Value Leaders

15 wineries that deliver high quality for $40 or less

Harvey Steiman
Posted: May 20, 2003

		Australia's Edge How the land Down Under scores so well with so many wines
		Top Australian Wines
		Australia's White Wines Riesling now vies with Chardonnay in the quality sweepstakes
		Winery Profiles:
		Greg Norman
		Leasingham
		d'Arenberg
		Penley
		Rosemount
		Paringa
		Devil's Lair
		Groom
		Majella
		Marquis Philips
		Two Hands
		Yalumba
		St. Hallett
		Tatachilla
		Yangarra Park

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Greg Norman

The famed golfer finds a home with Beringer Blass

Wearing a business suit and tie during an interview, Greg Norman looks every bit the global businessman he has become since phasing out of the professional golf circuit. He still plays golf, but his primary income flows from lines of products that carry his name, including clothing, grass sod in his native Australia, and his own Australian wines.

His multicolored shark symbol decorates the bottles, but Norman isn't exactly stomping grapes and rolling barrels. He leaves the heavy lifting to Beringer Blass, the mammoth Australian-American wine company that owns the Norman brand, launched in 1999. The firm draws from thousands of acres of vineyards spread among most of the major regions in Australia for its Greg Norman wines and makes them at its regional wineries, such as Jamieson's Run in Coonawarra and Yarra Ridge in Yarra Valley.

The winemakers responsible for Greg Norman Estates get to pick some of the best fruit from Beringer Blass' vineyards, and it shows in the wines. The eye-opening reserve Shiraz 1998 (94, $40), an astonishingly majestic wine at the price, is the standout, but the non-reserve wines, at $15 to $20, have consistently scored in the high end of the very good range, at 87 or more points.

Vic Patrick, chief viticulturist for Beringer Blass in Australia, was part of the small group that met with Norman to discuss the potential for joining forces. "We sat and talked with him about regions, and he knew what he was talking about. Should the Chardonnay be from Hunter Valley? No, Yarra. Cabernet? Definitely Coonawarra." Why Norman? "All his other products were quality products," says Patrick.

Chris Hatcher, Blass' chief winemaker, and Hugh Cuthbertson, the marketing expert who thought up the idea, had brought along several dozen sample wines representing specific vineyards in regions they had already discussed. "He tasted the lot and got involved in the decisions by telling us which ones he liked," Patrick recalls. "He liked the bloody good stuff, I have to tell you. This wasn't a guy looking for a quick buck on a 2-million-case brand."

Andrew Hales, winemaker at Jamieson's Run, explains that his facility processes all the grapes from more than 3,000 acres in Coonawarra, Wrattonbully and Padthaway, collectively known as the Limestone Coast. Hales chooses the fruit for the Norman wines after selecting for the winery's small-production reserve wines and two small single-vineyard bottlings.

"We're looking for good varietal fruit [for Greg Norman], and we try to balance it with a good foundation of oak behind it. It has to be approachable on release, so the reds have soft tannins, but pretty good palate weight," Hales says. The Cabernet is all Coonawarra. Shiraz tends to be mostly Padthaway, with more Coonawarra than Wrattonbully filling it out. The success of the Shiraz Reserve has spawned plans for a Cabernet Reserve, expected to sell for $35 to $40 in the United States. They're also considering a Yarra Chardonnay Reserve.

Matt Steel, winemaker at Yarra Ridge, uses several vineyards around the valley and in cooler regions nearby to make the Chardonnay. "For Yarra Ridge, we're looking for tight flavors. For Greg Norman, we're looking for broader flavors, trying to fill out the palate," Steel says. Greg Norman Chardonnay started at 47,000 cases in 2000, then dipped a bit to 44,500 in 2001 and 25,000 in 2002. The figure for 2002 would have been higher, but the vintage was smaller than anticipated and everything had to be cut back. Still, they might come up with 1,000 cases of a 2002 Reserve from a new vineyard source in Murrundindi, a cooler region just north of Yarra.

Beringer Blass upped the ante on Greg Norman with that powerful, distinctive Shiraz Reserve 1998. The source was a prized McLaren Vale vineyard. The 1999 Reserve, to be released later this year, is a blend of Coonawarra and Heathcote, in central Victoria. "Every year it will be the best Shiraz available to us," Steel says.

