2006 South Australian Tour Diaries Chapter One

Chapter 7 Continued .... Part Two - Friday – Barossa Valley – The Last Day

The last day of the trip is always one of mixed emotions. Firstly, one never knows what to expect, and if possible, it’s great to finish on a high, so that's why I now save one of the special appointments for the last day. There is nothing worse than visiting a succession of “very ordinary wineries” in a desperate attempt to find something memorable in the last few hours of the trip.

Blonde Coffee had been hit for breakfast previously, so we headed back there as it was just down the road from our next appointment. As this was the last breakfast, I will spare readers of the details of the debauched breakfast that the Pie King and his apprentice consumed.

A couple of years ago, I did an extensive, and very rewarding, tasting at Yalumba, but that Tour Diary did not go into much detail about the winery, or the story behind it. After that initial tasting, I knew I had to write more about the winery and today was the day. It was something I was well and truly looking forward to, as my gut feel told me it was going to be a special experience. For those that are not aware, Yalumba is the oldest family owned winery in Australia.

We were met by Dru Thoms, the wine room ambassador. As we started our tour, he proudly told us that one of his joys in life, and something that should not be missed, was a Hungarian goulash pie, and strawberry milk, from the Lyndoch bakery. Meat pies are bad enough, and coffee flavoured milk even worse, but the thought of a pie with sickly-sweet, strawberry milk was enough to make me want to throw up. However, the Pie King suddenly had a new best friend.

Visitors to the winery will be impressed by the old bluestone buildings (much of which came from rock that was quarried on the site, and the balance from a site a couple of kilometres away,) which surround the central courtyard. The original main building was commissioned by Walter Smith, the third generation of the wine making family. (The Hill Smith name did not come into being until Walter married Ida Hill.)

When standing in the courtyard and looking around, one has no idea of the true magnitude or the size of this operation. It has been structured in such a way that most of the winemaking operation is hidden from view. When the original winery was built, like many in its day, it used gravity feed and in the basement of the original building, the remnants of the huge concrete fermenters can still be seen today. More on that later because these huge, concrete fermenters are now used for a very special purpose.

The sign above the door reads "S. Smith & Son Yalumba Estd 1849” but the main building was not completed until 1908. The featured tower clock was imported from a London clock-maker. Five years ago, the building underwent restoration and cleanup work, so it should be good for another hundred years, and hopefully a lot longer.

Yalumba has a complete range of wines. It starts at the budget end with the Oxford Landing label for around seven dollars and then moved up into the Y Series, and then goes up the scale through a number of different labels and into the Hand-Picked series and finally into the icon labels which can retail for as much as a hundred dollars a bottle.

The winery is a quiet achiever and their lower priced wines have always represented value. The mid-range wines have a reputation for consistency, whilst the top end wines have been renowned for being big, tannic wines that are full of oak. Not too long ago, the Octavius had the nickname Oaktavius, and for good reason.

Most people are probably unaware that Yalumba is the only winery in the Southern hemisphere with a working cooperage and make about one third of their own barrels. We were lucky enough to be there whilst the operation was in full swing.

At the rear of the working cooperage building, the place holds more than a faint resemblance to a timber yard. A huge amount of wood, which has been sourced from Pennsylvania and Missouri, is exposed to the elements which will enable it to dry out and weather. The air drying is used to leach out the excessive tannins. The reason that Yalumba make their own barrels is quite simple. They want to have control of the entire process including everything that impacts on the finished product, and of course, once you get into the premium end of the market with wines like the Octavius and The Signature, the quality of the oak treatment is critical. By weathering an ageing the wood, Yalumba feels that it gives them a distinct advantage over their competitors, and enables them to produce a higher quality wine.

Once the timber has sufficient age (five to eight years), it is brought into the cooperage shop for the next stage of the manufacturing process. The staves are planed or docked, which basically means they are cut to size. They do a pallet at a time, and it looks like bloody hard work. They dress the timber by putting in a concave shape, and then narrow down the top and bottom section of each stave. Once they have been cut to size, they then need to be bent into shape.

