Chardonnay and Coonawarra cabernet blend and the Croser sparkling wine are his most sought-after wines, his best is the Petaluma Riesling from Clare. Australian winemakers still keep tabs on Croser more than anyone else in this country.

Vanya Cullen Australia’s most brilliant woman winemaker and easily one of the top six of all our winemakers. Shows rare genius with marriage of oak and secondary flavours in her Cullens wine. Great imagination and flair and not afraid to go her own way.

Peter Cumming Larrikin with a stroke of genius. Knows – and makes – what people want to drink. Own labels include Water Wheel and the under-rated premium Wing Fields.

Gary Farr Another Francophile with a classic pinot noir. One of the most committed to introduce French techniques to Australian wine. Bannockburn’s chardonnay is equally good – if not better – while shiraz and sauvignon blanc are style leaders.

Ralph Fowler Formerly with Hungerford Hill and Tyrrells, Ralph Fowler is presently winemaker for Leconfield and the Richard Hamilton. He also makes brilliant Coonawarra wines under contract for the Parker Estate label of which the Terra Rossa First Growth is the most exciting new wine to emerge from the region in two decades and his old grower mate, Doug Balnaves. Ralph Fowler has done more in recent years to maintain Coonawarra’s reputation than anyone.

Joe Grilli Pure innovative genius with Italian flair. Maker of the first top quality amarone style red in Australia, one of the first botrytis-affected wines made through inoculation after harvest, our only double-pruned reds to make cool-climate wines in the desert-like climate of the Adelaide Plains, and an incredible sparkling burgundy into which he blended old bottles of top Australian reds bought at auction. If the late genius Steven Hickinbotham handballed his originality to anybody, it was Joe Grilli who collected the pass.

Jeffrey Grosset The new king of Clare Riesling and future heir to John Vickery’s title? Maker of Grosset whites with sublime elegance and pristine, intense flavours.

Stephen Henschke How many people anywhere make better shiraz and cabernet styles? Henschke is certainly an Australian Grand Cru.

Rick Kinzbrunner Francophile with Midas touch. Experienced in Burgundy and for Petrus, making rarefied wines under the Giaconda label.

Tim Knappstein Not only a great palate, but an under-rated winemaker with great feeling for elegance and delicacy in the wines from his beloved Clare Valley. Perhaps a better maker of white than red, his rieslings and traminers are Australian benchmarks.

Stephen Lake Stephen Lake’s decision to take over the mantle left by his larger-than-life father, Max, has opened the door for an instinctive maker of Hunter chardonnay and cabernet. What Stephen regularly achieves with Lake’s Folly cabernet is extraordinary.

Ron Laughton A deft shiraz specialist. The tight, spicy, peppery wines of Jasper Hill defy the odds by continuing to improve almost each and every year.

Keith Mugford Moss Wood’s justifiable position near the head of Australian wineries owes much to the man who worked for its founder, Bill Pannell and then bought the property and name. Keith Mugford consistently makes top-drawer wine from cabernet sauvignon, semillon, chardonnay and pinot noir.

Philip Shaw The man who since the early 1980s has overseen Rosemount’s emergence as a maker of some of Australia’s greatest wines viz. Roxburgh Chardonnay, Show Cabernet Sauvignon, Show Merlot and the new Balmoral Shiraz plus some of our most successful commercial labels, such as the standard Rosemount Chardonnay and the phenomenally successful Shiraz, which sells like hotcakes everywhere except Australia.

Karl Stockhausen Recently departed from several years at Briar Ridge, one hopes that Karl Stockhausen, an instinctive maker of classic Hunter Valley regional semillon and shiraz, will link up quickly with another winery there. His legacy under the Lindemans Hunter River label is without peer. the 1970 whites and 1973 reds are the ones to be drinking now, if you can find them.

John Vickery As long as this man makes wine in Australia he will be one of our premium winemakers. Now with Richmond Grove part of Orlando Wyndham in the Barossa Valley, he has been given a new opportunity to make rieslings in the style that he has made famous. Along with Karl Stockhausen, Australia’s greatest living pre-chardonnay white wine maker.

John Wade Conqueror of the West with an impact there akin to William the Conqueror. Tireless consultant winemaker with his own Howard Park label. Created the Wynns John Riddoch concept before it headed in a contrived direction. Will make a good wine out of anything provided it grew on a vine first.

Adam Wynn Son of the recently departed David Wynn, Adam has been one of the most original and iconoclastic thinkers in Australian winemaking. One of our first to make a strongly barrel-fermented chardonnay, he’s less interested in what the textbooks say than what he reckons it tastes like. You will never be bored by an Adam Wynn wine. Please login to post comment