By Richard Harvey
Photo courtesy Langmeil Winery
It was when someone suggested we were on our way to learn kegeling that things started to get weird.
I had come to Australia with a group of Masters of Wine, Master Sommeliers and other illuminati of the wine world, organized by Tim Wildman MW.
We had just finished a bang-up meal at Langmeil Winery, with lashings of roast meat to cozy up to the succulent Barossa reds in our glasses when this idea was first proposed. I must have looked confused until someone informed me that I was going to learn a traditional form of Barossa Valley nine-pin bowling, rather than work on a unique form of muscle control.
Australia was all new to me.
No, not the accents nor the wines, both of which have been part of my decades-long wine career. But, to truly know this country’s wine culture, I needed to get my boots into an Aussie vineyard or two, so here I was to get my Blunnies dusty. In addition to rummaging around in the dirt, and like the need to smell the lavender of Provence, and the cypress trees of Tuscany, now was the moment to wake up and smell the eucalyptus. Like my discoveries of the rich and broad range of European wines by virtue of much time spent there, I knew that there were many discoveries to be made while
in the country. Here are a few lessons learned.
As far as grape varieties go, Shiraz is of course the well-known and respected ambassador of Australia. But what of the diversity of lesser-seen grape varieties, like Grenache? What about grapes that have flourished here for centuries but are rarely seen on a label, such as Touriga and Tempranillo, Mataro and Meunier? Some of these vine plants are now well over a century old, and their production would often disappear into a blend rather than be featured in a single varietal wine — shame.
Remember, all of our favourite wine grapes come from European plant stock (some with the great Sir James Busby who brought a wealth of vine cuttings to Australia in 1832) — the grapevine species known as vitis vinifera is not native to Australia.
There are mystery grapes such as those found in the Best’s Winery’s Nursery Block vineyard. Some of these unidentified vine varieties may well have become extinct in their European homelands, so the only surviving stock is in Australia. No one is sure. Simply, the wealth of classic and heirloom grape varieties to be found here is immense.
Another observation: a shift in wine styles. Yes, there are still many in the rock’em, sock’em sledgehammer style, hyper-concentrated, oaky, jammy, over-the-top rich, alcoholic and low-acid wines that beg to be consumed by the spoonful rather than the mouthful. These sunshine-in-a-glass wines have their place, but are not the only expression of Australian grapes.
A younger generation of winemakers is pushing the envelope with fresh, flavourful, even delicate, abundantly characterful wines that don’t make you feel as if you’ve been clubbed over the head by a cricket bat. Some of the men and women who are changing the face of Shiraz and Chardonnay are working in small, cramped workshop-sized wineries, with old equipment and techniques — so different compared to the technically perfect, modern, well-equipped big-scale wineries that dominate the export market.
There seems to be a great move to “lighten up, Australia!” and better expression of regional differences due to different climates.
An extreme example of lightening up; low-alcohol, fizzy, sweet Moscato wines. This style is all the rage in Oz. Though I did not observe a raft of hulking Aussie rugbymen quaffing pints of this style of wine, it is possible to find some examples on tap in restaurants and bars, where you can watch the Melbourne happy hour hipsters tippling contentedly.
I discovered so many other things as well. That if you pooch (sort of a gutter-ball) in kegeling, you have to shoot a small glass of tawny. That the rotund wombat poos in little dice-shaped units. That I love Farmer’s Union Strong Iced Coffee because it outsells Coca-Cola in South Australia (and it tastes better than the Nescafe in the rural motels I stayed in). That Australia has a beautiful, complex, individual human-scale wine industry that defies the bouncy kangaroo/koala/platypus huckster pitch of wine as a brand.
What did I learn in Australia? Keep learning, keep travelling, keep it real.
Wine merchant Richard Harvey (a miserable kegel player, although he only pooched once) has a new appreciation of the folk who feel that the French hate them. (They don’t).