Year of ups and downs

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that what goes up must come down. It's an inescapable fact of life. That said, there's no doubting last summer's prolonged bushfire activity on the margins of the Huon Valley and D'Entrecasteaux Channel brought its high-flying wine producers back to earth with a bump.

"As a winemaker with more than 25 years' experience, I'd previously encountered bushfires and issues associated with smoke taint in other parts of Australia," explains Glazier's Bay vigneron and 'Pinot-phile,' Jim Chatto.

"This was the first time I'd ever had to address those same issues with a crop of grapes in my own vineyard. I reckon we had about eight tonnes of Pinot Noir awaiting harvest. Some of it was the best fruit we'd ever produced on our tiny little vineyard here in the Huon Valley. It should have been a great vintage.

"Instead, we lost the whole lot to smoke taint."  

"The irony is that the bunches on the vines looked really beautiful. They looked perfectly healthy. 

"But when we carried out a small trial pick and had it analysed by the Australian Wine Research Institute in South Australia – and by research scientists at Melbourne's La Trobe University – their figures showed us our fruit had had very significant exposure to bushfire smoke. It looked highly likely we would have to leave it all out in the vineyard rather than pick it and make poor quality, smoke-tainted wine."

"Our worst fears were confirmed when I then tested some grapes myself in several small micro-ferments I conducted at the winery. The wines they produced were horrific. They smelled like really smoky lapsang souchong tea. They were totally undrinkable."

Now looking out over successive rows of Pinot Noir carrying bunches for the 2020 harvest in another two or three months, the one-time Hunter Valley resident is upbeat about the Chatto Wines project he shares with his wife Daisy.

That's hardly surprising. In late September, Chatto was named 2019 Gourmet Traveller WINE Winemaker of the Year by the Sydney-based national wine publication. 

The award recipient is decided by a vastly experienced judging panel that includes a bevy of industry luminaries: Peter Forrestal, Peter Bourne, Nick Bulleid MW, Huon Hooke, Andrew Caillard MW, Mike Bennie and Toni Paterson MW.

Included among the panel's shortlist of eight finalists were fellow Huon Valley winemakers Gilli and Paul Lipscombe. In addition to making their Sailor Seeks Horse wines, Gilli Lipscombe has been the quiet achiever responsible for Home Hill's extraordinary successes on the national wine show circuit for much of the past decade.

Indeed, southern Tasmania scored something of a double win in 2019, with the Gourmet Traveller WINE award for Young Winemaker of the Year going to D'Entrecasteaux Channel vigneron Jonny Hughes. Hughes - along with his brother Matthew - are responsible for growing, making and marketing Mewstone and Hughes & Hughes wines.

"Our initial reaction to the total loss of our crop was to start wondering what we would do to survive," Chatto muses.

"Fortunately, we've got some great friends in the industry, including friends in the north of the State who were either able to sell us a small parcel of their grapes or were able to provide us with some network connections that led to us purchasing grapes from other vineyards. We were really very fortunate. It mightn't be quite the same as making wine from your own grapes but we've still managed to make wine in 2019, and it's kept us in business.

"In fact, if there's an upside to the story it's that we've been able to diversify our business and reduce our risk exposure by purchasing fruit from other good growers."

In an odd twist that really does sound like the stuff of fiction, in August and September last year, Chatto joined former Melbourne hairdresser Jane Eyre – yes, her real name – to experience his first vintage in Burgundy, France.

It gets better. Genial Jim also managed to talk his way into a grape-buying arrangement that will allow him create an entirely new Pinot Noir for his Chatto Wines portfolio. It's sourced entirely from a specially selected plot in a Savigny-les-Beaune premier cru vineyard.

Truly a remarkable outcome, you'd have to say. Taint too bad at all.

First published 3 January 2020: tasmaniantimes.com