The Yarra Valley was such a joy to drive around unlike Mornington. It reminded me of the Hunter except that you could really see the hills around the region. The Yarra is know for its Pinot Noir and Chardonnay although I would say that they make really good Shiraz as well, the best I have seen so far after 2 days here. Summers here can reach up to 32 degrees and last year was pretty bad with the bushfires, reaching up to 42 degrees. There has been an extensive drought in the region so far over the last ten years. The first grapes were planted in the 1860s and it was varietals like Cabernet Sauvignon and Chasselas. The early settlers and winemakers in the region were Swiss-French. It was in 1921 that the wine industry in the Yarra came to a halt. Most of the region has red volcanic soil although it does vary greatly according to site. At Lilydale, it is much cooler. Whites are harvested as early as Jan and reds up to even late April. It is much warmer up north than down south at Lilydale.
Dominque Portet
This was my first stop. The winemakers are Frenchman, Dominque and his son, Ben. Dominque's father was André, who used to be the winemaker for Château Lafite. He had two sons - Bernard, who went to Napa in 1976 to set up Clos du Val & Dominque Himself. Today, Domnique and his son, Ben are involved in the winemaking together. The property under vines is 8 ha and they produce 12000 cases. I recommend that you try thier sparkling wines and thier Gippsland PN.
Oakridge
The vines at Oakridge
I highly recommend as well that you pay Oakridge a visit. Cellar door staff, Stephen is has excellent wine knowledge and will be able to answer most of your questions. According to him, Oakridge has transferred hands about 4 times. This is a great place to really taste Chardonnays and thier Shirazs. They use wild yeast ferments and for thier Shiraz, they usually like to use whole bunch ferments. What suprised me is the amount of Viognier they use in thier Shiraz, about 6-7%, unlike the amount of Viognier that Canberra uses with is around 3%. Yet, they still have really wonderful lifted aromas that are not dominated by the Viognier. Amazing! I do agree with Stephen that the riper and jammier the Shiraz fruit, the harder it is to integrate with the Viognier. I do notice that Shiraz Viognier with higher alcohols tend to have less Viognier in them but this is just a generalization. Alcohol is not a sign of physiological ripeness. I really recommend that you try the 864 Chardonnay and both their Estate Shiraz and 864 Shiraz, which is thier flagship Shiraz.
Domaine Chandon
This is a place worth paying a visit to with thier glamourous facilities but in terms of tasting thier wines, I wasn't that impressed. It was what you would expect from a commercial style. Thier staff service weren't informative and I found them to be quite poncy about the wine. I don't think it is right to tell the consumer in what order they should drink their wines as long as they enjoy themselves. I was told "You may start from the top of the list and you are only allowed to go down but not back up again". Bloody ridiculous!
Their wine tour is free at is at 11 am, 1pm and 3 pm. I went on thier wine tour but didn't find the guide very knowledgeable about the Champagne method when people were asking her quesitons about the wines. Most of time, she regurgitated the words that were on the wall. Still, it is good for absolute novices to learn about Sparkling wines. I tasted thier Z*D Blanc de Blanc and 2002 Prestige Cuvée. Good wines but great? Or has it been left opened for too long? One thing is for sure, I can't find much of the bready, yeasty character that lovers of Sparkies crave for. BTW, for the last two wines, it's $1 per tasting.
Yeringberg*
This winery is a definite must go in the Yarra. Sandra de Puy is the winemaker/co-owner of this small setup. The winery is in the middle of Damaine Chandon and St Hubert and is not on the Yarra Valley wine map. It is only open by appointment. I have had the good fortune to meet Sandra at a wine show in Sydney.
Notice that big barrel behind. That was the fermentation vessel which Yeringberg used to do their ferments in and it is over 100 years old.
Yeringberg has so much history behind it when it comes to winemaking. She is the 4th Generation of the de Puy family line who are Swiss-French in origin. Winemaking started for the de Puy family in 1860s all the way to 1921. They were the pioneers of the grape growing industry in Yarra. It was the last winery to shut down in 1921 before grapegrowing restarted again in the Yarra Valley decades later. Her great-grandfather had teh title of a Baron and was the councillor for Switzerland. He also became the president of the local government in Yarra.
And the old carriage left behind by Sandra's nan.
The wall of awards for Yeringberg at the wine shows. History goes a long way back for them
The property now is 1200 acres, and 7 acres were under vines. Another 50 acres are being sold as fruit to other producers in the region. Temperatures in the summer go up to 40 degrees in Summer. Most of the Yeringberg fruit is grown on grey loam with a clay rock subsoil and gravel. The N-E slopes get good sun and rainfall is 700-800mm. The two tonne open-top fermenters are not temperature controlled and were milk vats - the best type of fermenters for Shiraz. To me, Sandra uses simple and easy techniques in winemaking that I wonder why other people don't do the same thing as her when it makes so much sense and is so easy. For example, Yeringberg uses sorting tables during harvest to take out other materials besides grapes from the 8-9 kg picking buckets. It takes just an extra 30 minutes to sort out the good from the bad grapes, like those affected by botrytis. Sandra doesn't believe in creating a second label. If any wine doesn't make the cut, she either dumps it out or seels a declassified wine like her 2007 Cabernet which will be stamped with declassified on the label with a price tag of around $20.
