Mornington Peninsula Day 2 13/12/10

I woke up in the morning after having slept for 10 hours. Yesterday's journey was just too exhausting but today I am feeling much better. Left the motel at 9.30 am and the first place I heading to was Paringa Estate.

Paringa Estate
They charge a tasting fee of $2 but it was well worth it for tasting the wines they make. Lindsay McCall is the winemaker and owner and he has been doing his wines for 25 years. I wished I could have met him but he was so busy with the vines that he hasn't shown up at the cellar door since the morning. Paringa produces 16 thousand cases a year and that is quite an achievement from a small boutique producer to what it has become today. The interesting thing about the estate is that the vines are being trained in the Lyre shape as well. And besides that they are sloping on a hill and the rows are planted E-W. Vine spacings are about 1.5m to 3m on rich red volcanic soil. There is a tendency for his wines, even his Pinot Gris and Rieslings to reach high alcohol levels of 14%. Still his Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays are stunning.

His 2010 Riesling is 14.8% alcohol (that's high!) but retains youthfulness and exuberance in the acid. The fruit was whole bunch pressed and cool tank fermented.

I do find his Estate Chardonnay 2007 much richer than his 2008 Peninsula Chard. It is also more expensive! AUD35 vs AUD22

Strange enough, his Pinot Noir is so much heavier on the colour spectrum for Red Hill South area compared to the Merricks area. I wonder if this has anything to do with leaving the grapes longer on the vines and producing those darker colours on the skins just as higher sugar levels give rise to the higher alcohol in his wines. Again the Estate triumphs over the Peninsula range. $60 vs $27. Is that justified? Wait till you see his reserve which is priced at $90. One thing for sure is that it is a quality Pinot Noir comparable to what France is producing for a much higher price. Is it possible to get a cheaper Pinot at that sort of quality? I would be eager to say yes after tasting the Stonier yesterday but the truth is that the Stonier is not treated in the same way as the Paringa. Both have good quality fruit but in terms of style, both winemakers have different approaches.


(BTW, Stonier is owned by Lion Nathan).

T'Gallant
Next stop, T'Gallant vineyards which is owned by Fosters. This is the place to visit if you want to try Pinot Gris/Grigio (I have an interested story to tell as you read on about Pinot Gris/Grigio). This vineyard owns the oldest PG vines in the whole of Australia, which is 24 years old. Their range of PG they produce goes from steely, high acid and crisp to luscious and full of a heavy mid-palate.

Port Philip Estate/Kooyong
I managed to squeeze some time to stop by at Port Philip Estate/Kooyong which makes some fantastic wines in a different style by Sandro Moselo. I was told he was Italian but with a German last name. Tastings here are $10 per head but with the range tasted, I do feel that it is worth trying. I can see Sandro is influenced very much by his European heritage in terms of winemaking. He produces wines that range from $26-$65 but I do believe they fit the price range. I think in terms of export, it would have to be more competitive once retailers put a margin on it. The vines grown on soils which are iron schist & clay. Interesting to try would be the 2007 Kooyong Clonale Chardonnay which is very Chablis in style but not quite Chablis. It has all this mineral, peach and good acid structure. I was almost tempted to buy a bottle as the price is attractive - AUD28. I decided against it as I know it would start a buying spree and my bag can't take anymore weight. This is a wine I would like to benchmark against for that price for it display of elegance. His 2010 Quartier Arnies is what I consider the best I have tasted so far in Australia. It is wild-yeast fermented in whole bunch and some are done in tank and some in old french barriques. Flavours are melon and rose with a zing to it.


In his Pinot Noirs, you can find that grapefruit/ ruby red colour that Paringa doesn't have. The 2008 Kooyong Estate PN was delicious with lifted notes of fruit but it was the 2008 Port Phillip Estate Morillon that was it's complete opposite. Fermented in open vats for 21 days, 16 months spent in 30% new french oak, it was a much more earthier and mushroom style, but subtly. In a sense, it reminded me of a Pommard with less acid.

It is also worth trying his Shiraz which has that muskiness to it(I now figured out what that cool climate smell I have been getting since yesterday in the Shiraz is called and I call it musky) as well as his Barbera.

What is really worth visiting if you hit Mornington is the next two wineries that I am going to write about. I really love this two wineries, not just for the wines but for the people as well. As you know, when you like both the people and the wine, you get magic every time you drink their wines - a sort of delightedness that fills your heart; a feeling that someone cares about you.

Phaedrus Estate*

The vines of Phaedrus

Phaedrus Estate is owned by Ewan Campbell who is also the winemaker/owner. He has been making wine here for 13 years and is very knowledgeable of the region. He owns 10 acres of Pinot Noir with 6 clones: D5, D12, 114, 115, G5, G15 (G5 & G15 produces earthier flavours), MV6. He has also has Chardonnay is also Bernard clones of 95 and 96. His vine spacing is 2m x 3m spacing and are 10 years old. He does at really good Pinot Gris for just $17 as well as a Shiraz for $20. Very good value in my opinion.

Ewan's philosphy in treating the vines is to let it do its own thing. Don't cut itl don't trim it; don't thin it. The more you do that, the vines tend to grow lateral shoors and then it starts to grown longer to compensate for the loss of leaves. So far, he has only done 5-6 sprays on the vines,].

According to him, the Mornington is separated into 3 different soil areas. Mooronduc is more sandy loam over clay; Red Hill is more volcanic red clay and is very fertile; Merricks is more sandy at the edge of the coast. In Mooronduc, PNs there tend to be more plumy as it is a warmer and dry area that can ripen Shiraz better. Merricks and Red Hill tend to produce more cherries aroma in their PNs. Ewan believes that the region ripens PN fruit very well.

