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Listen to Brian’s live podcast “Cork Talk” with Tim Atkins MW on Brian’s thoughts about Australian fine wine and the future of fine wine world:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2XSErrxRTCziVWJziLbmjw?si=57ErAnmzQRmdN3oUGtzt-A

This parcel has performed so impressively in 2020, with trademark white-peach aromas and a subtle lemon-cream edge. The oak is so well integrated here. There’s impressive seamlessness on the palate with citrus-nuanced stone fruit carrying so long and fresh. Thrilling chardonnay. Drink or hold.

97 points

This offers the same blend of lemon and white peach seen in the old-vine Tiers Chardonnay from this vintage, with greater oak influence reading in the wine for now. The intensity is impressive, with acidity driving a vivid, powerful palate. Drink over the next five years. Screw cap.

94 points

On September 30 I retire by decree, as a director of Wine Australia after an eventful seven years including three quite different iterations of the board and two chairpersons, not counting an interim chairperson.

I am the only soldier left standing from the initial board of Wine Australia, beginning as an amalgamation of the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation and the Australian Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation in July 2014.

I have described elsewhere the successes of Wine Australia over, at that time, the six-year journey now a seven-year journey.

Until these past turbulent 22 months, the performance of Wine Australia has been exemplary from both board and management.

A strong strategy was established, consistent with the requirements of our primary stakeholder, Australian Grape and Wine and executed with profound effect.

Even over those past 22 months, punctuated by Covid, bushfires and the China snub, from July 2019 to June 2021 the value of Australian fine wine (>$10/litre) sold in markets other than China grew from $378 million to $499 million, +32 percent.

After 40 years of involvement in wine community politics some things haven’t changed despite the enormous regional and varietal change in our vineyards and wineries, reflected in our export and domestic markets.

That’s a disappointment to me.

The 75 percent of volume and 48 percent of value of winegrapes produced in Australia’s hot irrigated inland regions are made into wine by a few winemakers who are Australia’s largest producers.

That wine is largely sold as bulk and branded commodity everyday wines.

This type of wine business requires the economies generated by scale and the special skills in the vineyard and winery to produce a consistent wine true to the consumer’s expectation of the brand.

There is great value for the whole Australian wine community in the success of this sector providing the Australian wine community at large with economies in the supply chain and presence in markets.

The biggest challenges for this section of the Australian wine community are the impact of climate change in already very hot dry regions, availability and cost of water and distance from market.

Seven years ago, we were still hotly debating the existence of two industry segments.

It is finally now recognised there are two segments with large-shared interests but clearly different dimensional, regional, production and marketing attributes.

Those segments are branded commodity wine and fine wine. Recognition of the differences has been a major advance in determining wine industry strategy.

We can also now talk about Australia’s fine wine terroirs without embarrassment.

The two enduring bones of contention for the important group of inland winemakers are firstly the inequity of the volume-based levy system where 48 percent of the value of Australian winegrapes pays 65 percent of the research and marketing levies because that wine represents 75 percent of the volume of Australian wine.

Fine wine has been the growing market segment in volume and even more in value for decades. By tying levies to the static volume of Australian wine production we lose the opportunity to protect the levy against erosion of spending power as money loses value over time. Also, our research and export marketing agendas do not benefit from the ever-increasing value of Australian wine.

The 2,500+ small and medium winemakers of Australia should acknowledge they need to shoulder a greater share of the levy burden, relieving the mere dozens of large commodity wine producers by supporting a more efficient value-based levy system.

The second enduring issue is the ongoing crusade by some winemakers and regions to change the tax applying to Australian domestic wine sales from the ad valorem WET to a volumetric excise system. If successful, this selfish push would see the price of fine wines come down and the price of everyday wines go up significantly in the domestic market.

The price elasticity of demand for branded commodity wine is large and for fine wine it is much smaller.

A volumetric tax would decimate sales of branded commodity wine with very small increases in sales for fine wine.

It would severely damage a vital component of the Australian wine community with little net benefit to fine wine producers.

These are two very legitimate and vital issues that need resolution for the long-term health of the whole Australian wine community.

There is a third crusade of the inland winemakers with which I partially agree. The hot inland irrigation dependent vineyards do make some very fine wines.

They should make more.

They feel aggrieved their fine wine efforts don’t receive the recognition they deserve. Despite these laudable efforts their stock in trade is and will remain the production of economical bulk and branded commodity wine.

On the other side of the coin the Australian wine community cannot afford its fine wine image to be dominated by the vast irrigated vineyards and ‘wine factories’ of the inland as it was to the detriment of the 2,500+ small and medium producers and their diverse, mainly coastal regions, for the first decade of this century.

We must promote our finest wines and regions to regain international credibility as a fine wine producing country. All Australian vineyards and wineries of all sizes and regions win if we can achieve that.

The alternative of spending Wine Australia’s very scarce marketing dollars on the large, branded commodity labels with their own larger marketing budgets is one of the chip-on-the-shoulder issues promoted by some inland producers.

Another chip-on-shoulder gripe is the claim of the imbalance of the expenditure of research dollars in the cooler coastal regions versus the inland regions. Any audit of Wine Australia’s research program would demonstrate the expenditure is about even for the two industry segments with many programs relevant to both.

Finally, while dealing with the current gripes of some inland producers, they claim that excluding China, export premium wine sales have retreated by more than 40 percent in volume since 2009. That is true but it is a deliberate obscuration of the circumstances over time.

The combined effect of the GFC in 2008 and the pricking of the Parker induced bubble for Australian warm region Shiraz led to a massive shift downwards of the demand curve for Australian fine wine in the US from 2009 to 2013.

Since 2014, excluding the large growth of Australian fine wine in China, the export value of Australian fine wine (>$10/litre) has grown consistently by 11 percent per annum from the low of $214 million in 2013 to $499 million in 2021. 2014 was the year Wine Australia was formed and when it began the project to elevate the international image of Australian fine wine and with it all wine.

I am not claiming credit for Wine Australia for the non-China fine wine growth of the last seven years but its efforts to elevate Australia’s fine wine image have certainly helped.

Over the same time period (2014 to 2021) Australian wine exported to non-China markets at <$10/litre has grown at one percent per annum.

My probably unwanted advice to the inland winemakers is to push hard to achieve levy reform instead of pushing to gain control of the expenditure of Wine Australia’s marketing and research dollars under the current levy system.

What’s next after September 30 other than my unemployment?

The AWRI and the University of Adelaide need to work hand in hand to achieve better vine and wine education and research, to be the best in the world.

They need a new cutting-edge teaching/research winery to optimise this opportunity.

The most powerful key to Australia improving its image and position in international markets is the continuous improvement of the quality of Australian grapes and wine.

Wine Australia needs to continue funding grape and wine quality research as the number one priority.

Wine Australia has achieved a lot for the Australian wine community over the past seven years, the time it has been in existence. It has been an honour and a privilege to serve the Australian wine community as a director of Wine Australia for that entire period.

The Australian wine community has always been independent and resilient.

It has been massively successful across the 50 years I have been part of it, by virtue of its own energy and ingenuity.

It is the primary stakeholder of Wine Australia providing the majority of funds and ideas.

I advise all grapegrowers and winemakers and their organisations to not let their stakeholder primacy be diluted.

The danger of that happening has never been more acute as the industry fragments over the issues addressed here that should have been resolved a long time ago.

Don’t let the politicians and their servants, informed by special interest groups, take over the investment agenda of Wine Australia.

Disunity will invite them to do that with predictable far less than optimal results.

