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Years ago Ben gave me with the insight that in the eastern hills of the Barossa, the region we call Eden Valley, lived Svetlana the keeper of Gruner Veltlinger, or as he called her the Lady of the Eastern Hills. I had doubts if such a person existed and even more doubts about the future, if any, of gruner veltlinger.
Last year I drank a remarkable wine, the Stift Goettweig Gruner Veltlinger Gottschelle Kremstal Reserve 2010 13.5% which by all measures is a breathtaking masterpiece.
I should have known better as experience has taught me that all the varieties in the world will somewhere in someone's arms make unbelievable wine.
Thinking of ripeness, alcohol and flavour I opened a Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Hunter Valley Semillon 1995 11% and found it most agreeable. A wine like this is picked early and the flavour develops with time. It is also an acquired taste and will not come naturally to most consumers, meaning you will have to work to understand the beauty. McWilliams know how hard it is to sell as they seem to be forever discounting these remarkable wines.
On the 22nd June, 2014 I noticed a Mount Pleasant Classic Semillon 2007 being sold on line for $9 a bottle.
Then a brace of new world pinots, the variety assured to break the heart of the pioneering wine maker and his or her bank account. We can be thankful that many wine makers have the pinot obsession which comes with the character to try and try again. And we can also thank the small army of pinot-philes who buy these experimental wines and travel the globe attending pinot festivals.
You will find more in Marq de Villiers 'The Heartbreak Grape' (1984) which is a pretty good read.
On the day I liked the Littorai Cerise Vineyard Anderson Valley Pinot Noir 2010 13.5% a tad more than the Old Wika Pass Road Bell Hill Pinot Noir 2009 13.5% of which they made 930 bottles. How can you survive making 930 bottles? Marcel Giesen and Sherwyn Velduizen looked for limestone bedrock, found it and in 1997 densely planted the small vineyard.
Then an early Glug bottling, a Wheatsheaf Barossa Valley Shiraz 2005 14%, from a time when we were beginning our own dream which meant some extraordinary wine was sold under slip labels, simple bin numbers and early attempts at labels.
This was matched with a Yalumba Galway Vintage Barossa Shiraz 2011 13.5%. I recall a Galway 1941 was opened in the late 1990s and the tasters said it still had life. It feel Galway has followed me all my career and Yalumba credit me with reviving the brand, I think back in the 1980s, where I found it unloved in the cupboard of brand discards.
The re-launch job had sales rocketing though ever since a procession of marketing executives have played with the brand position, the contents, the label, the pricing and anything else till the new life ebbed away.
In the late 1990s I was living in Sydney and was invited to a private showing of the new brand positioning for Galway and assuming they wanted my thoughts happily went along. They did not want my views while unfolding the new scheme which changed Galway from a stand-alone brand to being one of a family group which included oddities like the white blend Christobels and a strange merlot. Galway died that day.
I'm reminded that I told them what I thought and after the meeting went to the Oaks Hotel with a friend where we discussed marketing and the future of wine in blue bottles which was the current craze. I like to say brands are like humans and if you cut them enough they bleed to death.
The new, sombre, dark label will not help Galway while the wine quality of the 2011 offers no help. The back label comment; 'Our contemporary interpretation of the traditional, authentic, old-style Aussie red', filled me with sadness.
I recall being at Yalumba in the Barossa Valley in the 1980s where I met the sales and marketing team while noting the dress code was the South Australian tweedy look. It is often said that the status of a man is revealed by the shoes and as the salaries advanced these changed from pale and deep tan brogues to the more casual, soft leather look of loafers with tassels, some with that extra adornment, the frilled leather flap.
At this stage I was introduced to a sales representative who had flown in from the east and was told he had the skills and background to make a real contribution to the company. I looked at his shoes and knew he would not last.
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