The staves are water bent. They are placed into water that has been heated to 90°C and left there for 25 minutes. The moisture and the heat make the wood pliable enough to bend in the cradle. Once they are bent into shape, they are secured with galvanised hoops. Each hoop is individually measured and cut to size so they can take into account the varying “bilge” (or curvature of the barrel.)

They are then toasted and finally the barrel heads are knocked into place. A picture is worth a thousand words, so in order to save a few thousand of them, you can see the process for yourself here.

To give you an idea of the lengths that Yalumba is going to in order to try and affect total control over their wine making processes, they are now going to start seasoning their timber in the northern hemisphere (both France and the US) for a period of three years, as the temperature variance at the source is greater than it is in the Barossa. This increased temperature fluctuation will open the pores of the timber faster and enable the timber to age more quickly and will result in timber that is actually more tightly grained.

At the other end of the line, after five years, the barrels are decommissioned. The hoops are knocked off and the timber is broken up into small pieces and then used as the source of fuel to fire the new barrels. Recycling doesn't stop there. All the waste water is treated and either recycled and reused in the winery or reused elsewhere on the site.

The cooperage makes between 800 and 900 barrels a year, and a number of the cooperage staff have been there for around 20 years. Besides using American and French oak, they are now playing around with Hungarian oak and trialling it in The Signature.

When you consider that in 2005 they were making barrels from French oak that had been sitting outside the cooperage since 1997, you start getting an idea of the huge investment Yalumba is making in barrels. One raw stave is probably worth around seven dollars, which makes each pallet of timber worth approximately $1,500 at original cost, and there are rows and rows of pallets stacked 2 or 3 high.

Watching these barrels being made was a fascinating experience.

Whilst we were trudging through the site, we discussed all sorts of topics; from the 2006 to 2007 anticipated drought conditions through to breeding dogs.

An interesting statistic; Yalumba grows approximately 40% of their own grapes and buys in the rest. (They grow a bit more of their own fruit than most of the other majors.) Yalumba has approximately 50 acres of vines on the valley floor, and that holding shows the diversity of vines available to them. It includes their nursery vineyard, as well as approximately 20 acres of Grenache vines, that are well over a hundred years old.

Whilst we were walking around, we passed an old timer and our host told us that his family has been bringing grapes to Yalumba for over a hundred years. With family connections like these, no wonder Yalumba has access to fantastic fruit.

One of the parts of the winery property is known as “Mexican Vale”. It got its name from two families of Mexicans who used to live on the property during picking season, and the area next to it used to be a fruit orchard. The building that is now known as the Octavius Cellar started life as a fruit cannery. Even though many of these old buildings can't be seen from the street, and are far newer than the original building, which was completed almost 100 years ago, the site maintains architectural sympathy, and many of these newer buildings are built out of the same bluestone.

In 1999, The Signature from the 1995 vintage was dedicated to every man, woman, child (and dog) that ever had anything to do with Yalumba. The dedication didn't stop there. Every single fence post in the “Family Block” which was planted in 1904, was named after an employee who was with the company in 1999.

As we continued our journey, we arrived at their very own Nature Reserve. Apparently Robert Hill Smith's mother is passionate about animals and started The Reserve. It's stocked with all sorts of Australian natives ranging from wombats to black swans and the Cape Barren Goose.

Once we got into the “industrial” part of the winery, the true magnitude of the operation became apparent. The usual tank farm is there, as are a number of huge barrel storage rooms. One of the striking factors that became evident as our tour progressed is the combination of the old and the new, and how they have managed to keep the best of the old, whilst maintaining a modern, spotlessly clean, up to date winery. Moving from place to place was like moving in an out of a time capsule. One thing you don't often see in the winery is a cool room running at 4°C but Yalumba has one. It comes into its own during vintage, and if the temperature in the barrel room rises beyond the desired temperature whilst the wine is going through malo, the barrels are moved into the cool room to slow things down.