We can never know About tomorrow Still we have to choose Which way to go

You and I are standing At the crossroads Darling, there is one thing You should know

When I joined a wine publishing house 21 years ago my boss Paul Clancy gave me his old tuxedo for all those dinners he didn’t want to go to, along with a ticket to Vinitech Bordeaux and a copy of Making Good Wine by Bryce Rankine and a dozen other books. “By the way,” he said. “I don’t like Pinot Noir.” Neither did I, mainly because I’d never heard of it. I didn’t know anything. Or anyone. But I did have an important wine connection that I had mentioned in my CV. My brother-in-law’s best man “Yacka” went to uni with Grant Burge. I told Grant that, but going by his blank look he didn’t find it as interesting as I did. I had bad days. Wanted to quit. The wine industry appeared to be a closed shop. Demoralising. My resolve to stick with it cooincided with the appearance on my desk of a polystyrene box of wine samples. Two of each in case one was corked. Come to think of it, perhaps I could make a go of this tough industry!

One day Clancy brought a mate back to the office after another lunch. This big man with a booming voice and ready smile barged through the door and spread cheer and laughter, shaking hands with all 17 workers. He lifted the mood of everyone except the proof readers. Then he was gone. Father Christmas in July. Sir Lunchalot. Big Bob McLean. At last I knew someone famous in wine. And Bob knew everyone. Soon I had met every weird and wonderful character from Zootopia. The intense Robert O’Callaghan, the chilled-out Charlie Melton, the conscientious Tyson Stelzer, the gentle Geoff Weaver, the renegade Dave Powell, the articulate Di Davidson, the nurturing David Ridge, the thoughtful Peter Leske, the humble Louisa Rose, the distinguised Peter Dry, the gracious Peter Gago, the generous Iain Riggs, the deep-thinking Chester Osborn and the bloody f**king Wolf Blass. The shop was opening up. I started to feel part of it. I made mistakes. Got carried away. Wore a suit and tie to a media interview in a Macedon vineyard! After 10 years I still hadn’t met Brian Croser. I wasn’t going out of my way. That brain box would chew me up and spit me back to Port Pirie.

I’d heard the Croser stories. That he was opinionated; prickly; intimidating; an enigma. At a Tech Conference once I ducked into the interview room to fill my pockets with free Minties again for me and the kids and there was Croser, studying his notes for yet another speech on fine wine. That stern face, those intense eyes, that Hogan’s Heroes moustache screamed, “Don’t even think about distracting me.” I finally got to have a proper chinwag with him at a Maurice O’Shea dinner. Friendly enough. Encouraging and supportive. He can write! He’s always lobbed the odd hand grenade in the comfortable lap of the Australian wine industry. I think Croser still is Australia’s #1 thinker in wine; still a visionary; still cares more about fine wine than anyone. On 30 September Croser will retire as a director of Wine Australia. He tells WBM, “After 40 years of involvement in wine community politics, some things haven’t changed despite the enormous regional and varietal change in our vineyards and wineries, reflected in our export and domestic markets. That’s a disappointment to me.” Croser says many other things, too. It’s another hand grenade. Read Croser’s departing essay here. If you’re starting out in wine and finding it hard to crack, don’t give up. Zootopia is your oyster. And if you need a tuxedo, yell out. Never been (re)used. 4XL. Was always far too big for me. – ED

• Last night at the Barossa Wine Show the Bob McLean Memorial Trophy was won by Henschke 2020 Five Shillings Shiraz Mataro. Big Bob would approve.

Tiers Vineyard replanted in 2003 to clones 76 and 95 at 1.5m row spacing. Close planting produces earlier ripening and fuller flavours, yielding a generous style in this warm year. Pristine white peach fruit glimpses at mandarin exotics, underscored by toasty, spicy, honeyed French oak. The signature tense acidity of this cool site defines a lively, long finish. Drink now. 

450m elevation; planted 1979, the first vineyard in the modern Adelaide Hills. Celebrating the 40th anniversary of its planting, this fabled site experienced a much warmer vintage than average in 2019. Classic fig and white peach notes have edged toward orange and mandarin exoticism, carrying all the power of Tiers in a full-bodied palate of spicy, honeyed magnitude. Fermented in 33% new barriques, oak joins the party in full voice, bringing up a long finish of considerable length, depth and breadth. 

Characterful and energetic, this is probably the most distinctive pinot that Brian Croser has drawn from his Foggy Hill Vineyard yet. The best clones in the best part of the site unite in a savoury style, filled with beetroot, Moroccan souk and bay leaf. Juicy strawberries and red cherries of a warm season offer flesh and body, well countered by fine tannin bite. Sap and potpourri of whole bunches is well contained, delivery crunch and drive to a long finish.

Signature Wrattonbully, from menthol-tinted aromatics and cassis-defined palate to fine-grained, powdery, chalk-dusted tannins. A cool season heightens tang, freshness, endurance and beauty. Everything works together confidently for a future as long as the cork holds out. 

A cooler season works its magic, lifting the violet perfume of cabernet, the black pepper of shiraz, the bright tang of acidity and the fine-ground energy of enduring, chalk-bound tannins. Regional menthol assumes its rightful place. Medium-bodied effortlessness is refreshing. A keeper.

15% of the fruit was placed at the bottom of the fermenting tubs, progressively crushed. Each block was pressed separately, and clonally, then settled and matured on full lees in one-third new barriques for 10 months. A darker note of berry here – blueberry and black cherry. It’s fully fragrant, with the stems adding their woody spice and seasoning. What happens on the palate is unique, the structure of the wine taking your senses deeper into the flavour well, where a gastronomic heart of subtle amaro-like bitters dwells. Learned palates will want to sit on this and watch it unfold for hours, if not years.

Light yellow colour. The nose is reductive, smoky matchstick, a kiss of oak too, in balance. Small flowers, quite lovely fruit-driven aromas. The palate is soft and round and refined, tapering a bit towards the back. The acid is a trifle firm, but the steeliness would help it go with food. Mouth-watering finish. It’s young and will be even better next year.

95 points

If you cast your mind back to the very beginning of Covid last year you might think the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse got a head start when fires ravaged many vineyards in the Eastern States. But their work was only beginning

With extreme heat, fire, smoke and then rain, you could assume that as vintages go this was close to Hell. But one thing I have learnt in the years of this wine writing caper, is that it can be a serious mistake to make rash judgments on vintage based on initial perceptions. Dig deeper and more is revealed.

And such was the case for 2020. Sure, it  was tough, dire a disaster for some, but not everyone suffered. I was reminded of this recently when a cluster of the latest releases from wine legend Brian Croser’s Tapanappa from Piccadilly Valley near Adelaide.

The three chardonnays I have featured from Piccadilly are all quite different but with a strong affinity to the distinctive terroir of this region. I prepared for disappointment. How wrong.

Even Croser said in a covering letter to me referencing the bushfires and Covid, said: “How something so good could emerge from such a traumatic vintage is akin to a miracle.”

Once the first went and things got back to normal, it was a very good vintage, provided you still had vines and smoke hadn’t tainted the crops.

In fact, to take the Four Horseman analogy a little further – these Tapanappa chardonnays are something of a revelation.

2020 Tapanappa Tiers Vineyard chardonnay 2020

Winemaker Brian Croser is pretty excited about this wine, and a quick sniff and extended sip, and I think I know why. Like the rest of Australia, it was a very small crop resulting in a wine of deep fruit concentration. Once again, the wine spent an extended time until February this year on full lees, allowing pick up of further complexity and textural mouth feel. The striking feature is the palate power and length. I have tasted many of these wines but I don’t think I have tasted better. 98/100 ($110)

(Best drinking: Now to 2033)

Describing himself humbly as a ‘single vineyard vigneron’, others in the wine trade might call Tapanappa’s Brian Croser ‘a vine and wine visionary’ or ‘innovator’. In a career that has spanned more than 50 years he has arguably done more than anyone to shape the Australian wine industry – a true trailblazer, mentor and industry leader. Writing for The Buyer from his home at the Tiers Vineyard in the Piccadilly Valley, the first vineyard he planted, he describes what winemaking in the COVID environment has been like for him and how the future is shaping up. This is the second instalment in our Adjusting to the New Normal series in which we discuss the impact of COVID with winemakers around the world. We want to know from the people who actually make the wine how has their life been in the past 18 months? What additional challenges have they faced as winemakers? And how are they adapting to the new normal?