"The best decision we made with Greg Norman was to over-deliver on it," says Jamie Odell, vice president of marketing for Beringer Blass in Australia. "It would have been easy to just repackage some anonymous odd lots and slap a Greg Norman label on it. But that wasn't his style, and we're glad we didn't do it."

Leasingham

Reflecting a distinctive regional style

Clare Valley, north of Adelaide, is something of a conundrum: It's a warm region but it grows some of the best Riesling in Australia. It also makes distinctive Shiraz, with a crispness and mineral character that no other region in South Australia quite duplicates.

In an attempt to amplify that character, Kerri Thompson, Leasingham's youthful winemaker, 29, has been working with the vineyard team from winery-owner BRL Hardy to fine-tune Leasingham's 658 acres of vineyards. In the process, they have created a range of consistently excellent values.

Leasingham Classic Clare Shiraz consistently delivers amazing depth, scoring in the low 90s. At $35, it's one of the more modestly priced of Australia's marquee wines. Classic Clare Cabernet, priced similarly, is one of the few standout Cabernets made outside Coonawarra. Recent vintages of Bin 61 Shiraz, Bin 37 Chardonnay and the occasional Bin 7 Riesling push the 90-point mark at prices around or below $20.

"We've put a lot of work into making sure the right varieties are planted in the right areas," Thompson says. "Riesling is on the higher sites, and we're making better Riesling than we were a few years ago. For Shiraz, we're pulling the crop levels down just a fraction, from about 4 tons per acre to less than 3-and-a-half. At four, the vine was struggling to get into Bastien [a low-priced brand that isn't exported to the United States]. Now it's going into Bin 61."

Leasingham has added new vineyards in the past few years, including a big vineyard, smack in the middle of the valley, that it purchased as raw land in a joint deal with Petaluma. One portion, planted with Shiraz, is just across a fence from Wendouree, one of Australia's favorite cult wineries for reds.

"Regardless of the popularity of Bin 61, we've been able to keep the quality and not stretch the volume, as new vineyards come on line," Thompson says. Ultimately, she expects production to double. "We've had great opportunities, but we'll only have those opportunities if we keep the quality up."

One big change has been a move away from machine pruning, a labor-saving technique that was prevalent in Leasingham's vineyards until the late 1990s. "Machine-pruned Cabernet is way too tannic," says Thompson. "So since 1999, we went to rod-and-spur pruning, and you can taste the sweetness and flesh in the wines. And in general, Cabernet here ages better than Shiraz."

Leasingham's history goes back more than a 100 years, but the winery has gone through several changes in ownership over the past 30. Heinz, the U.S. food company, bought it in 1971 and sold it in 1988 to BRL Hardy. In February, U.S.-owned Constellation Brands announced an agreement to acquire BRL Hardy. But even if part of a large wine company, Leasingham feels like a quiet regional winery, and Thompson is happy to keep it that way.

d'Arenberg

McLaren Vale

Although his family-owned winery makes one of Australia's icon Shiraz wines, called The Dead Arm, mop-haired Chester Osborne saves his biggest bursts of enthusiasm for wines made from unfined and unfiltered blends of Grenache, Mourvèdre, Viognier and Roussanne. They sell for half to one-fourth the price of The Dead Arm. Osborne is as creative with the names as he is with the blends. The Laughing Magpie, a Shiraz-Viognier blend (91 points, $35 for the 2001), is a star in the making.

Penley

Coonawarra

Kym Tolley's father was a winemaker, his mother a Penfold, and Tolley earned his stripes working with Max Schubert at Penfolds. In Australian wine, that's pedigree. He bought a 411-acre vineyard in Coonawarra and went off to make his own wines in 1989, honing the style to emphasize the region's calling card deft balance without losing the ripe, sweet fruit character that makes the wines Australian. Refreshingly priced, in the neighborhood of $25 to $30, they consistently rate around 90 points.

Rosemount

South Eastern Australia

The latest Diamond Label Shiraz, the 2001 (84, $12), isn't quite the rich mouthful the wine has been in previous vintages (it scored around 90 points for the better part of 1990s), but Rosemount still cranks out a raft of outstanding wines priced between $17 and $30, including Shiraz and Cabernet from Mudgee, several regional styles of Chardonnay, and a wonderful Rhône-style blend, GSM.

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