Once we got into the main winery proper, we saw why it is commonly known as "the spaghetti factory." There were pipes going absolutely everywhere. From there, we arrived at the lab or “voodoo shop” as it is affectionately known by the staff. It is one of the most complete labs I have seen in any winery. Once again, modern and up-to-date with all the latest gear, unfortunately they have not perfected their rain dance ability.

Many wineries do their own bottling, but Yalumba has not one line, they have three of them, as well as two lines that are dedicated to cask wine. These lines enables them to knock out about 5,000 bottles an hour as well as 40,000 casks a day; that's right, that 40,000 figure is no misprint and total production is around one a half million cases a year.

The attention to detail is remarkable. When we looked at the white wine cellar, we were told the winery had recently spent $2 million on upgrading the piping and cooling equipment alone; all this in an endeavour to make their wines just that tiny little bit better.

The capacity of this winery is mind-boggling. We were told a delightful story about a new cellar hand who was as keen as mustard and couldn't wait for things to get busy. One morning, he raced up to one of the winemakers and asked when the rush was going to start. As cool as a cucumber, the wine maker turned to the cellar hand and said, "It’s a pity you weren't here last night; we crushed 790 tonnes of fruit." To put that in perspective, that's almost 600,000 bottles of wine. Approximately 82% of all wineries in Australia produce less wine in an entire season than Yalumba produces in one night.

That “crushing event” took place in the second week of February and it was all Sauvignon Blanc. That single grape variety makes up approximately 30% of the white wine produced by Yalumba, and surprisingly enough, Yalumba has approximately 10% of the Sauvignon Blanc market in Australia; most of that through the Oxford Landing brand. The Oxford Landing brand alone equates to approximately 3 million bottles of wine a year.

For many years, Yalumba used huge underground cement tanks. Just how big were they? You'll get an idea a little later. And there weren't just one or two of them, there were rows of them. When these tanks were being used in the winemaking process, the access to them (manhole doors) was from the floor above the tanks, in what is now the fortified barrel room. Whilst the fortified barrel room is certainly not comparable with Seppeltfield, it is impressive in its own right. Like many old, established Australian wineries, Yalumba had its roots in fortified wines, so this fortified barrel room comes as no surprise. Yalumba doesn't just pay lip service to heritage, history and the environment, the way many other companies do, their actions speak louder than words, and their dedication to these worthy philosophies are easy to see. The aroma in the fortified barrel room was deliciously intoxicating; bad pun intended.

For those who are not aware of the history behind The Signature series, this full-bodied Cabernet Shiraz blend, which is noted for its age-worthy characteristics, was first vintaged in 1962. Each year, the wine is dedicated to an individual person, or in some cases a group of people, who have helped Yalumba become the company they are today. It's an admirable way of recognising their staff publicly, but this recognition goes a little further. Inside the fortified barrel room, every single person who has been saluted by the awarding of a Signature label also has a barrel with their name on it. Silly me, I didn't ask if they were allowed to drink it too.

In today's frenzied takeover climate, where large companies are trying to get bigger by gobbling up smaller and medium-sized companies, and in some cases even corporations, there are often unintended consequences in the quest for growth. I'm referring to both the culture and historical significance that are almost inevitably lost in these takeovers. It is for that reason, when you see a company like Yalumba safeguarding its heritage and its history, you realise how special a winery like this really is, and how it should be appreciated and supported.

In terms of vices, food and wine would be top of the list and consume a large percentage of my income. Next on the list would come books, so when I hear the word “library” mentioned, I'm all ears. Yalumba has what they call “a library” but it is a library with a difference. It was originally started by Robert Hill Smith's father who apparently wasn't much of a wine drinker; he was more of a spirit drinker. That did not stop him putting wine into the cellar, and over time, a remarkable amount of old Yalumba wine was stashed away for the future.