“The impertinence of our Prime Minister suggesting China should openly engage in the search for the source of the virus inflamed the Chinese response of trade restrictions that were in political formulation anyway. That will have a bigger immediate effect on the Australian wine community than COVID or climate change,” writes Croser.

Winemaking in the COVID environment (More will stay the same than will change).

Winemaking from single vineyards is already a lonely business. It is a communion between vigneron and vineyard across vintages – an incremental learning experience. In contrast, commercial winemaking is a team effort, involving specialist viticulturists, winemakers, logistics managers and marketers. Quality and wine style is determined over the tasting bench involving much discussion and iteration of blends.

Single vineyards, or “distinguished sites” as I like to call them, are only declared after many vintages of consistent production of a unique wine style and quality – the expression of a single vineyard terroir. There is no blending flexibility here, the vigneron is committed to accepting what the vineyard delivers through hot and cold, wet and dry vintages.

The ability to influence outcomes from a single vineyard in a given vintage relies on the vigneron’s ability to forecast future weather conditions and to interpret the visual signals from the vines of the effects of the current environmental conditions. The vigneron can only make management adjustments of viticultural practice after extensive walking of the vineyard – reading the leaves.

By the time the grapes are harvested the single vineyard vigneron already knows how much sugar and acid, how much colour and tannin and the potential flavour profile of the wine that will be made. Walking, observing and tasting extensively and frequently has already informed the vigneron of the winemaking tweaks that will be required to elicit the truest expression of the single vineyard’s terroir.

What has this to do with COVID?

For me, as a single vineyard vigneron, COVID has not changed my life much. I can still walk my vineyards in isolation and safety although communication with the pruners, tractor drivers and grape pickers has become a more formal COVID-safe process. Casual skilled workers have become harder to find in a timely fashion and more expensive to hire. For the labour-intensive single vineyard this has been the most acute effect of COVID.

In the winery, I have an established team of younger winemakers who do the processing of the grapes – the filling and emptying of the barriques, the analysis and all other winemaking actions that I decide on for each of my vineyards. As a fairly senior citizen, my involvement in running presses and pumps has been much less since the onset of COVID. The younger team have active social lives and I have tried to minimise the chance contraction of the disease should any of them unfortunately become a carrier.

Living next to the winery I can take the valinch and two and/or three glasses, in the hours before and after the team working hours, to taste and ponder on the results of the day’s work and formulate a strategy for the next day’s work. That’s COVID different, not being able to freely share a pub lunch or morning tea to discuss the winemaking program. Instead, communication is more by telephone and email. Happily, however, I am weeks away from my second vaccine shot so my winery life will return to a more normal interaction with my winemaking team and I can’t wait for that to happen.

Being the champion of the brand Tapanappa and of its single vineyards used to demand many hours in aeroplanes both international and interstate, conducting tastings and talking to consumers and retail and restaurant customers. Travel has ceased completely for me, except by car locally within South Australia.

Tastings are now conducted through Zoom or other electronic means and I have devoted more time to the written word on the Tapanappa website and elsewhere and to email contact with the wine media in particular. I love to write and read, so the travel respite has been an opportunity to research the many ponderables of grape-growing and winemaking, to think on their application to Tapanappa’s vineyards and winery, and to write as I am doing now. I miss my overseas friends, but the travel restriction is not all bad.

Predicting the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic

In June of 2020, a year ago and four months into the COVID era, we were all wondering what it would mean for the Australian wine community? Being a board member of Wine Australia, I was involved in many industry Zoom meetings trying to second guess the effect of COVID and to develop strategies to alleviate detriment. I wrote a paper called “More will stay the same than will change.”

Essentially, I argued that vignerons would continue to nurture their special vineyards and make their unique terroir-driven wines, and that the demand for authentic and unique wines would continue to grow as it has for the 50 years I have been a vigneron.

The only major change for the fine wine community would be where and how the fine wine consumer would obtain the product. With restaurants closed, or severely restricted, a major avenue to the fine wine market for small vignerons was closed. Specialist bricks and mortar retail became less accessible and direct to consumer and local wine tourism in the place of international and interstate travel would drive alternative sales for small vignerons.

None of these predictions were especially clever insights, but what happened in the marketplace exceeded expectations. Fine wine consumers have more avidly sought unique high-quality wines as an antidote to the privations of COVID restrictions. Direct to consumer methods of communication, sales and distribution have rapidly become more sophisticated and effective. Long may it prosper!

South Australia and Tapanappa has just finished one of the very finest vintages of my 50 years of experience and it delivered quantity with quality. COVID only indirectly contributed to China slamming the gate on Australian wine imports. The impertinence of our Prime Minister suggesting China should openly engage in the search for the source of the virus inflamed the Chinese response of trade restrictions that were in political formulation anyway. That will have a bigger immediate effect on the Australian wine community than COVID or climate change.

The implications of climate change

The longer-term implications of climate change for my vineyards are scary, and climate change amelioration urgently needs to be addressed at an international level. I take some solace in the fact that 2016 and 2018, the hottest vintages of my career and comparable to the predicted norm of the future, delivered wines true to the variety and terroir of the vineyards. Again, I suspect for the foreseeable future, that in the choice of variety for the vineyard “more will stay the same than will change.”

On a very cold and windy day in the Piccadilly Valley, I look out of my office window at the pruners bending their backs to the intricate task of carefully selecting and gently bending and tying the new canes to the wire. This signals that the start of the next season is imminent and the lonely vigil of the vigneron in the single vineyard is about to resume for another season of who knows what!

The Tiers Vineyard Old Block in the Piccadilly Valley is 41 years old, planted in 1980.

The oldest planting at The Tiers was planted the year before in 1979 and was pulled out in 2003 to make way for the new Tiers 1.5m planting of Dijon clones on rootstock at the high vine density of 1.5 metres between rows and 1.5m metres between vines in the row (4,444 vines/hectare).

The irony of this is that having carefully chosen the University of California Davis Chardonnay clone FPS 1A, their oldest clone called Chardonnay OF when it arrived in Australia in 1969, we have unwittingly pulled out the only authentic block of OF we had planted. The rest of Tiers was planted in 1980 and 1981 with rootlings sold to us as OF clone. The Australian Wine Research Institute have genetically typed the plantings related to Davis FPS 1A (OF) and found a family relationship between the Gingin clone shipped to Western Australia in 1954 and the OF and Mendoza clones shipped to South Australia in 1969.

The Old Tiers clone was found to not relate to this Davis family of clones nor to any of the other Chardonnay clones tested. It is a very different Chardonnay clone of unknown origins, but we know it makes very good wine. Its origins remain a challenge for future genetic research by the AWRI.

The Old block of Tiers was planted in 1980 on own roots at the then radical vine spacing of 2.1 metres between rows and 1.5 metres between vines in the row (3,175 vines/hectare).

At 41 years the Old Block vines are beginning to show their age. The heads of the vines show the scars, lumps and bumps and the atrophied trunks expected of vines undergoing the annual amputations called pruning for 41 years. The life-giving sap from the roots has to follow a tortuous path to the new shoots emerging in the spring and the vine’s arteries are sclerotic in direct analogy to a human at twice the age of 41 years.

