Dynamic mixed dozen
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday March 23, 2010
A group of winemakers is setting the pace for diversity and change in the Barossa Valley. For those who think the Barossa Valley is behind the times, dominated by big factory wineries and making nothing but overripe, over-oaked, over-alcoholic monster reds, it's time for a rethink.The same exciting groundswell of change that we see in such places as the Yarra Valley, Margaret River and Mornington Peninsula is happening in the Barossa, Australia's best-known wine region. It is being led by younger people, who don't always accept at face value everything they learn from their elders or their university lecturers.Artisans of Barossa is one example of the revolution. Twelve winemakers have formed a collective to help promotion and co-operation. Not all are that young, though - former Penfolds winemaker John Duval is the latest to join. Not all of them own vineyards or a winery - Kym Teusner, Dan Standish, and Peter Schell of Spinifex own little or no vineyard land.Duval rents space in someone else's winery. Troy Kalleske, on the other hand, makes all his wines from his family's vineyard. Greg Hobbs is primarily a viticulturist whereas most of the others are primarily winemakers. The Artisans are as diverse as their wines.The one thing they have in common is passion. Their wines are at the leading edge of what is best and what is most interesting in the Barossa today. The Artisans are Hobbs (Barossa Ranges), Dutschke (Lyndoch), Duval, Kalleske (Greenock), Massena (Moppa), Radford Wines (Eden Valley), Schwarz Wine Company (Bethany), Sons of Eden (Angaston), Spinifex (Kalimna), Standish Wine Company (Vine Vale), Teusner (Ebenezer) and Tin Shed (Eden Valley). The sub-region in brackets is the place they source all or most of their grapes, so there is a good geographical and stylistic range. Duval doesn't list a sub-region because he takes fruit from all over.I visited several of the group and was enormously impressed. They are youthful, energetic, creative; many of them operate with little financial backing (Spinifex and Schwarz operate out of a tin shed in a bare paddock with no cellar door).Standish explains: "We're not formulaic. We're moving away from processed wine." Simon Cowham of Sons of Eden adds: "We have the freedom to produce the styles of wine we want." Schell says: "We all make shiraz but if you looked at those 12 shirazes together they would all be different - not all one same-ish, generic Barossa style."Some are organic or biodynamic (for example, Kalleske) and some are not. Some are against acid addition; others are not. There is no group position on such matters. What they have in common is thoughtful minds. "We discussed whether we wanted the group to be organic/biodynamic and decided against it," Teusner says. "We tolerate all approaches. We have a holistic attitude and we do approve of doing the right thing by the land and by the wine."Dutschke Wines is the other new addition to Artisans. This is timely as winemaker Wayne Dutschke was recently judged Barossa winemaker of the year by his peers.There's a boom in small winemaking in the Barossa. There are many others, such as David Lehmann's David Franz, Tom Shobbrook's Shobbrook Wines and James Erskine's Bowe Lees, who are doing interesting work on a micro-boutique scale but are not at this stage members of Artisans.Teusner says: "When Dan Standish and Jaysen Collins started Massena and Michel Page and I started Teusner, there were maybe four small winemakers in the Barossa. Now there are probably 40."Australia has been hammered in the overseas press for making boring, same-ish wines. "But every country makes a high percentage of swill, not only Australia," Standish says.There's no swill in what I've tasted from the Artisans. On the contrary, their wines are high quality and full of character and interest. "It's the diversity of the Barossa that we want to celebrate," says Schell. Duval adds: "We have more than 600 small growers, most with small holdings, some with six generations. That's a lot of history. Few districts have that."COLLECTIVE ENERGYArtisans of Barossa has no limit on numbers, however, a few original members dropped out because they were not right for the group. The current dozen is a good round number."We are all friends and we enjoy each other's company," member Dan Standish says. "We share resources, whether it be lending someone a tractor, or sharing bad-debt information."The group had its genesis on a trip to Britain in 2006 when members realised they had much in common. They decided to put on a shared cellar door day €” because none of them had a cellar door of their own €” which is now an annual event. It takes place in Angaston Town Hall on August 21 during Barossa Gourmet Weekend and will come to Sydney and Melbourne in September.
© 2010 Sydney Morning Herald