Once Robert took over, and found this treasure trove of liquid joy, he decided to expand it. Robert is a person that doesn't do things by halves, so this library of fine wine now has to be seen to be believed. Robert has actively been storing old treasures from a multiplicity of other producers, as well as the obvious Yalumba input. Like all people that love cellaring wine, it's not a case of if you run out of storage room; it's a case of when! For most of those that have an underground cellar, when that happens, it's normally difficult to expand the cellar. This is a particularly difficult problem for those that live in a terrace houses. Most neighbours are not too keen on people excavating below their floorboards. For those that have a normal house, digging out additional space underground can not only be inconvenient, it can also be prohibitively expensive.

However, when you are the “boss cocky” of a joint like Yalumba and you have rows of unused concrete fermenters in your basement, you are unlikely to run out of wine storage space for some time, even if it does mean making some modifications to the existing infrastructure. And that's exactly what Robert Hill Smith has done.

We walked into one of these empty concrete tanks and the size boggles the mind. One of the rooms/tanks is 17 meter long by 5 meters wide by 5 meters in height. (For our metrically challenged American friends, that's 56' x 16’ x 16’.) That means this tank would have held 425,000 litres of wine. (Once again, this single tank would have held more wine than the annual production of approximately 80% of the wineries in Australia today, and it was built about a centaury ago.)

The result is the most amazing library, with multiple rooms and space for more bottles of wine than anyone could possibly imagine.

The library contains a veritable treasure trove of liquid joy from some of the greatest producers in the world. There is an incredible array of richness in this library ranging from Chateau Yquem 1889 right through to their very own barrel of 1908 Liqueur Tokay. You have to love the comment on the barrel card which states "very smooth." Phil Lehmann was the wag who was responsible for that comment, and had the original responsibility of cataloguing Robert’s library. Naturally, every single new arrival and departure is faithfully recorded. (It's a pity they don't use the free Red Bigot Cellar Master database program.)

These wines are not just for show! On a regular basis, the winemaking staff are brought in to sample the old wines. They use the experience as a benchmark, and it allows them to compare their own abilities to those of past, great winemakers. Every two years, the shackles are taken off; the cellar is opened up enabling the lucky participants to experience the joys of liquid history. Not many people get the chance to taste 70 year old Eden Valley Riesling. What a great educational experience it would be to be involved in one of those tastings.

I could have happily stayed in the library all day, especially if I had a corkscrew hidden in my pocket, but unfortunately we had a plane to catch later that afternoon. As a consolation prize, they had lined up a number of the latest new releases for us to try. So we, somewhat reluctantly, left the cellar and headed across the courtyard into the tasting room.

Yalumba 2005 Y Series Shiraz Viognier retails for a measly nine dollars. The bouquet shows ripe, dark fruits; it's sweet with overt Viognier aromas, but that's not surprising given that 7% of the weight of the wine came from the Viognier skins. Well backed by dusty, unobtrusive tannins and fresh acid the wine has a solid structure and a good mouth feel. It's savoury on the uptake, with lots of spices, aniseed, plum, and black cherry, but there is a hint of green sappiness to the tannins. Medium-weight with a supple consistency, and an agreeable complexity, it is very drinkable and rated as Acceptable with ***** for value.

Yalumba 2004 Barossa Shiraz Viognier sells for $15 and the blend was co-fermented. Perfumed apricot blossoms with dark cherry and milk chocolate aromas are found on the bouquet. The fruit is almost lean, the acid fresh, and the drying tannins have a slight sappiness about them, but despite this description, it is medium-weight, solid, and well-balanced. The fruit just manages to punch through the drying tannins and it would probably show better with food. Rated as Acceptable with *** for value; drink over the next five years.

