Yellowglen

Its devastating share of the sparkling wine market confirms that when most people think of quality sparkling wine, they think of Yellowglen. Clever marketing, a consistent and steadily improving product and perfect timing propelled this brand onto the stage and under the spotlights at a time when Australians were begining to think that if the French can do it, we can do it just as well.

Yellowglen was the first Australian sparkling wine which stood up to be counted, confidently asserting that Australians no longer had to pay the price of French Champagne for something of quality that fizzed. It had the stamp of being made by a Frenchman, Dominique Landragin, who could market himself in an accessible and friendly approach that has probably made him the most popular French winemaker ever to settle in Australia. Although he is no longer involved in Yellowglen, Landragin’s name remains on its label.

Yellowglen’s rise was dramatic, and its annual sales continue to increase. It is unquestionably one of the success stories of Australian wine, and today its distinctive yellow label accounts for around 60 of the competitive and highly profitable $10-12 bracket. These figures are courtesy Yellowglen’s owner since 1984, Haselgroves, whose major wine brand is Mildara. The remaining 40 is hotly contested between Wolf Blass, Andrew Garrett and Seppelts.

Today it is obvious that Yellowglen’s three main lines, the Brut NV, the Cremant and the Brut Rose, have well and truly been eclipsed as the quality leaders in Australian sparkling wine. Yellowglen’s own premier brand, Cuvee Victoria, is itself of a standard that leaves them for dead. Yet in their price range they offer the flavour, softness and freshness that the consumer expects.

Winemaker Jeffrey Wilkinson is crucially aware that he should give the market the product it wants, rather than dictating a style and flavour. “Yellowglen must please its buyers all the time”, he says. “It would be easy to turn them off. Yellowglen should be soft and long. Structure is everything. Its acids must be well-integrated and not too austere. The wines are certainly classically styled, but they’re not ‘Champagne’.”

Wilkinson is however guiding Yellowglen through a slow change in style, designed to improve it, for Haselgroves is convinced that Yellowglen’s future growth will depend more on its ability to compete on the basis of outright quality. They mature the Yellowglen label wines for a minimum of twelve months before release. “We are keeping just ahead of the market palate level. Large changes in style are dangerous, for we could lose our market overnight if we changed the wine too much”, says Wilkinson.

Haselgroves certainly has something to protect. Around 150,000 cases of Yellowglen is sold each year, of which 130,000 consists of the Brut NV 55, Cremant 23 and Rose 22. Cuvee Victoria accounts for 5,000 cases and the cheaper Windsor brand of methode champenoise sells about 13,000 dozen. The new Lasseter brand, which sits between Yellowglen and Cuvee Victoria in quality and price, is yet to be on the market for a full year.

Those people who believe Yellowglen to be the best of the Australian sparklers should take a close look at the 1987 Yellowglen Cuvee Victoria, which puts in a bottle much of the project’s original ambitious expectations. The wine is very classy, yet it was not made to be a copy of French Champagne. Wilkinson aims for an Australian style that is elegant, but moderately rich and soft. It is a classic blend of pinot noir and chardonnay, whose qualities are augmented by a three-year maturation period in the bottle prior to disgorging, the same period legally required for a vintage French Champagne. Wilkinson suggests it doesn’t need any further cellaring to be seen at its best.

The 1987 wine is made from pinot noir grown at Yellowglen’s own chilly vineyard at Smythesdale, near Ballarat in western Victoria, Yarra Valley and Ararat pinot noit, with some chardonnay from the north-western Victorian river regions. Although it’s named ‘Cuvee Victoria’, there is a small Adelaide Hills component in the wine, faithfully revealed on the back label.

I like the wine immensely, for much the same reasons as they do at Yellowglen. It is approachable, yet generous in flavour. The fruit and the yeastiness work well together and the finish is long and clean, but with a trace more sugar than I would find ideal. The bubbles are fine and persistent. It’s a super wine, which I predict will return Yellowglen right into our own sparkling wine elite.

But the best is definitely yet to come. Yellowglen have a secret that I now make public. Having been born and bred in Ballarat, a city which attracts the sort of criticism once made into an art form by residents of Sydney when discussing Melbourne, it is with great delight that I annouce that progeny of Yellowglen’s own vineyard is one of the swankiest young sparkling wines I have encountered. To me it is by far the most important wine yet made at Yellowglen, for it gives substance to its identity and confirms that the vineyard there is far more than a support act for the cellar door.

Visit Yellowglen towards the end of vintage and you’ll wonder how anything ripens there. It is wet, cold and windy, and when it hails put the cars under cover. Nobody said the vineyard would work, apart from the diehards who planted it over a decade ago; Dominique Landragin, who saw its potential; and Mildara, who spent more money than they would probably have wanted on first redeveloping it and then installing massive anti-frost rotors to keep its icy air moving.

The thirty acres now planted consist of 35 chardonnay
and 60 pinot noir, the rest being shiraz and cabernet sauvignon, relics of the original fifteen acre development.

The yet-to-be-christened 1989 Yellowglen vineyard blend of pinot noir and chardonnay is rich and long, with excellent fruit and pinot definition. There’s mouthfilling flavour, with the elegance of a classic. Only 1000 dozen were made, to be released sometime in 1993, I believe.

With thereturn of the Cuvee Victoria to this princely form and the prospect of future limited runs of the calibre of the Yellowglen estate wine, Yellowglen will have a genuine argument that it sits amongst the very best of the Australian methode champenoise sparkling wines.

I don’t doubt for a moment that Australia has the potential to make some of the world’s best sparkling wine. Wines like these at Yellowglen show we are getting closer. The exclusive club at the top, to which I confidently nominate the Mountadam Pinot Noir Chardonnay, the Seppelt Salinger, the Yalumba ‘D’, the Croser, the Romsey Vineyards Pinot Noir, the Yarra Burn Pinot Noir, the Yellowglen Cuvee Victoria, the Domaine Chandon Pinot Noir, the Landragin Blanc de Noirs and the ever-improving Chateau Remy, show that Australians are approaching the same problem from a number of widely differing philosophies.

Looking at the group as a whole, the good news is that every year they are that little bit better. Please login to post comment