World-class at our door

So far as we can tell, Tasmania's first vineyard was planted in 1823 by one Bartholomew Broughton, in what is now the Hobart suburb of New Town. History notes the wines of his Prospect Farm were especially successful, receiving accolades both here and abroad. Evidently they were deemed worthy of comparison with the finest from Europe's vineyards.

While Prospect Farm has long since vanished, more than a century and a half later, the source of some of Tasmania's finest wines is still to be found in the Hobart suburbs.

Located on the banks of the Derwent River at Berriedale, just 10 km north of the city, Moorilla Estate is effectively the oldest commercial vineyard in the State. Its 3ha of close-planted, carefully nurtured vines are barely a grape toss from a state-of-the-art winery and thoroughly modern wine centre.

Together, they offer a world-class experience at our doorstep. Their setting is as picturesque as you could hope to find within close proximity of ann Australian capital city. There are both river and mountain views.

Access can be made from the main road, or from the site's river frontage via a shuttle of ferries which depart daily from Hobart's Brooke St Pier.

Fundamental to the success of the estate is Moorilla's tasting centre. It's a multi-purpose facility which combines the best features of a restaurant and convention centre, wine-tasting room, and cellar-door outlet.

A Tasmanian Tourism Award winner in 1992 in the Most Popular Restaurant category, the centre demonstrates its versatility by offering seating outdoors as well as indoors. A regularly changing menu features specialty local foods.

Also on offer, all-year-round, is the opportunity to taste a range of Moorilla Estate wines with cheeses and biscuits. There is a nominal fee of $5 per head, pretty good value when you consider regular cellar-door prices per bottle range from $18.50 to $24.

But if you're really keen on pursuing a world-class experience, you can do no better than try the exceedingly fine and rare 1993 Moorilla Estate Rhine Riesling Botrytis Cinerea  ($17.50 per half- bottle). Just a miniscule 600 litres were produced. Born of fruit infected with the 'noble rot' known as botrytis cinerea - in the manner of the world's greatest sweet white wines - it's characterised by its incredible intensity and lusciousness of fruit flavour.

The wine is a product of a totally natural process. It occurs only in rare seasons when a delicate balance of sunshine and early morning mists create the ideal vineyard humidity for the mould's tiny spores to innoculate bunches that are already rich in concentrated grape sugars. Given optimum conditions for reproduction and spread of the infection, the organisms are able to perforate grape skins and hence dehydrate individual berries.

Moorilla Estate manager/winemaker Julian Alcorso says making botrytis-affected sweet wines poses the ultimate in challenges to the grapegrower and the winemaker.

"It really is a cow of a wine to make," he adds.

"It's extremely difficult, it's frustrating, and it's dangerous... but the fascination with it is that is happens so rarely."

Only four such wines have been possible during the past 13 vintages at Moorilla Estate.

It's a very costly process, too. Each wine requires roughly 10 times more fruit to be harvested than to make than the estate's conventional dry Moorilla Riesling. It also presents special problems in hand-picking, fermenting and filtering.

Nevertheless, Alcorso says the ultimate prize is a wine capable of standing toe-to-toe with its German cousins costing many times more, whenever procurable, that is.

He's right. Like its forebear from the fabulous 1985 vintage, this current release will evolve slowly and gracefully, seeing in the new century with ease if you give it the chance to cellar. It's world-class.

First published 4 August 1995: The Advocate