Berry set occurs in December and harvest is usually in late Feb to March. There was one day in 2009 which was 46 degrees but 30 is the max over here, according to Ewan. When temperatures get to high, the vine shuts down and the berries start to shrival adn fall off the rachis easily. The maritime climate helps to have cooler temperatures as well provide for consistent temperatures during the day and night. Temperatures are steady, maintaining at 22 degrees at night. This gives a good ripening period which last on the average of 50-70 days although 100 days can happen but is unusual. So far 5-6 sprays have been carried out the vineyard. Rainfall is 600mm in the region although 900mm does occurs in Redhill. There aren't a lot of frost issues in the region and it was in 2007 when frost last happened but that was a one in 40 years event.

Ewan was kind enough to open a bottle of PN 2010, which was bottled 4 weeks ago. It had flavours of oolong tea, good acid balance, rose water which I find predominant in the PNs of this region and a long peppery finish. Very good considering it has yet to recover from bottling.

The 2009 Chardonnay was also excellent. Fragrant with cashew in there. At 13.3% alc, and 15% new oak, it had citrusy aromas wiht lees. There was a slight MLF in there and had a savoury nuttiness to it.

His 2009 Shiraz is also worth looking at with a 14.6% alc, spices, earth, cloves and mushrooms

I also want to add that apart from the PN2010, the rest of his wines including the Pinot Gris were opened on Saturday. Yet it tasted so amazingly delicious after so many days. It didn't taste tired at all.

Quea!y*

These guys are another must see from the region. Kevin and Kathleen are the owners of this winery and they used to run T'Gallant before selling it to Fosters. Kevin himself is huge enthusiast about wine education and makes wine fun to learn. He is lively, invigorating to listen and speaks with a passion that makes you want to know more about his ideas and opinions. He is into what he calls "the acceleration of maturity of the consumer". He calls his PinotG "Remato" meaning copper as PinotG tends to impart a sort of copper colour to the wines because it has skin that is between black and white.

Accordinging Kevin, he palanted Pinot Gris in the Mornington in 1988 just to explore the different styles. PG was not understood by Australia back then. It was only 6 years later, that PG started breaking into the Australian palate. Kevin feels that that this varietal is very mich misunderstood. The Italians would call PG Grigio and the French would call it Gris; there was no simplicity. However in 2007, the Australian Wine Research Institute discovered a way of looking at PG objuectively. A man called Daniel Cozzolino was using Spectrometry to breakdown PG into its 230000 compounds . According to the reading, he could tell what style PG was from a scale of 0-10 and which country it came from. Interesting? I recommend you go and visit http://www.pinog.com.au/. Kevin is one of the founders of this site. To me, the spectrum of flavours and aromas in PG is not something new as Andrea Immer MS has also suggested this before. But the idea that Kevin shares is revolutionary in its own way. Imagine wineries around the world using the scale from crisp to luscious for thier PGs. The scale doesn't talk about wine quality or whether the higher the scale, the more the price. It talks about the style of the wine and gives people an indication of how to match thier wines with their food because the scale guarantees it through spectrometry. Different terriors will generate a sort of fingerprint for the wines.

To Kevin, Grigio is Gris. There isn't a difference. He explained to me that many flavours in Gris overlap with Grigio. When he was in Italy, the grigio he tasted ranged from crisp to in-your-face-power (he quoted the producer, Germann). In France, the PG was picked at 11 Baume and was tight and austere, crisp and not as rich. It tasted steely, minerally, and flinty. But when he tasted Zind Humbrecht's SGN, it was rich and like what he describes as "flying with the gods". Kevin feels that there is a spectrum, a sort of continuum of flavours for wines made around the world and people will understand much better what they are drinking by using this scale. It will also make them more confident to talk about the wine.

Kevin shares the same dream as I do - to set up a school/education experience one day for people to be confident and be able to talk about wine from experience. Like him, I believe that people crave knowledge and don't want ot look stupid.

I shall put up some tasting notes of his wines in the later part of the trip. For now, I do want to talk about an interesting wine that Kevin is doing which is Fruiliano, an italain grape from Fuili. He is trying to be a pioneer for this grape just as he did with PinotG years ago and he has generated some interesting results. His 2010 Fuiliano is pale green with aromas of pears, green apples, and white flowers. On the palate is pear drip, white flowers, high acid which gives the wine a good line of length. This is like a PinotG except that it has higher acid and that beautiful white flower aroma to it. I believe he is on to something here.

When I asked him where did he get the bud wood for Fruiliano, I was expecting him to tell me that he took in from some vineyard in Italy and brought it over here without telling the guys at the airport. According to him, the bud wood was found at mildura and a famous chap called Allan Ancliff at CSIRO had a giant collection of everything; form sangiovese to barbera to nebiolo ro picolit. So some bloke took the bud wood and planted a row of each and Kevin met the bloke by happenstance and was able to get some of the bud wood from him.

Arrange an appointment with Kevin and try his wines. You will definitely fall in love with his wines and his enthusiasm.

End of the Day

Day 2 and today it seems people in Victoria are much more friendlier. Maybe I was at the wrong place at the wrong time in Day 1. I get that a lot.

Additional Notes: The Mornington is the only wine region I have been to so far in Australia where vineyards are separated by lots of trees. It is a foresty region unlike Canberra and the Hunter. To find each winery, you have to go through roads full of trees just to get there.