Again, there is irony in this vine ageing process because as the vines’ capacity and productivity have diminished with age, the quality of the grapes and the wines they make has increased inexorably year on year. These old vines are now too valuable to lose to the deprivations of time and even if we replanted, we would have to wait decades to achieve the same wine concentration and quality. So, the Tiers Old Block represents both an irony and a dilemma.

The questions are how do we rejuvenate these precious senior citizens and give them the longevity to bridge time until the 2003 1.5mX1.5m Dijon clone block achieves sufficient age to produce grapes of equivalent quality?

Also, when do we start replacing in small sections, the Old Block with grafted vines on closer spacing of the wonderful unknown clone from that block?

The answer to the first question is we are giving the old vines a hip replacement and heart valve replacement at the same time. Grape vines share in common with our native Eucalypts the habit of burying buds in the expanding trunk as they grow. These are called adventitious buds and are an evolutionary defence mechanism against the loss of the new shoots to fire, frost and all of the other deprivations nature invents. When the new foliage is lost the plant stirs these buried buds into growth and although weakened the vine lives for another vintage.

We are taking advantage of the random appearance of these new shoots from old-buried buds to rejuvenate the old vines. Normally as they sprout from near the base of the vine, we would cut them off the trunk as they usually don’t bear fruit and are competitive for the root supplies of water and nutrient. Now they are a valuable resource as we select the strongest and bring up a new trunk alongside the old sclerotic trunk to the fruiting wire. After two or three seasons the new uninhibited healthy trunk is strong enough that we can carefully amputate the old trunk above the starting point of the new. We have a vine with the old root system and a new trunk. Productivity returns without detriment to grape and wine quality. O’ that we humans had adventitious buds!

Pinot Noir doesn’t need to taste like Burgundy to be good. This Tapanappa Definitus Pinot Noir 2018 is the example of this.

It’s a Pinot of rippling power. Of tannins and conviction. A Bordeaux drinkers Pinot Noir, if you’re still looking for a French connection, that arguably trades less in seduction and more in structure.

Stepping back a bit, this is Brian Croser’s Pinot Noir flagship – drawn from a select few rows of the Foggy Hill Vineyard that yield the best fruit. It’s a much more defined and convincing wine than the ‘standard’ FoggyPinot too.

Here, the fruit tips into plum, more dry red than classic elegant strawberry-fruited Pinot, complete with a sense of blackness. It’s almost Grenache! Proud density, a very nice viscosity and thickness. It’s not delicate, but impressive as a drink, the tannins twiggy and firm, the dark fruited finish even and long. I admire this wine, even if it doesn’t fit the Pinot mode (and it didn’t seduce me). It’s a Pinot wearing a double breasted suit, with shoulder pads, and maybe a pocket square. Such a step up from the normal Foggy too.

Tapanappa Definitus Pinot Noir 2018. Best drinking: now to ten years or more. 

18.5/20, 94/100. 14%, $90. Tapanappa website. Would I buy it? A few glasses.

If you’ve got elite fruit power, don’t be afraid to show it. This has an Olympic athlete’s body: big frame, strong muscle, yet supple. The palate gently flexes a range of flavours through the long ride – stonefruit orchard, a bite of fleshy pear, golden apples, lemon pith. Completely seamless…

97 points

The Piccadilly Valley has a proud history of crafting great Australian Chardonnay, and was the original home of Petaluma. This wine shows the same combination of bright, youthful and complex fruit in an elegant style. The wine is pale golden and a pretty, understated and finely detailed style. There are many layers – citrus, apple, grilled nut and praline fruit with an attractive gunflint edge. It is then dry, mid weight, savoury and juicy on the palate with the creamy texture and savoury elements seen from barrel ferment. It is also tangy, with palate impact, and finishes with good length. 

92 points

Brian Croser’s vision of a great Right Bank Bordeaux, realised. Or at least that’s the drift with this Tapanappa Whalebone Vineyard Merlot Cabernet Franc 2017. Sometimes this Wrattonbully red can seem too ripe and too ambitious, but it feels rather right with this ’17 iteration. Sadly the Cab Shiraz I tasted alongside it was corked, and I’m having a bad run of TCA in top end Aus reds lately. ’16 Octavius days later corked too. Just put them all in screwcap, please.

Anyway, this Whalebone spends 20 months in 69% new oak. 65% Merlot, 35% Franc. Coffeed and oak-laden wine it is too, with the enveloping, slightly bitter but sweet chocolate and vanilla bean palate the mark of expensive wood. It’s plush though. A long, lavish flow of dark, chocolate cake flavour. None of the drying tannins or alcohol warmth of some recent vintages either. Just a mass of richness, a wave of molten dark fruit, rich oak and ripe tannins. It’s pretty silken really, even if it’s a singular wine. It chugs on and on. Plenty to admire with this lavish beast, and it will live forever.

Tapanappa Whalebone Vineyard Merlot Cabernet Franc 2017. Best drinking: likely better in two or three years time. Then it will go for decades. 18.5/20, 94/100. 14.5%, $90. Tapanappa website. Would I buy it? I don’t know if I’d buy a bottle. A glass maybe. I’d gladly have in my cellar though.

I haven’t read the press notes on this wine but 2020 in the Adelaide Hills was an interesting time, no doubt. There’s plenty of fruit power here. And texture. And form. It feels powerful and well honed and, indeed, has a quartz-like aspect to it. Yellow peach, grapefruit, nectarine, woodsmoke and cedar characters shoot convincingly through. Candied citrus too. There’s a smoky element to the aftertaste but fruit notes crush right through it. This is dry, this is taut, this makes an impression. When it relaxes it could yet score higher. 

92 points

The chardonnay vines on the Tiers Vineyard in the Piccadilly Valley are all now well over 30 years old though some were planted in the late 1970s. This is an intense glide of beautiful chardonnay flavour. It had me hooked straight up. There’s an amount of struck match character here too, for the record, though the pear, white peach, grapefruit and citrus characters are where the main action is at. This is delicious. This is powerful. This is lengthy. It feels a it wild, in a good way, but it simultaneously feels pure, somehow. It’s terrific. 95 points

Bright ripe-peach and lemon aromas on offer here, framed in some spiced, hazelnut-like oak and nougat. The palate has quite punchy, fresh stone-fruit flavors and acidity holds the finish taut. Drink now. Screw cap. 

92 Points

Tough vintage, to say the least, and yet out if it you get something as beautiful as this classy chardonnay from the Piccadilly Valley. Lot of white peach and nectarine characters with a pristine purity. Crisp fine minerally acidity and lovely oak treatment come into play to carry the palate to an effortlessly long finish. Such fine focus and beautiful shape. Mighty good chardonnay. $39 (Best drinking: Now to 2029)

94 points

A beautiful piece of wine machinery. Precision is everything here. That, and purity. Nectarine, lemon curd, flint, cream and cedar characters. It’s pure, focused and long; it’s scintillating. Drink this now and it’s spectacular but its best days remain ahead.

95 points

This vineyard was close planted along French lines with French clones and it really does have an impact on the wine. The extended time on full lees until February 2021 had also played a part in building palate texture and complexity. Notes of nougat and cashew with a creamy light butterscotch and peachy nectarine character are so engaging. Has a dry slightly savoury focused finish. ($55) 95/100

(Best drinking: Now to 2030)

It’s a firm, fragrant, spice-riddled pinot noir with blueberry and macerated cherry notes shot through with aromatic herb notes. In fact it’s quite earthen, almost beetroot-like, with a sweetness to the finish in the context of its dry/earthen style. This is a pretty impressive wine it has to be said. Different in its Australian context. Earth, root and blue fruit. Interesting.

