GRANDER DESIGNS

From wine to art and a dash of sex, Moorilla's pushing the boundaries

MOORILLA, the oldest vineyard and winery in southern Tasmania, was established in 1958 by a great art and opera lover, Claudio Alcorso, who described his vision for the estate as "the pursuit of excellence". Four decades later the Berriedale operation, 15 minutes north of Hobart, was bought by David Walsh, for whom "excellence" can be said to be just the starting point.

"Moorilla proffers art, architecture, food, wine, beer and music", he says, "All chosen or created with passionate commitment, and informed by a deep attachment to the principles of humanism - with the purpose of providing an experience of sufficient emotional and intellectual engagement to make a permanent impression on the mindscape."

He built The Ether, in itself a magnificent architectural statement, to house the new restaurant, conference facilities and cellar door and adorned it with works of modern art, including John Olsen's The Source, which lends its name to the restaurant. Adjoining The Ether is a state-of-the-art boutique brewery.

And last year Moorilla was relaunched with a sensational show of contemporary music, light and modern ballet, the likes of which Tasmania had not seen before.  Edgy, confronting, challenging, evocatively raw and sensual, it symbolised, in effect, the stripping away of the old and the birth of the new - new logo, new wines, new beers, new packaging and a new direction wrapped in new imagery underpinned by a whole new ethos.

And it's the imagery of the ballet and dancers that today dress Moorilla's first Muse range of wines: powerful images suffused in darkness, light contouring the angularity of limbs, splayed fingers, the soft curves of bottles and breasts and entwined naked bodies. They are interpretations of what David Walsh refers to as wine's "controlled licentiousness".

As wine labels, the images are unique. Erotic, provocative, confronting and possibly divisive.  And, for Moorilla's new winemaker, Conor van der Reest, they're a challenge for his wines to live up to.

From Canada's wine region of Niagara and with a master's degree in cool-climate oenology, Conor saw his first vintage, in 2008, as the beginning of a 10-year project. He has rationalised the previous confusing number of Moorilla labels to only two - the Muse range in what he calls an Old World style, and Praxis, a New World, fruit-driven style for earlier consumption, with a third ultra-premium label a possibility further down the track. From vintage 2009, the estate harvest will be capped at 150 tonnes - down from the 300, sometimes 500 tonnes it was previously - with lots of small-batch ferments providing options and control over the final wine styles. And a new winery is on the drawing boards.

"We're going to do whatever's needed to get to where we want to be, to meet the concept, without market pressure," Conor says. Or, as David puts it, "Moorilla is not market-driven.  Moorilla is an idea that will create its own market. We serve the idea, not the market". In other words, Moorilla will go its own way and take those who wish to follow with it.

As a marketing strategy, it's as singular, bold and edgy as the imagery that supports it. But it's a strategy that already has runs on the board with their highly successful Moo-Brew beers, a strategy that broke every rule in the marketeer's book - beers in champagne-shaped bottles, a name that conjures milk and the dairy, not beer; quirky labelling displaying the works of Australian artist John Kelly; and flavour-packed drops that run counter to Australia's normal beer blandness. Brewed traditionally from water, hops, yeast and malt, the Czech pilsner, American-style pale and dark ales, classic German wheat beer and Imperial Stout contain no additives or preservatives and are not pasteurised. They have met with immediate success locally and on the mainland. It remains to be seen whether their latest controversial wine label featuring a stencil image of Osama bin Laden holding a ghetto blaster has the same success.

David Walsh's and Moorilla's crowning glory, however, will come next year with the opening of MONA, the Museum of Old and Modern Art. Cut deep into the sandstone cliff face of the Moorilla promontory, the $70 million structure will house David's $100 million art collection, the largest private collection in the country, spanning from antiquities to some of the most provocative contemporary works by international and Australian artists. The collection will, in his words, stand as testament to the power of sexuality and death to drive creativity, both as subject matter and motive for its creation.

MONA will be freely open to the public, making it, in effect, David's shared gift with the people of Tasmania.