RIDING THE GROWING GREEN WAVE
Jeni Port reviews the year in Victoria
THIS WAS the year Victorian wines and their makers became ‘environmentally cool'. Producers talked up carbon trading, alternative sources of energy and self-sustainable viticulture and talked down any chance of future genetically modified food production, the use of heavyweight wine bottles and government inaction. ‘Clean and green' were the bywords on everyone's lips.
Winemakers looked at recycling favourite wine barrels (using shaved staves as an oak adjunct) and trialled a new Aussie invention, the plastic tank, which lasts years longer than conventional oak barrels. Some, like Graeme Miller Wines, Mitchelton and Elgo Estate, set up recycling ponds and wetlands that act as kidneys, cleaning up winery waste water before sending it back onto the vines. Mitchelton alone expects to save up to 20 million litres of water annually through such measures.
Others took a leaf out of Bruce Tyrrell's research, which revealed that moving from a six-pack of wine to an eight-pack makes both economic and environmental good sense. Bruce found there are the same number of bottles on a pallet of eight-packs as a pallet of 12-packs, so by embracing eight-pack forklift movements the number of pallets could be reduced (by 14 per cent), warehouse space would be better utilised and the amount of stretch wrap needed would be reduced by 1.3 tonnes a year. Cardboard usage would be reduced by as much as 20 per cent per bottle, saving 500 trees a year!
Then there was the use of heavyweight bottles. Bottles using as much as 870g of glass may send an image of high quality but they use too many precious resources in their manufacture. Producers like Luke Lambert in the Yarra Valley, who employ the heavy bottles as part of their marketing strategy, are dropping them in favour of bottles under 500g. "I think this will be the last year I use them," declared Luke, who sells wine under his own label.
During the year, the Victorian Wine Industry Association identified water security and environmental issues as the major risks to the future of Victorian winemakers. It launched ‘Environmentally Cool Wines,' a statewide industry series of workshops and environmentally aware initiatives that included the development of software for an environment ‘toolkit' designed to help producers come to terms with new (and growing) compliance and legislation requirements for domestic and export sales.
Out in the vineyard, the sourcing of new grape varieties better adapted to our changing environment, including some not so new but being revisited, was also very much in vogue in 2008. As Professor Snow Barlow, distinguished climate scientist as well as head of the School of Agriculture at Melbourne University told the annual Rutherglen Wine Show Seminar in September, we are now experiencing Darwinism first hand.
"People who adapt are the ones who survive," he said. It is no different with grape varieties. Those who adapt will also survive. "For every degree of temperature that goes up, we will need four to five per cent more water to do what we do," the professor suggested.
Today, grape varieties that can hold firm acidity when the heat rises, need less water and show they are the fittest and strongest will be the chosen ones. In Swan Hill, makers are trialling sagrantino, a red Italian grape of a distinctly robust character that hails from Perugia in Umbria. So far, so good with producers describing it as an "emerging style of note", distinctive for its full-body mouthfeel and dusty fruit qualities.
Then there's durif, a variety that has always enjoyed a sunny disposition but has generally been limited to Rutherglen. A 2007 Swan Hill durif, released by new chums Underground Wines (based on the Mornington Peninsula) was a surprise hit of 2008, showing extraordinary aromatic qualities and taming normally aggressive tannins. Next year, the makers are committed to making 2000 cases!
In the North-East, it was the white Rhone brigade - marsanne, roussanne, viognier - making the biggest impact in '08. All Saints, a producer who has suffered a roller-coaster ride with marsanne for decades, finally seems to ‘get' the variety under winemaker Dan Crane. Similarly, Mandy Jones at Jones Winery at Rutherglen is bringing a sense of style back to the grape that somehow managed to almost always look a frump despite clearly enjoying the heat of the North-East.
The King Valley continues an ever-widening exploration of potentially suitable Italian varieties, led by arneis (a white grape from Piedmont) as well as the tannic black Russian saperavi and Spanish tempranillo. New releases of arneis from King Valley cousins Fred Pizzini (Pizzini Wines) and Arnie Pizzini (Chrismont Wines) reveal a subtlety and the kind of light, savoury qualities that makes the variety stand out, especially on a wine list. Expect to see a lot more of the arneis grape.
The Spanish white and red duo, albarino and tempranillo, are now planted, albeit in tiny trial plots on the Mornington Peninsula. At first, it seems an unlikely place given that already warm (and getting warmer) regions like Rutherglen are also looking to the duo. However shiraz, once a grape few seriously considered suitable to the peninsula because of its cool maritime climate, is now becoming a serious player because of climate change. Why not albarino and tempranillo?
That's the thinking behind Crittenden Estate's grafting of an acre of chardonnay over to albarino in addition to the planting of a small block of tempranillo. The first vintage of tempranillo (from '08) will be released next year under the Los Hermanos label. The first crop of albarino is scheduled for 2010.
Those who still doubted that climate change was on their door needed to only look to this year's Gippsland Wine Show, where more gold medals were awarded to shiraz and cabernet sauvignon than ever before. Years ago, it was suggested the two varieties needed more sun and heat to ripen than Gippsland was capable of giving. Now they are encroaching on the supremacy of pinot noir.
"I joke to people, but it's not a joke, that if it continues we'll all be specialising in Bordeaux wines and grafting over pinot to shiraz," suggests Kirsten Hardiker of Cannibal Creek Vineyard, whose 2005 merlot won a trophy at last year's show.
No, it's not a joke.