92+ points

There are four hectares of pinot noir growing on the Foggy Hill vineyard; this is from a one-hectare strip. It’s planted at a density of 4444 vines/hectare, using clones 115 and 777, all planted on rootstock.

Firm, ripe and convincing. Cedarwood oak shows keenly but fruit-derived flavours are yet myriad. Dry tobacco, garden herbs, beet notes, a luscious almost jellied berry character, woodsmoke and anise. There’s a smoky, twiggy bitterness to the aftertaste and it’s a most pleasant thing; it helps elevate it. This wine has the structure to age but I’m not convinced its a long termer; the next handful of years though will be good ones.

94 points

Lots going on here. Huge perfume of ripe plum, sage, violets, pot pourri, cedar. The palate is plush, jubey, lush, soft, lots of ripe fruit, a lick of minty green herbs, some rose hip tea and a late wash of feathery tannins and malt. Bold mouthful, lots of excitement, plenty of grunt and yet balance and class.

93 points

Seaspray, seaweed scents, a dusting of clove, cassis, some eucalyptus too. Evocative perfume. Dark fruit flavours, more of the salty, seaweed thing to taste, some saltbush greenery too, chewy, clove-y oak laid on with late coming tannins building to a nice chew. Good concentration, flow, suppleness, though a bit dry and tangy on the finish. That being said, there’s a really pleasing old school, good school feel to everything here.

92+ points

Sour cherry and dark fruit profile, touch more of the savoury – almost hedgerow, stem like – than I necessarily recall. For that depth of aromatics, it carries a lightness to itself; silken in its flow across the palate and not sacrificing length nor depth of flavour. 

Tannin is exemplary: both fine and minerally. A quiet achiever, needs time or cellaring

93 points

Brian Croser’s Fleurieu Peninsula Pinot has evolved quite a bit over its existence, the style reaching for more delicacy every vintage. It doesn’t always get there, but the trade-off is a wine with no shortage of power. It’s easy to overlook the subtlety with this 2019 vintage release too. The nose has a distinct Pinosity complete with a little leaf litter and loads of almost glace red fruit. On first glance I wouldn’t be upset if I called this mod-Grenache in a blind tasting with that red fruit. It’s licoricey too. There’s no confusion when you taste this – Burgundy it isn’t, more like Adelaide Hills-esque this vintage, such is the fullness through the middle. Still classy though, even if it’s not a delicate wine. Has a nice bright and long finish too, and judging on history, it’s only going to get better. Classy wine.

93 points

Somewhat puckered peach—skin, flesh, kernel—and a sniff off that often elusive match-strike that many a Chardonnay-lover desires. There’s a wheaty, grainy edge to it also. Has a bracing, briny breeze on a beach-type thing about it, and it’s loaded with yellow stone fruit, fuzzy-skin sweetness. Iced-cracked kernel; dense and mouth-sucking. It’s almost gone and there will be no ’19 (although there is a Tiers and Tiers 1.5m). 94(95)/100, 9/10, $38 at a few Dan’s outlets.

Tim White http://www.timwhite.com.au

Tapanappa founder/winemaker, Brian Croser, calls the 2020 vintage “unique.” Despite COVID, bushfires and a severe frost in his beloved Tiers Vineyard in the Adelaide Hills, he uses the word in an upbeat way. Flowering and fruit set in the vines were affected by cold weather. That means a small crop. That’s a tick for potential quality. Then ripening occurred in ideal autumnal weather, “perfect cool, dry, sunny conditions.” All of this goes a long way towards explaining why this $39 chardonnay is a real zinger offering a celebration of beautiful fruit.

Honeysuckle, stone fruits, apple, mango skin and vanilla greet the nose. For me, the palate – creamy, leesy and long – is all about the mouthfeel, the way the wine streams over the tongue and lodges in the memory. It’s light on its feet, the acidity is filigree fine and the citrussy, melon fruit is juicy and fresh. It’s raring to go right now.

95 points

This wine hails from the celebrated Tiers Vineyard, but there are subtle differences at play which imbues it with a different personality to the Tiers flagship wine.

• It’s younger in vine age, planted 2003.
• It’s planted to French Bernard clones and is earlier ripening.
• It’s close-planted, hence the reference to 1.5M (1.5 metre spacing).

There’s a generous ripeness that is countered by a racy acidity. Acid hounds will enjoy the mouth-watering smack of juiciness and lemony clean finish. The lifted scent of lemon blossom, nougat, apple and white peach on the bouquet sets the scene. Fermentation in French oak barriques (one third new) then brings a real touch of texture and balance. Fruit intensity comes courtesy of a very good vintage, but it is the combination of the almost Chablis-like acid crunch that leaves the most lasting – and long – impression. Overall, it’s one smart chardonnay from one of Australia’s great chardonnay makers of which only 200 dozen were produced in 2020.

94 points

If chardonnay is indeed making a comeback, it’s through wines like these where much of the excitement dwells. The trio of Tapanappa Adelaide Hills chardonnays are about cool climate viticulture, attention to detail and commitment to a style that is very much about projecting the quality of the fruit in any given vintage. The Tiers is the high point in the chardonnay collection, the one that creates the buzz or, what winemakers call, “the halo effect.” Its high status brings added sheen to the lesser priced wines.

A quiet elegance lives here. Don’t overchill this wine or you will lose that inner beauty. The scent of white flowers mixes with fine-edged fruit qualities of grapefruit, Delicious apple, mandarin skin and dusty lemon. Citrus plays out on the palate with a grapefruit pithiness before moving into a warm, textural glow. Oak is nicely integrated. It’s complex and worthy of extra time in the cellar. If you can, give it that time.

96 points

“It’s young and will be even better next year” – 2020 Tiers Vineyard 1.5M Chardonnay

Light yellow colour. The nose is reductive, smoky matchstick, a kiss of oak too, in balance. Small flowers, quite lovely fruit-driven aromas. The palate is soft and round and refined, tapering a bit towards the back. The acid is a trifle firm, but the steeliness would help it go with food. Mouth-watering finish. It’s young and will be even better next year. 95 points

Light straw colour. Cashew nut, straw, biscuit and creamy lees aromas, restrained and fresh and delicate, but extremely intense and concentrated on the middle palate. The acidity is searing, a trifle domineering perhaps, but will easily be absorbed by any food. Long, long persistence. Potential plus. 95 points

Brian Croser reports on the 2021 vintage, which he describes as ‘perfection in a sea of uncertainty’.

In South Australia we have just completed one of the very best vintages of my 51-vintage career.

Against a background of global social tumult, roiling sickness and death in India and other developing nations, lockdowns anywhere and anytime, frost devastation in European vineyards and smoke and fires enveloping the vineyards of the west coast of America, to lay claim to one of the best vintages ever seems certain to excite accusations of having a ‘tin ear’ again.

But then again, the 2021 vintage in southern Australia follows two successive disappointingly small vintages. The fires and smoke of 2019–2020 are less than 18 months behind us and the floods of early 2021 on the eastern seaboard ruined the vintage for many there. Meanwhile in November 2020, the Chinese government declared war on the Australian wine community.

Nature and the human species are in vengeful mode. I can understand Nature being exasperated as each percentage-point increase of CO2 concentration inexorably increases the global temperature, and humankind seems incapable of altering habits.

In the midst of this global mayhem, perhaps unnoticed at the bottom of the globe, a very slightly warmer-than-average and very dry vintage evolved, ripening grapes in the last half of March into April, later than normal, in sunny, windless and cool days that constituted perfect autumnal conditions.