Yalumba 2004 Barossa Shiraz has a recommended price of $15. The bouquet has a pleasant, perfumed character with plum and blackberry notes, which are replicated on the palate together with rich, dark chocolate, and black cherry. A well-balanced wine backed by fine, smooth, drying tannins and pure, deeply-seated fruit; it's firm, solid, tight and ample-weight. It needs a few more years to show its best and is currently rated as Recommended with **** for value, but that rating should improve as the wine matures. Based on the Street price of $13, it would get ***** for vale.

Yalumba 2004 Hand Picked Grenache has a recommended retail price of $30. The wines under the Hand Picked series just keep getting better and better. Delightful floral aromatics with a savoury aspect; it's sweet, spicy and shows cinnamon. Perfectly balanced and structured, it's backed by fantastic fruit and tightly-grained, dusty, drying tannins. Blackberry, chocolate, and eucalyptus flavours combine to form two rivers of sweet and off-sweet flavours that meander their way across the palate. Medium-weight with a supple consistency, this is a classy wine that is tight, very credible, and would be an excellent accompaniment to food. A Grenache that I love! Rated as Highly Recommended with **** for value, it should peak around 2010.

Yalumba 2005 Hand Picked Tempranillo (blend) also contains a 5% Grenache and 5% Viognier and has a recommended retail price of $30. The bouquet is very different; it's savoury and leathery. Silky-smooth tannins back credible, solid structure in this ample-weight wine with a supple consistency, and diverse complexity. There's loads of flavour with both sweet and savoury aspects; the sweet Viognier is noticeable on the long finish. It would be better with out as much overt Viognier character and is rated as Recommended with *** for value; drink over the next five years.

Chateau Yquem 1889

Yalumba 2005 Hand Picked MGS (56%/23%/21%) sells for $30. The bouquet is just lovely; it's meaty, spicy and shows red fruits. Velvety tannins are unobtrusive and provide a solid backing to this tight, medium-weight wine with a diverse, harmonious complexity that also shows some elegance. It's soft and near seamless, as well as being clean and modern, with pure fruit and fresh acid. Flavours of charcuterie, Christmas cake, black cherry, aniseed and all sorts of other good things waft across the tongue and would be complemented by food. You can't help liking it. Rated as Highly Recommended with **** for value; it's ready to drink now.

At this point in the proceedings, we were sidetracked by the Pie King, who once again came out with another one of his brilliant statements. He said (to Brian and I), "I'm going to religiously read both your websites this year." When I asked him if that was as “religiously” as he went to church, he replied, "Pretty much.” When I asked if that was once a year, i.e. Christmas or Easter, he responded, "Not any more, we gave that up for Lent.”

Yalumba 2004 Hand Picked Shiraz Viognier retails for $30. It has a gentle bouquet with complex, soft aromatics leading to a palate that is spicy, with red berry fruit, milk chocolate, and cherry flavours that finishes with long tannins, and excellent persistence. A muscular-weight wine with a supple consistency and very agreeable complexity, it sits well in the mouth, although the noticeably dusty oak tannins need time to resolve. The wine was matured in 100% French oak, 40% of which was new, and was allowed to ferment using wild yeast. It's a very labour-intensive wine. Thankfully there are no overt Viognier characters and given a few years it should be terrific. Rated as Highly Recommended with *** for value.

Yalumba 2003 Menzies sells for $35. The bouquet shows a dusty oak character with tomato leaf and cigar box. Backed by copious quantities of very-fine, drying, dusty, puckering tannins and lively acid, which currently buries the pure fruit, this is not a wine for the fainthearted. It's muscular, firm, and solid. Redcurrant, milk chocolate, tomato leaf and cigar box flavours complete the picture. Rated as Recommended with ** for value; by 2013 hopefully the tannins will have resolved and the rating should improve.

John said "Those tannins are something! I will just go outside and suck my face out of the back of my head.”

