I always take notice when overseas winemakers come over and talk up Australian wines. It’s fascinating to hear their views on who is doing well and what regions and wine styles they’re excited about.
When Michel Chapoutier (Rhône Valley and Victoria’s Pyrenees) talks, you listen; likewise Jacques Lurton (Bordeaux and Kangaroo Island). Napa Valley winemaker Chris Carpenter was recently spruiking Australian cabernet sauvignon.
Carpenter specialises in the Bordeaux varieties of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cabernet franc and makes wine at a series of vineyards in the mountains of California’s Napa Valley.
A couple of years ago, Carpenter’s employers, America’s Jackson Family Wines, bought McLaren Vale’s Clarendon vineyard. The name may not mean much to many of us but the vineyard has been a constant supplier to Penfolds and Hardy’s top wines for years. It could easily be considered one of Australia’s best vineyards.
The Jacksons installed a local winemaker – Charlie Seppelt – and Carpenter as consulting winemaker to oversee their new wines, labelled Hickinbotham after the man who planted the vineyard in the 1970s. Carpenter is here to concentrate on cabernet sauvignon.
When he arrived, Carpenter says he knew little about Australian cabernet sauvignon and its regional styles so he set out to learn as much as he could about them. He was pretty excited by what he found.
“It was a great pleasure for me to come out and learn about cabernet in Australia. In my first month here in Australia I probably tasted 100 Aussie cabs,” Carpenter says, adding that more interesting, better wines are now appearing on American shelves.
“A friend of mine collected Aussie wines in the ’90s when people collected Aussie wines. But the US got pounded with a lot of plonk, which is a shame, and the understanding of Australian wines faded in the States.
“It was so nice to understand that there’s incredible wines being made here in Australia. The amount of talent and incredible winegrowing areas is unsurpassed.
“One of the things I’ve learned throughout that process – or at least have tried to learn – is what is the understanding of cabernet in Australia.
“When I approached the cabernet at Hickinbotham a lot of that tasting was in my mind. That black olive note, the little bit of a green note you get in cabernet in Australia. I wanted to maintain that, add a little Bordeaux and Napa into it and get some of those fruit characters it has to offer. That was my goal.”
Carpenter’s first Australian cabernet, the 2012 Hickinbotham Clarendon Vineyard Trueman Cabernet Sauvignon, was released last month.
Carpenter’s vineyard
After making wine in Tuscany and the Napa Valley, Chris Carpenter jumped at the chance to make wine in Australia.
“That vineyard, and the history of that vineyard and the brands it has contributed to, and its unique place in a nether region between McLaren Vale and the Adelaide Hills was something I wanted to explore and understand and see what I could do with the cabernet there.
“There’s really, really old vine cabernet in that vineyard that we don’t see in the Napa Valley because phylloxera just wiped us out 30 years ago. There’s 80-year-old vines that are gnarly and deep-rooted.
“There’s a unique part of that vineyard that shows the same characteristics as the mountains do in the Napa. It helps grape concentration in a unique way and that’s something I have great familiarity with.”
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