Two old mates conspired to create the near-perfect 2021 vintage conditions in southern Australia. SAM (Southern Annular Mode) and ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) teamed up to create cooler-than-normal conditions along the southern coast of Australia, as SAM shifted the high-pressure cells that circle the globe in the Great Southern Ocean closer to Antarctica and further from Australia, and ENSO warmed the waters off the Australian east coast. Moving anticlockwise, high-pressure-cell winds from deep down in the Great Southern Ocean lapped the southern coastal regions of Australia all summer and the onshore moist winds from the warm Pacific Ocean brought torrential rain to the east coast.

I have interrogated my fading vintage memory bank to attempt to find an analogy to the 2021 vintage. More reliably, I have used the wonderful resource known as CliMate to map the temperature and rainfall records for the seven months of each vintage since 1980 in the regions where we at Tapanappa have vineyards.

Excluding vintages since 2010 as too young to make a judgement on their apogee of quality, the vintages that were excellent across all our regions are 1988, 1990, 1998, 2000, 2005, 2008 and 2009. The wines from these vintages, when opened over the years, reinforce the memory of the excellent vintage conditions.

I have used CliMate to assemble the GDD (growing degree days, ie the heat) and the rainfall of the seven-month growing season. These are crude measures of the vintage conditions because they do not take into account the distribution of heat and rainfall between months, between day and night nor the incidence of heatwaves.

Vintages like 2021

The closest fits of heat and rainfall to 2021 are 1988, 1990, 2005 and 2009. The GDD range demonstrates the wide variability in GDD between the vintages from 1980 to 2021, and the excellent vintages fit very closely to the average for each region, in both GDD and rainfall, perhaps being slightly warmer and drier than average.

[table id=10 /]

The Tiers vineyard, being hand-picked last March in the picture above, has excelled in 2021. The Piccadilly Valley was slightly warmer and drier than average and the Chardonnay yield was less than average at 5 tonnes/ha (roughly 2 tons/acre), harvested on 25 and 26 March. Again the sugar level was modest and the acid high because of the cool growing season. 2021 Tiers Chardonnay is bubbling away the last grams of sugar in French oak barriques as I write and I expect it to be one of the best ever, with intense nectarine fruit and lovely balance. To return to vintage 2021, Foggy Hill Vineyard, at Parawa on the Fleurieu Peninsula, yielded a slightly higher-than-average crop of completely clean, moderately coloured Pinot Noir at a very modest sugar level and high acid. The Pinot was harvested between 17 and 20 March, a week later than normal. The wines have finished at 12.5% alcohol, reflecting the cool daytime growing conditions at Foggy Hill, and have velvety tannins.

Finally the Whalebone Vineyard in Wrattonbully, just north of Coonawarra, yielded perfect, intensely coloured fruit at between 4 and 5 tonnes/ha. The Merlot was harvested on 24 March and the Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc on 10 April.

The Merlot has just been pressed to oak and the Cabernets are still on skins in the fermenters. They stain everything they touch and the aromas coming from the fermenters are mesmerising.

An apology

It seems inappropriate to celebrate the wonderful 2021 vintage in the south of Australia with so much misery and uncertainty elsewhere in the world. Balancing up, the Australian wine community has had its share of disappointments over the past few vintages, making us more acutely aware of the travails of others.

Nature delivers good and bad, dispensing vintage conditions without fear or favour and we make the most of what is delivered. It is impossible not to cherish a near-perfect vintage.

Below is my favourite view of the world, which is from the Bureau of Meteorology site. It is the isobaric map of the southern hemisphere from a point above the South Pole showing the intense low pressure systems circling the Antarctic and above that the band of high-pressure systems circling the Great Southern Ocean between Australia, South Africa, South America and the Antarctic continent. Those are the highs responsible for the wonderful 2021 vintage.

For Foggy Hill the 2018 Definitus is quite open for business at a young age, no doubt thanks to the warm and dry vintage. Bright mid cherry in colour, there is a powerful core of dark and red cherry fruits with distinctly spicy, herbal and slightly meaty complexity, plus French oak also playing its part. The palate is dry and strong – with generous earthy, truffle nuances over layers of cherry compote fruit with balanced tannins that provide a long finish. It’s a delicious pinot noir with good aging potential but lacks the very highest levels of delicacy.

95 Points

Brian Croser’s Fleurieu Peninsula Pinot has evolved quite a bit over its existence, the style reaching for more delicacy every vintage.

It doesn’t always get there, but the trade-off is a wine with no shortage of power. It’s easy to overlook the subtlety with this 2019 vintage release too. The nose has a distinct Pinosity complete with a little leaf litter and loads of almost glace red fruit. On first glance I wouldn’t be upset if I called this mod-Grenache in a blind tasting with that red fruit. It’s licoricey too. There’s no confusion when you taste this – Burgundy it isn’t, more like Adelaide Hills-esque this vintage, such is the fullness through the middle. Still classy though, even if it’s not a delicate wine. Has a nice bright and long finish too, and judging on history, it’s only going to get better. Classy wine. Best drinking: now to five years easy. 18/20, 93/100. 13%, $55. Would I buy it? I’d definitely share a bottle.

Light straw colour. Cashew nut, straw, biscuit and creamy lees aromas, restrained and fresh and delicate, but extremely intense and concentrated on the middle palate. The acidity is searing, a trifle domineering perhaps, but will easily be absorbed by any food. Long, long persistence. Potential plus. 07 APR 2021
2021–2032

95 points

With Spring approaching this 20 March, white wines may begin to take an edge this time of year. Whether looking for crisp and refreshing styles or complex and full bodied, South Australia’s top-scoring white wines from the 2020 Decanter World Wine Awards seem to encompass it all…

2018 Tapanappa, Tiers Vineyard Chardonnay, Piccadilly Valley (Adelaide Hills)
Rich and smoky on the nose, with hints of gentle spiced citrus fruit, and the palate is graced with white peach, nectarine and a hint of spice.
Gold, 95 points

Full Article

Deep red colour with a trace of purple and the bouquet has a gun-smoky, black olive, roasted-fruit bouquet, the palate full-bodied and chewy with assertive, slightly bitter tannins that leave a hefty chew on the aftertaste. A quite heavy, thick-textured red that deserves time and really needs some ageing. Big extraction, bulky and lacking elegance. It’s very ripe and savoury: a long way removed from simple fruit.
92 points

With Spring approaching this 20 March, white wines may begin to take an edge this time of year. Whether looking for crisp and refreshing styles or complex and full bodied, South Australia’s top-scoring white wines from the 2020 Decanter World Wine Awards seem to encompass it all…

2018 Tapanappa, Tiers Vineyard Chardonnay, Piccadilly Valley (Adelaide Hills)
Rich and smoky on the nose, with hints of gentle spiced citrus fruit, and the palate is graced with white peach, nectarine and a hint of spice.
Gold, 95 points

Full article

All class. Layers to bouquet and palate, inward concentration, exceptional length and fine tuned oak/lees work implicit. It offers nectarine to marzipan and cinnamon spice. The palate shows richness but freshness of acidity with a core of flint-like minerality. Righteous stuff.
94 points

Deep red colour with a trace of purple and the bouquet has a gun-smoky, black olive, roasted-fruit bouquet, the palate full-bodied and chewy with assertive, slightly bitter tannins that leave a hefty chew on the aftertaste. A quite heavy, thick-textured red that deserves time and really needs some ageing. Big extraction, bulky and lacking elegance. It’s very ripe and savoury: a long way removed from simple fruit. 23 MAR 2021
2023–2037

92 points

Medium to deep red colour with a trace of purple and a mossy, undergrowth bouquet with traces of humus and cabernet raspberry-mint, more savoury than fruity. The wine is very dry and savoury in the mouth, finishing with firm tannins and a palate-cleansing trace of bitterness. It perhaps lacks a little in freshness but has undoubted depth of flavour, concentration and is already quite complex.
93 points

It’s a firm, fragrant, spice-riddled pinot noir with blueberry and macerated cherry notes shot through with aromatic herb notes. In fact it’s quite earthen, almost beetroot-like, with a sweetness to the finish in the context of its dry/earthen style. This is a pretty impressive wine it has to be said. Different in its Australian context. Earth, root and blue fruit. Interesting.
92 points

The classic Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz blend is all about combining the structure of Cabernet Sauvignon with the ripeness and upfront appeal of shiraz. This example does it well, aided by the warm 2016 vintage.

