Second chance vines

Planting a few vines in your own patch of dirt is the stuff of dreams for those pursuing the romantic notion of making a little bit of home brew for themselves. But for those who choose viticulture for a livelihood, planting and maintaining a profitable vineyard is no place for dreamers. 

Every vine planted and every vine tended has to pay its way in the world of commerce. It's revenue not romance that drives decision-making.

When Geoff and Susan Bull first planted Freycinet Vineyard on Tasmania's idyllic East Coast, Sauvignon Blanc was included among the couple's pet selections.

That was 40 years ago, says Freycinet winemaker Claudio Radenti.

"Geoff was quietly confident that wine grapes would do well on this site," he adds.

But by the time the quietly spoken bloke from Launceston arrived to make wine on the Bicheno property back in 1992, the vineyard's Sauvignon Blanc vines had long since gone. They had given way to Riesling and expanded plantings of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

"The variety was really difficult in the vineyard," Radenti explains.

"I don't know whether it was because Geoff didn't have the right clones for the site - or what it was - but it just wouldn't crop reliably. It was always boom and bust. After a while, Geoff just gave up on it and pulled it out."

Two decades later, Radenti and winemaker/life partner Lindy Bull found themselves sharing a gotcha moment. The Bull family's purchase of the neighbouring Coombend Vineyard in 2013 included several hectares of well-established Sauvignon Blanc.

What seemed less than ideal at the time proved a master stroke for the property that has since become synonymous with world-class Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Radenti sparkling wine.

Last week's trophy announcements in the 2020 Winewise Small Vigneron Awards provided further proof of Freycinet's unerring recent success with the pesky French variety. The vineyard's wines were included three times among Winewise's 16 category winners – twice for wines made from Sauvignon Blanc.

Winning wines from second-chance vines.

The category winners were 2018 Wineglass Bay Sauvignon Blanc (Best Sauvignon Blanc or Blend); MV Freycinet Botrytis (Best Sweet White) and R3 Vintage Radenti (Best Sparkling Wine).

Based in Canberra, the subscription-funded consumer publication Winewise has been a sourced of informed wine commentary since 1985. Its annual Small Vigneron Awards are conducted for Australian wine producers that crush 250 tonnes of grapes – or less – each vintage. Around 1300 entries are judged blind by its panel of professional tasters before various award recipients are decided.

"We're really pleased with our results in this year's competition," Radenti says.

"All three trophy wines won gold medals at the Tasmanian Wine Show back in January. Our Botrytis wine was also a gold medal winner and runner-up to the trophy winner at last year's Six Nations Wine Challenge, held in Sydney."

The latter result is especially noteworthy. Entry into the Six Nations Wine Challenge is by invitation only. It is made at the request of each of the six international wine judges that take part. A total of 1600 entries are assessed. These are drawn from six countries – Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA.

Freycinet's 2018 Wineglass Bay Sauvignon Blanc bears little resemblance to your average Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. Many say that's New Zealand's wine gift to the world.

"It's very much top-end premium wine, rather than the highly-mechanised, almost industrial wine you see from many Marlborough vineyards," Radenti continues.

"By incorporating around 30% of wine made by barrel-fermentation in 3-4-year-old French barriques, we can create a style of Sauvignon Blanc that's really smooth and creamy in texture, but without distracting oak flavours."

The vineyard's gloriously decadent MV Freycinet Botrytis combines small parcels of Mother Nature's handiwork in the vineyard with winery skill and extraordinary sensory perception at the laboratory tasting bench.

Sweet and luscious on the palate, the wine is a blend of 3 vintages: 2016 (50%), 2017 (25%) and 2018 (25%). The letters MV - stated on the label - denote Multi-Vintage. That puts it somewhere out of left field when compared with more conventional dessert wines produced from a single season.

"Multi-vintage blends are well accepted in the creation of many sparkling wines, but there's a bit of a perception that table wines made in a similar fashion are in some ways lower in quality," Radenti observes.

"For me, it was clearly a matter of the sum of the component parts being far superior to any one of the components tasted on its own. When the wine was on the tasting bench, I thought 'Boy, is anyone going to buy a multi-vintage dessert wine?'

"The answer was in the glass. In the end, I was happy to go with a blend, because in terms of wine quality, it was just the best wine I could make. That's all that matters."

First published 28 August 2020: tasmaniantimes.com