When I arrive at Yarra Yering cellar door, in the heart of Victoria's Yarra Valley, winemaker Sarah Crowe shows me into a side room where the estate's newest wines are lined up on a table, ready to taste. It's a quiet, austere space with exposed grey cement block walls, typical of the minimalist aesthetic of Dr Bailey Carrodus, who established this vineyard back in the late 1960s and ran it until his death in 2008.
"This used to be his bedroom," Crowe says, as she walks out to finish attending to other customers, leaving me alone with the line-up. "He died in here. Hope you don't mind." And she shuts the door behind her.
I don't mind. In fact, it's rather fitting. I met Carrodus a few times before he died, and he often lived up to his reputation as a private man who found fools insufferable – seeming to view wine journalism as a special kind of foolishness. He was, however, generous with his wine – a trait he shared with that other great pioneer of modern wine in the Yarra Valley, Dr John Middleton at Mount Mary.
While Carrodus was a recluse, Middleton (who died in 2006) was an extrovert: he once bellowed at me down the phone for having the audacity to request some wine for a tasting I was organising – before politely inviting me out to the winery and opening various bottles going back to 1981, exclaiming, immodestly, over the best ones: "Holy mackerel! This is bloody good booze!"
Respect for the past
I've come out to the Yarra Valley today to visit the two winemakers who are walking around in the rather large shoes of those two very different men: Crowe, who has been at Yarra Yering since late 2013, and Sam Middleton, John's grandson, who has been in charge of winemaking at Mount Mary since 2011. In both cases, while there is enormous respect for what has gone before, there is also a slow and exciting evolution of quality and style.
"For my first vintage in 2014 I stuck to the way things had always been done at Yarra Yering," says Crowe. "Then in 2015 – a great vintage – I felt a little more confident to do things a bit more my way: bottling the reds earlier, for example, to retain freshness. And in 2016 I started experimenting with techniques like whole bunch fermentation and carbonic maceration in reds, both with our wines and the Warramate wines [from the neighbouring property that the owners of Yarra Yering bought in 2011]."
The results are encouraging. Two of the best wines in the current Yarra Yering line-up are the 2016 Light Dry Red ($86 and available now), a boisterous, juicy, super-pretty blend of pinot noir and shiraz partly inspired by the classic blends of these two grapes made by Maurice O'Shea at Mount Pleasant in the Hunter in the 1950s; and the 2016 Dry Red No.3 ($86 and due for release in October), a brilliantly complex, meaty and spicy blend of Portuguese red grape varieties that Carrodus planted in 1990.
Change has been afoot at Mount Mary for a little longer. Since the late 2000s, the five-hectare vineyard has expanded to 17, and the original plantings of Burgundian and Bordelaise varieties – chardonnay, pinot noir, sauvignon, cabernet et al – have been joined by a plethora of grapes originally from the warmer Rhône: marsanne and roussanne, shiraz, grenache, mourvèdre and cinsault.
Next month the Middletons are releasing the first wines made from these newer plantings: a white and a red named after Sam's grandmother, Marli Russell, co-founder of Mount Mary with her husband John. These first releases are good – see review, below – but as the dry-grown vines get older, future vintages will be even better.
A highlight of tasting through last year's vintage in the cellar with Sam Middleton was being able to see the components of what will become the 2016 Marli Russell red: the raspberry-like brightness of grenache ageing in large foudre casks; the deep purple berries of shiraz and mourvèdre in barriques; and the light prettiness of cinsault in an older barrel. It's a bold new direction for Mount Mary but it's well considered and it has been done cautiously.
"I'm so focused on constantly improving what we do here that I try not to get stuck on the past," says Sam Middleton. "We know what we do well, and we're committed to our original varieties. But we also know the climate is changing and we're thinking about future generations. In 40 or 50 years time, what else will grow well here? It might prove to be grenache.
"The place is more important than me."
What I'm drinking: next gen Yarra Valley
2016 Warramate Pinot Noir (Yarra Valley, Victoria)
Sarah Crowe's experiments with whole bunch fermentation come to the fore in this gorgeously gluggable young pinot noir, packed with perfumed, sappy, juicy red berry fruit flavour. The other currently available Warramate wines are good, too – and great value – particularly the fine, focused 2015 shiraz. $28 warramatewines.com.au
2015 Marli Russell Grenache Shiraz (Yarra Valley, Victoria)
A blend of grenache, shiraz and a splash of mourvèdre, this has a firmness characteristic of red wines from Mount Mary, with slinky black fruit and a perfumed finish. The 2015 Marli Russell Marsanne Roussanne – $42, also just released – is terrific too: a white with spicy, floral aromatics and a creamy texture. $49 mountmary.com.au
2015 Yarra Yering Agincourt (Yarra Valley, Victoria)
My pick of the top 2015 reds from Yarra Yering due for release in May: a blend of about two-thirds cabernet sauvignon and one-third malbec, the wine floods the mouth with beautiful saturated purple fruit flavour, but there's ample tannin lurking under the seductive fruit to ensure a long life in the cellar. $86 yarrayering.com
2014 Mount Mary Quintet (Yarra Valley, Victoria)
I've been lucky enough to taste – and drink – this wine a few times and the more I try it, the more I'm entranced by its ethereal perfume of dark berries and woody spice and its sheer elegance. A perfectly poised blend of all five traditional Bordeaux red grapes: cabernets sauvignon and franc, merlot, malbec and petit verdot. $140 mountmary.com.au
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