Sweet White Fortified from 1908

Yalumba 1999 Black D Cuvee sells for between $26 and $30. This vintage is actually Cabernet dominant. About nine months after the wine has been put into barrel, the winemaker goes through the wines that had been earmarked for potential inclusion into The Signature. Those barrels that are the ripest with the highest component of acid and will be a little bit over the top for The Signature are hived off and given to Nat Fryer. Yeast and sugar are added; the wine is transferred to the traditional sparkling wine bottles and left for a minimum of five years. Finally when the wine comes off lees and is liqueured, their Old Tawny is added, and on this occasion, it was freshened with a tiny dollop of 2003 The Signature. Plum, blackberry, and mint flavours are sweet on the uptake, but savoury and leathery on the drying finish. A very credible wine at the price, if the fruit would have been a bit brighter it would have received a Highly Recommended rating. Rated as Recommended with **** for value.

That's some cleanskin - Chateau Petrus 1953

Yalumba 2002 The Signature has a recommended retail price of approximately $40 and is a blend of 56% Cabernet and 44% Shiraz. A sensational nose with wonderful complexity. An impeccable balance has been achieved with the combination of silky, fine, unobtrusive tannins, fresh acid, and pure-deeply seated fruit. It's a clean, modern wine of ample-weight with a supple consistency, a harmonious, sophisticated and diverse complexity, and whilst it is approachable now, it will improve. Blackcurrant, mint, blueberry, coffee and aniseed flavours finish on long tannins. Rated as Excellent with *** for value (based on the RRP, although it would definitely get **** when you find it on special at $30.) Drink over the next 10 years plus.

Yalumba 2002 Octavius has a recommended price of $90. Some of the grape component for this wine comes from young vines; that's 84 years young, because they are youngsters by comparison to the 110 and 125 year-old components that also go to make up this wine. The oak is no longer all new octaves (90 litre casks); only 60% of it is new, and now, one third of the oak is French. In addition, 15% of the fruit comes from the Eden Valley. This wine has a serious aroma with coffee oak over generous rich fruit; it was brooding despite an early double decant. A full-bodied, firm, solid wine with an intricate complexity, it’s seriously good and needs ages to show its best; it's not for the faint of heart right now. Coffee, chocolate, and black flavours including aniseed, black plum, and blackberry suck your taste buds into an abyss that disappears into a black hole of space. It's superbly structured with fresh, crisp acid, pure, deep, strong fruit, and very-fine, tight tannins. Rated as Excellent with *** for value, this is a fine wine and the rating should improve as the wine matures well after 2012.

When I planned this trip and left Yalumba ‘til last, hoping to finish the trip on a positive note, I never thought I would walk out on such a high. The entire operation is truly impressive, as are their wines. Some of those entry-level wines are incredibly good value and their mid range and top end wines, are seriously good-quality. What more could any wine drinker want? Add to that their family commitment to the wine business and its long established heritage, and you have a winery that truly deserves a wine lover support.

My apologies for taking so long to complete this last Chapter, but hot excrement happens. When we said our goodbyes to the Pie King at the airport, we knew we would not see him next May as he would be overseas with his family, but little did I know that in May I would be stuck at home having to keep off my foot for six weeks instead of resuming the normal schedule for visiting SA.

In closing, it would be remiss of me not to say thank you to a few people. Firstly, to all the wineries that were so generous and hospitable with both their time and wine.

Without two people’s time and company, this Tour Diary would have been boring. To John Davis the Pie King of South Australia, my thanks to you (and your family,) for allowing me to stay in your home, your hospitality, as well as your continuing impact on my cholesterol level, and finally, your sense of humour. And no, I will still not change your alias to Mandingo!

To my good mate, Brian Handreck who is also known as Red Bigot and now also as The Pie King’s Apprentice ^TM , thank you for being such an easy travelling companion, a great tasting partner and finally, for your efforts in editing the whole story.

Finally, to you dear reader, I hope you have enjoyed reading the Tour Diaries. If you have any feedback or suggestions, please place your comments at the end of this Chapter, or email me; comments are always welcome.

Until next time, keep drinking plenty of great red wine; the industry need your help and it’s good for you too.

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