This is the second floor of the fermenation area. The grapes are being hoisted up and put into the trolley, and rolled along the railway tracks. And then its dumped into the big wooden fermentation vats
The fermentation vats from a top view.
The modern day fermenation vats made from steel. This was actually used for milk before it was bought by Yeringberg. Temperature is better controlled in this vessel by running water on its sides.
The cellar is kept at a cool temperature of 15 degrees. Barrels are tilted so that the wine is touching the top bung so that there is a vacuum above the barrels and the barrels don't have to be topped up all the time. This doesn't reduce the amount of the angel's share but it reduces oxygen contact with the wines and the only oxygen contact would be the breathing of air through the barrels. This tilting can be done with the set-up that Sandra has because the barrels are not on metal racks. She only checks the barrels every 2-3 months.
We tasted some of her wines still in the barrel. Her 2010 Marsanne was gorgeous, showing the white blossomes and flowers. It was fermented dry in steel and then transferred to old oak. No fining done. She only does fining with her reds using egg whites. In another barrel, we tasted a Marsanne co-fermented with Rousanne using wild yeast all fermented in teh barrel. It had this mineral, leesy complexity with a good length and light nutty, stone fruit flavours in the back.
The 2010 Chardonnay in the barrel had good clean fruit, that was so clean and a long length with melon flavours. No MLF and it is about 12.5% alch. A very clear, clean chardonnay without fining. The 2010 Chardonnay in 100% new oak was sppicy, rich and cedary with beautiful oakish perfume, cashew nuts characters. Both free run and pressings were in teh barrel and Sandra usually draws 600 l/ tonne and presses at 150ky/cm2.
I do want to talk about the 2010 Shiraz that we tasted that normally retails for $60 It had such fruit power in there but a soft finish and a silky palate. Gorgeous!
Sandra tells a really funny story of how she gets calls from oak barrel suppliers who come down to her barrel room to taste the wines in her barrels. I asked if they are really getting any information about thier product when they do that, and Sandra said that everytime they taste the wines in thier barrels, they would praise it but when they taste the wines in the competitor's barrel, they would wouldn't say much.
St Hubert
It is worth popping in here to take a look at thier Chardonnays, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon. Greg Harratt is the winemaker here. Their Chardy usually has no MLF. I found thier PN pretty low in acid for a PN and thier Cab Sauv is just classic, berry fruit, cigar and pencil lead. Check it out.
Yering Station*
A must-go place. Willy Lunn is the winemaker. Very good quality Sparkling Wines that are so much cheaper than Domaine Chandon. Do try thier Yarrabank 2002 Late disgorged. That is a wine to benchmart Sparkling wines against. They also make a sweet Sparkling wine style called Crème de Cuvée with 30 g/l of sugar. Almost all their wines are lovely. Thier 2009 Sauvignon Blanc has a starfruit smell to it that is quite rare in SB. MOst of the stuff are wonderful although I tasted a few off-bottles that could be attributed to just the bottle itself like thier 2007 Shiraz Viognier and thier single vineyard PN 2007 which had some TCA in there. However, it doesn't mean that the other bottles are bad. Could just be the ones I tasted.
I have had the good fortune to try the 2005 Reserve Chardonnay 13.5% and 2005 Reserve Shiraz Viognier 14.5% which both cost $75 each as they were generous enough to open a fresh bottle of each of them for me to taste. The Chardonnay has only 300 cases and were cropped at 1.2 tonnes/acre. It is 50% new oak and 50% old, both french. There is no MLF and has gone through 15 mths of lees stirring. Some Mendoza clones were used. On the nose is the rich leesy, pineapply, cinnamon spice characters with heady cramael, cedar and vanillin aromas. ON the papalte it was creamy, rich and yeasty with a very long length, finishing off with a oak backpalate and a yoghurty taste. The SV had 5% Viognier and was from 100% new oak and for 16 motnhs. It was just deep ink with an aroma of guts, power, black pepper, and dark cherries, heavy toaste, coffee and liqourice. The vines are 20+ years old an from teh Carr VIneyard which was full of rocks and gravel loam. It had an elevation of 230m. The palate was coffee, and had pluckery and drying tannins, lots of density in there with rich ripe berry, bramble and spices such as cloves and dar kherbs. It had a long length as well and finishes with blackberries. Both wines were an eye opener to taste. Is it worth the price? I think it depends if you are the sort of person who likes very bold and in-your-face flavours. I personally think the oak was showing but in a few years, the wine could possibly change and have secondary characters balance out that wood. Or it could lose its freshness and leave behind all the oak. It's a risk that one always has to take when buying a wine to age and there is no one can have a crystal ball to know how well a wine will be drinking years from now. One can only make an educated guess.
Additional Notes: If you have the chance, do dorp into Coldstream Hills Winery which make one of the best Chardonnays in Australia (It is really, really good and I have the chance to try several vintages before altough I don't feel that it is a wine worth aging because it usually drinks beautifully after 5 years).
Also go and make an appointment and see Mac Forbes who is coming up with some amazing wines, especially his Pinot Noirs and Grüner Veltliner.
I wish I had more time to visit Curly Flat & Punt Road. If I could, I would even try to make an appointment to see Mount Mary & Gembrook Hill. The last two are for serious drinkers with some serious questions to ask and unless you know a thing or two about wines, they just won't open their facilities to you.
I also found it quite strange that people in the Victoria wine industry talk in terms of acres for land while people in NSW talk in hectars.
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