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The Loss of Winemaking Talent

When I was on my tour of Rutherglen, Andrew Buller mentioned in passing a concern he had about the loss of winemaking talent when wineries were taken over and that got me thinking.

How important is the loss of winemaking talent, is it really lost, and will it even be missed? To answer these questions, let’s examine a few scenarios.

Firstly, when the Rosemountification of Southcorp took place may winemakers in the group found their services were no longer required. There is nothing new in this, to cite just one other example, Steve Loxton left Maglieri after it was taken over by Blass. However with the Southcorp situation a significant number of winemakers departed and there were some very well known and respected names amongst them. Now in theory, if any of these winemakers were truly great winemakers then we should be seeing great wines being produced by them. Unfortunately, in reality that’s not the case.

Peter Douglas was at Wynns for many years and was regarded as a gifted winemaker and no doubt, he probably is, but it takes more than just being a gifted winemaker to make great wine. Likewise, John Loxton produced some very credible wine with the Maglieri label. For example, the Steve Maglieri was a class wine.

If I think back to my days in the computer industry at IBM, I worked with some well regarded high flyers that were on the fast track to receive the keys to the executive dunny. Some of these guys got impatient and left because they thought they could do better “on the outside”. Many of them took off and landed flat on their face. And it is the same with some of the well regarded wine making talent. There are two main reasons for this phenomenon.

Firstly, many of these winemakers, whilst talented, need the support and structure of a corporate organisation around them to truly prosper. That support takes many forms and that level of support should never be under estimated. There is a huge difference between being a winemaker in a large corporate where much is done for you and being a small operator where you have to make every decision yourself and also, basically do it all yourself.

Secondly, and in some ways even more importantly, how many times have we heard the expression “great wine is made in the vineyard.” You need great grapes. No matter how good the talent, you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. Yes, you may be able to produce a very good looking pig skin wallet, but it won’t be silk purse no matter how hard you try. Therein lays the second problem. Most of these top winemakers don’t have access to the quality and range of fruit they may have been used to receiving.

There is a third, but to a lesser degree, issue that should also be recognised. Many of these winemakers have been working with fruit from the same vineyards year in and year out. They have been using the same methods and have slowly improved them over the years. Their circumstances, as much as they can be in the wine industry, had been reasonably consistent. Change to a new winery, in many cases a new area, add in the quality of the fruit factor and the lack of corporate resources and is it any wonder these winemakers are not producing the wines they once produced?

Whilst these people were in the corporate environment, a synergy was established, where in many cases, the sum of the whole was greater than that of the individual parts. Take away some of those parts and the winemaking component does not stand up as well as it once did.

Still, it is a shame to loose that synergistic talent but does the large winery miss that loss? The answer to that question depends on the depth of talent that’s left to fill the void. If there is a talented understudy, then quite possibly not, however if the talent in that location is thin on the ground, then its very possible the new winemakers product may not be as good till they come up to speed.

In the case of Seppelt, the departure of Ian Mackenzie did not have a negative effect. There was a good, solid team behind the winery and the new boy, Arthur O’Connor was very talented in his own right and is taking the winery to new heights.

In the case of Houghton where Larry Cherubino departed late last year, it will be interesting to see what happens. It doesn’t always go smoothly when winemakers change wineries. When Howard Park lost John Wade some years ago it took Michael Kerrigan a little while to come up to speed but of course now he is producing very credible wine.

Even with medium sized wineries, when circumstances change, even when the winery has the same winemaker, the wine produced may not be as good as normal. At Seven Hills in Clare, in about 1994 the orders came from above for Brother John to make the winery more profitable and to ramp up production. The 95-97 vintages in my opinion were far weaker than previous comparable years as they played around trying to get it right. In 1998 the winery came back to form in terms of quality, even though the style had changed.

It takes more than just a great winemaking talent to make great wine, it takes great grapes but it also takes the right winemaker in the right job, be it working for large corporate or working for themselves.