It is a bright deep ruby colour but still closed, and youthful. The fruit is brooding – layers of tar, olive tapenade, cedar and spice combined with tight grained oak. On the palate it is dry, juicy, angular and structural with concentrated fruit currently enveloped in a blanket of tannins. All the pieces are in place, it just needs time to flesh out.
96 points

This Tapanappa Whalebone Cab Shiraz 2016 sure packs in flavour, but it would be more compelling if it was less ripe.
85% Wrattonbully Cabernet and 15% Adelaide Hills Shiraz (from the Shining Rock Vineyard which Brian Croser founded in the Petaluma days). It’s deep, thick and coffeed, the palate drenched with dark chocolate flavour and a thick, cooked berry middle.
A huge wine, of considerable impact, with thickset fruit and chocolate oak at every turn. There’s a sense of savouriness and unquestioned length and breadth, though it’s treacly on the tail and alcoholic, the finish burning off some regionality in the process.
I can see the vision of this red, can feel the inensity and taste the quality of the fruit and oak. But the volume knob is just a bit high…
90 points

While not quite of the same calibre as the exceptional Tiers, this Tapanappa Piccadilly Valley Chardonnay 2018 is another solid Adelaide Hills Chardonnay.
Tight and citrussy lemon butter style, the palate very much driven by tangy grapefruit and less about oak richness. For mine it’s a bit disjointed, the fruit lean and citrussy and the palate feels like it’s reaching for richness to balance out the tart grapefruit. Still, it’s very long, which all points to quality fruit at the core. You just need to drink it next year.
91 points

2016 Tapanappa Single Vineyard Adelaide Hills Shiraz is the first “distinguished site” shiraz from Tapanappa, from the Shining Rock Vineyard planted in ’96. A very good expression of Adelaide Hills shiraz, replete with black pepper, warm spice and licorice threaded through its blackberry and satsuma plum flavours, oak and tannins in dutiful support.
96 points

2017 gave Foggy Hill the growing season and vintage it craved for. In terms of varietal character, texture, structure, balance and length, the wine can’t be faulted. It is by some distance the best Foggy Hill Pinot Noir made to date. What will the ensuing vintages provide?
97 points

Classic right bank (Bordeaux) blend of Cabernet Franc (as opposed to Cabernet Sauvignon being king on the left). Wrattonbully in the far east of the state of South Australia has a cool, maritime influenced, climate – from memory the whalebone reference being to the fact the region was under sea way back in the past, and whale bone have been found in the region.

Cabernet France’s aromatic play is on show here, bright and intense, puppy blackcurrant and suggestions of redcurrant. Can be mistaken for a mintiness; bright, fragrant and fresh. The palate seemingly at odds to that, carrying a depth and intensity. It conveys the freshness, granted; fine and silt like tannin building in intensity, drawing flavour with it.

The Tapanappa wines are generally exceptional, this carrying on that fine lineage. Should be in the cellar of every Australian wine lover.
95 points

Foggy Hill is located on the Fleurieu Peninsula, and is one of the coldest places on the Australian mainland. It creates a very unique style of Australian Pinot – particularly savoury, spicy and even meaty wines. The wines are also structural and have a pretty edge.

The 2018 shows its typical youthful flourish – floral, red cherry and wild strawberry fruits are matched by a touch of green herbs, baked earth and iron. It is then dry, light weight and sinewy – the fruit complex but currently underlying its structure which is dominant. This is a wine that needs time for that brooding Tapanappa Pinot character to emerge after which it will provide delicious, savoury drinking over the medium term
93 points

Marked by mint and cassis on the nose, the 2017 Whalebone Vineyard Cabernet Shiraz becomes more Shiraz-like on the palate, where it adds cherry-berry fruit and a relaxed, generous feel on the medium to full-bodied palate. Silky tannins sneak in to give a pleasant soft dustiness to the finish. It’s a solid effort, but it lacks the aromatic fireworks of the Cab Franc Merlot blend.
91 points

The floral-herbal elements of Cabernet Franc are nicely balanced and rounded out by the ripe cherries of the Merlot in Tapanappa’s 2017 Whalebone Vineyard Merlot Cabernet Franc. Silky and fine on the palate, this medium to full-bodied red still delivers plenty of flavor, with cherries and tobacco set off by accents of cedar and vanilla on the lingering finish.
93 points

The 2018 Foggy Hill Vineyard “Definitus” Pinot Noir is a blend of Clones 115 and 777 from a strip of vines over the site’s shallowest soils. Winemaking is similar to the rest of the vineyard’s production, and maturation takes place in 30% new French oak, with the balance of the wood being one and two years old. Compared to the regular bottling, it ratchets up the intensity, but it does so at the expense of some of the more delicate floral nuances. Herbal notes impart welcome complexity to the cherry-scented fruit, buttressed by fine, cedary oak. Medium-bodied, it’s slightly bigger and more generous than the regular bottling, with almost velvety tannins on the finish. I suspect it will age well for at least a decade.
91 points

More floral and ethereal in character than the sturdier 2018, the 2019 Pinot Noir Foggy Hill Vineyard delivers notes of fresh herbs, black tea, roses, cherries and cranberries. Medium-bodied and silky in texture, it also weighs in with 0.8% alcohol less than the previous vintage. While it’s less expansive and rich, it floats easier on the palate, lingering easily on the finish.
90 points

Pale straw-colored, the 2019 Chardonnay Tiers Vineyard comes from the original plantings made in 1979 at 450 meters above sea level. Entirely barrel-fermented in one-third new French oak with the balance in second- and third-use barrels, it boasts subtle scents of pencil shavings accenting ripe melon and citrus. Medium-bodied, generous and silky in feel, with more pineapple flavors evident on the palate, it finishes long, with mouthwatering citrus and delicate oak nuances.
93 points

Very light, bright yellow hue. A powerfully expressive bouquet of cashew-nutty, oaky, oatmeal biscuit aromas, the palate very intense and penetrating, concentrated and high-impact. The finish is ultra-dry, appetising and refreshing. The intensity is almost forbidding in its youth. An excellent wine; better in another year or two.
96 points

Huon Hooke
Huon Hooke

Light, bright yellow hue. Gently smoky, nutty, straw-like bouquet, complex and gently reductive, the palate fine and tensioned, precise and delicate yet intense and long. It has a delicious core of sweet stone-fruit flavour balanced by a refreshing, crisply tart finish. A slightly subtler, more restrained, refined wine than the old-vine Tiers.
96 points

Medium to deep ruby colour with purple tints and a complex bouquet of smoky, vegetal, possibly whole-bunch fermented characters, some notes of char-grilled vegetables, all melded with raspberry-like fruit aromas. Hints of humus and Campari. The wine is intense and medium to full-bodied, well-structured and firm but not overly tannic for its fruit-weight. Succulent sweet-fruit centre. A delicious glass of pinot, with the structure to take some age well. (777 and 115 clones. 20% whole-bunches, aged in 30% new French oak for 9 months) 27 FEB 2021
95 points

Bright and vibrant ruby colour from core to rim. Black cherry, iodine, smoke and vegetable broth aromatics. Intense from the palate entry, dark cherry fruit shows early then morphs into multiple savoury layers of smoke, meat and undergrowth. Quite mouth-filling, Acids and tannins show a guiding hand yet stay supple and in the background. Very long and has many years ahead of it
94 points

I can’t help but think that warmer years are helping Foggy Hill. Not that the wines from cooler years are not delicious, but they are generally quite savoury and need some time to put flesh on their bones. But no such problem with this vintage, which is one of the best.

