Gosper truth

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.

It's what you might expect for a cool climate wine operation that's essentially a southern outpost of the famous Champagne House of Möet et Chandon.

More surprising is the admission by Domaine Chandon winery manager/winemaker James Gosper that among the company's current crop of sparkling wines one stands above the rest. Not only does it hale from Tasmania, it may also prove to be one of Chandon's best ever releases.

The wine is the 2002 Chandon Tasmania Cuvée. It's sourced entirely from Tolpuddle Vineyard in the Coal River Valley.

Domaine Chandon Chief Executive Dr Tony Jordan knows the property like the back of his hand. The vineyard - just outside Richmond - was planted in 1988 as a joint venture between Jordan, Mornington Peninsula winemaker Garry Crittenden and local landowner Bill Casimaty. The CEO's rationale at the time was that Tasmania's cool climate growing conditions would make it eminently suitable for the production of premium quality, sparkling wine grapes.

"When Domaine Chandon was first established in Australia, our intention from day one was to source fruit from a diverse range of vineyards, à la Champagne," Jordan recalls. 

"Moët & Chandon's house-style is founded on the creation of several hundred different base wines each vintage. We planned to adopt the same approach here, to source fruit from multiple regions and vineyards."

These days, it's Gosper - and his fellow winemakers at Domaine Chandon's Yarra Valley winery - that are putting Jordan's ambitious plans into practice. 

The pair are kindred spirits in more ways than one. Gosper is a recent graduate of the wine science course that Jordan helped establish at Charles Sturt University in the mid-1970s.

Chandon's 2002 Tasmania Cuvée is the company's latest release from a series of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir blends that began with the 1992 vintage. The wines are not produced every year, Gosper says. Indeed, you have to hark back to 1999 to find the last vintage to be released under the coveted Tasmania Cuvée label. 

Production volumes are invariably limited to around 200-300 cases, resulting in the wines selling out very quickly on release.

This new Cuvée is something special, says the bloke who's been part of Chandon's winemaking team since 1995. It embodies a rare combination of finesse and power. All that's due to the ultra-cool seasonal conditions that prevailed in 2002, and the application of some critical winemaking principles learned in preceding vintages.

"We went through a period in the mid-'90s - and again in 2000 - when there were some really hot, drought-affected vintages on the mainland," Gosper explains.

"We gained a lot from our experiences as we tried to chase the onset of 'just-ripe' flavours. We learned to adjust our harvesting criteria – to the point where we're no longer scared to pick below levels of ripeness we reckon we should be picking at – and we also learned a lot about malolactic fermentation and reducing colour pick-up.

"The 2001 vintage marked the start of putting those learnings into practice. With 2002 – and the onset of some cooler vintages – the absence of heat-spike days meant that we were able to maintain our natural acids and create a consistent run of elegant, well-balanced wines. We think this 2002 Tasmania Cuvée is one of the best wines we've ever made. It's quite outstanding."

According to Gosper, 'outstanding' also describes the company's latest sparkling wine bases created from its Tasmanian fruit. If all goes according to plan, 2005 will rate alongside 2002 and 1995 as a benchmark vintage.

"It was a fantastic year in which to make sparkling wine," Gosper muses.

"We normally gather around our computer screens as vintage approaches, looking at the weather radar, trying to schedule our harvests according to likely weather conditions. This year was quite unique. We had practically no rain after a downpour in February, so our crop levels were perfectly balanced. We were able to make the really slender, elegant - almost racy - base wines that we need in order to assemble our vintage blends."

Chandon's sparkling wine resources in 2005 included vineyards at Tumbarumba in the NSW Highlands, and several dozen Victorian sites around Strathbogie, Whitlands, and the Yarra Valley.

"That said, our base wines from Tolpuddle Vineyard will be up there with the very best wines we've produced," Gosper concluded.

First published 15 June 2005: The Examiner