Posted Jan 16th 2009, 11:13
A Vision of Fine Wine
By Walter Speller
The last Saturday in November, 2008 saw a most unusual encounter between the so called Old and New World: Domaine de Chevalier’s Olivier Bernard meets Nigel Gallop, of nouveau arrivé Fraser Gallop Estate in Western Australia’s Margaret River. All things being relative, Australia’s soils, probably the oldest in the world, can look back on 500 million years of history, but this particular patch of soil has only been planted with vines since the early 1960s. With its Cabernet based blends it indecently quickly shot to fame, begging immediate comparison with Bordeaux not only on the basis of grape varieties used, but also its gravely soils producing powerful, yet refined reds. With a bit of Burgundy in the form of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir thrown in, and joined by Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Riesling, Malbec, and Tempranillo to name only a few, the region seems capable of producing premium wine from whatever grape variety winemakers take a fancy to unhindered as they are by any regulation.
This ‘grape opportunism’ became a thorn in the eye of Gallop, a former software entrepreneur, whose boundless energy is matched by seemlingly endless investments and time he puts into his estate only. During the 1990s he had cast his eye on Margaret River after an interest in wine had budded during his working years in San Francisco with countless visits to Napa Valley. Gallop, who at that time did know little about wine, scrutinised Margaret River, and decided that the only place good enough for him was on the gravely red loam in the sub region of Wilyabrup where most of the top producers are concentrated. His 20 odd hectares of vineyards look decisively Garagiste compared to the average size of Australia’s winemaking operations. Here Bordeaux varieties, white and red, feature predominantly, with only Chardonnay as the exotic one out. For Gallop, who is fanatical about Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, the analogy with Bordeaux should certainly be taken further than red wine only. Somewhat of a hardliner, he has little tolerance for any other grape varieties, Chardonnay excepted, which according to him only dilute the Margaret River reputation and delay the much needed investigation in its terroir.
Many vineyards here sport Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon and figures from the romantically named Margaret River Wine Industry Association show that while the total plantings of Chardonnay have remained static during the last three years, plantings of both Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc are on the increase. The wines they produce are mostly of the fresh and fruity category, but for Gallop they are nothing more than ‘cash cow blends’. He wants to challenge Margaret River to come up with a more serious barrel fermented style analogous to Bordeaux’s white Graves. To make his point, Gallop and his Australian distributor Gary Steel, came up with the idea of a blind tasting comparing Margaret River’s more serious Sauvignon-Semillon wines, called ‘S-SB’ or ‘SB-S’ depending on the grape being responsible for the majority of the blend, with Bordeaux’ finest whites. Steel sourced the likes of Chateau Carbonnieux, Smith Haut Lafitte and Haut Brion, while Gallop made his acquaintance with the affable Olivier Bernard of Graves’ Domaine de Chevalier while travelling in Europe last June. You would think that the Bordelais would be wary of another excercise à la Paris Tasting, but almost all Chateaux, with the exception of Haut Brion, willingly send in samples. Not only that: Bernard travelled all the way to Margaret River with six vintages of his famous white. He must have felt immediately at home at the stately Fraser Gallop house, which grandeur puts many a Bordeaux Chateau to shame.
As Gallop and Steel were aware of the potentially historical significance of the event for the region - Bernard pouring 2006, 2004, 2001, 1989, 1981 and 1975 white Domaine Chevalier from magnum followed by the ‘MR v Bordeaux’ tasting the following day - they invited James Halliday as well as the Who is Who of Margaret River. Halliday, after having tasted the flight of the Chevalier wines, remarked that Margaret River is still to come up with a similar, minerally style of wine. But it is early days, as many of the plantings are still quite recent. Bernard spoke of the age of the vines at his home, which are well over 25 years of age, and the almost matter-of-factly way of winemaking. The secret probably lies as much in the sorting table and selecting anything but topnotch fruit, as the terroir and its indigenous yeast. And it must have been an eye opener for most of the wine makers to see their humble SSB in its 1975 Bordeaux counterpart well alive and kicking.
The next day, while spring rains were compromising what until then had looked like a quick flowering of the vines, the congregation of the previous night returned to the Fraser Gallop winery for the ‘International Sauvignon Blanc Semillon Tasting’. A flight of 16 wines, confusingly consisting of 2005 Bordeaux and 2006 of mostly Margaret River whites and served blind, where to be judged and scored out of 20 by the attendants. Below the results of what could have been a slap in the face of either region. Bernard showed a very able taster, recognising most of the MR whites as not originating from Bordeaux. When asked how he had identified them, he explained they showed much greener and leaner than their European counterpart. A tendency to pick early in an effort to retain freshness as well as obtaining what is considered the typical ‘grassiness’ of Sauvignon seems to be the main reason for this.
Remarkably, the Fraser Gallop Estate itself hadn’t contribute any wine to the blind tasting due to the fact that Gallop, together with his chief wine maker, ex Vasse Felix’s Clive Otto, wanted to wait for the Semillon vineyards to mature. Nevertheless, Gallop seemed pleased with the outcome. According to him, if the event has resulted in animating the Australian attendants to reconsider the potential of SBS/SSB it has been a success. Not leaving anything to chance, he has already planned to turn the tasting in an annual event and other Chateaux in Graves can expect Gallop to be knocking on their door soon.