Bright mid cherry in colour, it opens with stalky, exotic fruits – autumn leaves as always but then there is also dried strawberry and five spice aromas; a beautiful mix of sweet and savoury with oak in perfect unison. The palate then has great energy and drinkability from day one – not a bad sign at all. Red berry fruits dominate which are joined by potpourri, dried herbs including thyme plus spice, dried lavender and stony earth – it reminds me of a little French village called Gevrey-Chambertin. Long fine silky tannins provide a perfect finish to a great pinot experience. Food matching – don’t bother – bathe in its beauty.

96 points

Somewhat puckered peach—skin, flesh, kernel—and a sniff off that often elusive match-strike that many a Chardonnay-lover desires. There’s a wheaty, grainy edge to it also. Has a bracing, briny breeze on a beach-type thing about it, and it’s loaded with yellow stone fruit, fuzzy-skin sweetness. Iced-cracked kernel; dense and mouth-sucking. It’s almost gone and there will be no ’19 (although there is a Tiers and Tiers 1.5m).
94 (95) /100, 9/10

We are very excited to announce the Tiers Vineyard 2019 Chardonnay was listed in the Drinks Business 10 Best Chardonnay’s for 2020 after winning GOLD at the 2020 Drinks Business Global Chardonnay Masters in December for the fifth year running.

This continues a fantastic run for the Tiers Vineyard Chardonnay, building on it’s worldwide reputation, with previous vintages claiming:
2018 – Gold
2017 – Master
2016 – Gold
2015 – Master

Read the full article:
https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2021/01/here-are-the-10-best-chardonna…

Earlier this year, The drinks business published a guide celebrating the talent of the winemakers who have scooped the highest accolade of our Global Masters tasting series, which is judged almost exclusively by MWs. Each week we profile the winemakers behind these medal winning wines – the creatives, scientists, mavericks and dreamers who are at the pinnacle of winemaking.

Brian Croser began as a winemaker with Thomas Hardy and Sons in 1969, later attending The University of California at Davis and establishing the Wine Science program at Charles Sturt. By 1976 he had established Petaluma, followed by Argyle winery in Oregon in 1986. Tapanappa was established in 2002 in partnership with Bollinger and the Cazes family of Lynch Bages in Pauillac, and in 2014, the Petaluma winery.

What or who inspired you to become a winemaker?
I grew up on a sheep farm straddling the Brown Hill Range in the Clare Valley and bordering the vineyards at White Hut. I loved farm life and having an aptitude for maths and science decided at primary school age that I would be an agricultural scientist. At boarding school, my headmaster was Charles Fisher, an Englishman and son of the Archbishop of Canterbury who loved Australian wine. He influenced me to become a winemaker as it is where the geographical and biological worlds meet, ranging from geology, soils and climate to plant physiology, microbiology, biochemistry and finally sensory appreciation.

What’s your favourite part of the job?
Sampling my vineyards leading up to harvest; assessing the crop level, condition and exposure of the fruit and canopy condition against the background of the season’s rainfall and heat accumulation. Tasting flavour and balance in the grapes and deciding when to harvest as perfect fruit as the season allows, informs the winemaking process and paints a minds eye picture of the finished wine. It’s the moment the vintage is made or broken.

What’s the hardest part?
The equal hardest part of the job is to see a vintage lost or severely compromised by weather conditions as happened in 1981, 1983, 1989 and thankfully not since. A year’s work lost!

What’s your go-to drink at the end of a long day?
At the end of a long day the reward and reviver is a glass of Riesling, it doesn’t matter whether Australian, Alsatian, German or Oregonian as long as it has a balanced to finish dry and is aromatically pure and flavoursome.

What advice would you give your younger self advice?
Choose your favoured variety and wine style and select the most suited site, plant intelligently, grow your own grapes, make and bottle your own wine to reflect the synergy between variety and site. Ignore the varietal and regional fashion of the day and the critics’ favoured wine styles. Let the site determine the quality, style and nuances of the wines produced over many vintages and try to enhance its unique attributes. Don’t reach for the ameliorative chemical palette. Be very patient, for 20 years plus.

What was your greatest winemaking mistake?
In 1984 and 1985 cash flow considerations forced me to make wine from Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot grapes grown at the Evans Vineyard in Coonawarra after a radical vine retraining and grafting program. The wines were overly herbaceous, thin and predictably didn’t last. Parker didn’t like them. I wish I hadn’t succumbed to the financial pressures.

What wine-related achievement are you most proud of?
The winemaking achievement of which I am most proud is choosing the Tiers Vineyard in the Piccadilly Valley to grow Chardonnay in 1978, the first vineyard in the Adelaide Hills. This unique site and I have communicated now for 40 years and we still spring surprises on one another on the incremental journey to ultimate quality. Not far behind in the pride stakes is the choice of the very isolated Foggy Hill Vineyard on the Fleurieu Peninsula for Pinot Noir a work in progress since 2003.

Who is your inspiration in the wine world today?
I have had many inspirational mentors over the years: Dr. Bryan Coombe, Tom Hardy, [wine writer] Len Evans and Christian Bizot, to name a few. I was privileged to work with Amerine, Singleton, Ough, Kunkee, Olmo and Winkler at Davis and to befriend Andre Tchelistcheff, but the man I most admire at the moment is Jean-Michel Cazes of Lynch Bages. He is a great custodian of the traditions of Pauillac, but is a perfectionist informed by sound science and reason in an age when myth and spirituality resonate irrationally.

Where would your fantasy vineyard be?
My fantasy vineyards are where they are. They started as fantasies. I have no desire to own a proven Grand Cru vineyard in Burgundy, Bordeaux or wherever. I would not swap the journey with my own selected varieties and sites in South Australia.
If you weren’t a winemaker, what would you be doing and why?
I would be a geologist or an architect. Understanding the structure of the earth as a geologist and the marriage of aesthetics and functionality of the architectural endeavour have long fascinated me.

Which wine (grape/style) do you find it impossible to get along with
A variety I have never been tempted to grow or make is Grenache. Again this is heretical in this age of rebellion and rediscovery where Grenache has become a minor hero. The confection aromas and flavours and lack of profundity as a single variety are barriers to taking it to heart.

How has your taste in wine changed over your career?
My taste in wine has changed with my ability to afford the great wines of the world. I did begin my winemaking career in the late 1960’s when it was still possible to afford and drink the great wines from great vintages, aided and abetted by Len Evans et al. Many of those Grand Cru are beyond ordinary budgets now but I still carefully buy my share being canny about vintage and vineyard. Great Burgundy and great Bordeaux vie nearly equally in my cellar.

What type of wine do you drink most regularly?
I mostly drink Chardonnay and Pinot Noir when I am not drinking Riesling, Cabernet or Shiraz.

What wine would you most like to drink, and who would you share it with?
The greatest wine in my memory was 1961 Palmer. I would most like to share it with [wine writer] Len Evans and its maker Peter Sichel, both unfortunately deceased.

Master medals
Tapanappa Tiers Vineyard Chardonnay 2013 (Chardonnay Masters 2015)
Fleurieu Peninsula Pinot Noir (Pinot Noir Masters 2017)

https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2020/08/the-master-winemaker-100-brian…

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Wines are sold by Tapanappa Wines Pty. Ltd. ABN 86 104 001 667