The air is filled with the rich sweet aromas of dark chocolate and ripe berries – raspberries, black cherries, and plums. And like the tidal waters of nearby Waub's Gulch, they ebb and flow with the gentle movements of a late afternoon sea breeze, mingling with the soft spicy fragrances of French oak barrels.
With almost 20 years of growing grapes for sparkling wine – and an impressive portfolio that presently boasts ten different bubblies from 30 vineyards – few companies in Australia know as much about sparkling wine production as Victoria's Domaine Chandon.
The morning sun is casting long shadows across the greyish loam of Jinglers Creek Vineyard. It's the height of summer in northern Tasmania, and the deeply tanned figure of Irving Fong makes his way steadily uphill, neatly perched in the driver's seat of an ageing FIAT tractor.
No matter which way you look at it, everything about Penfolds Wines is big. In fact, huge would be a better descriptor for the company. It's been on top of the Australian wine game for more than 60 years. Home is a 25 million-litre production facility at Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley.
It's not often you see Steve Devereaux sitting still these days, let alone sitting still long enough for a photograph to be taken. Time has become a precious commodity since the ex-teacher and former manager of Relbia's Old Stornoway Vineyard stepped into the full-time role of special projects manager at Moorilla Estate about a year ago.
Like any bloke with a farming legacy stretching back five generations, Julian 'Jack' Cotton really knows his onions. In fact, he knows his wool-growing and his seed and vegetable cropping, too. After all, they've have been the mainstay of farming operations at Kelvedon, on the East Coast, for as long as he's been working the 5300ha property.
With vintage now under way in Tasmania, you needn't look far to find growers who say that choosing when and where to pick are the most important decisions they'll reach over the next couple of weeks.
Nick Butler is short of words right now. Well-known for his affable nature, the winemaker from Rowella can hardly describe how he feels at the moment when he hears that some of his colleagues have already started vintage, and are bringing in some of the best fruit they've seen in the past few seasons.
How's your collection of Tasmanian sparkling wines? Got some good bubblies from 1998 and 2000? If you have, you're going to like this week's news. It seems 2005 may be on track to repeat the award-winning performances of two of Tasmania's most successful sparkling wine vintages.
It may not be immediately apparent but one of the decade's most significant marketing trends has been the linking of notions of quality and uniqueness with the geographical origin of a particular wine. So-called single vineyard wines in particular are often sold in limited numbers, at premium retail prices.
