The Wine Prospector

THE WINE PROSPECTOR - Adventures of a flying winemaker is an entertaining, behind-the-scenes travelogue of gregarious flying winemaker John Weeks. Scouring five continents, Weeks, ever the curious adventurer, not only produced outstanding wines, but has collected memorable stories along the way. Far from being your run-of-the-mill travel book or how-to-appreciate wine lecture, The Wine Prospector looks at the lighter side of the wine industry, and profiles Weeks’ peers, travel, and himself.

While taking the reader on the adventure of sniffing out ‘wine gems’ anywhere from New World South Australia to Old World Northern Spain, Weeks’ foraging reveals the once hidden aspects of the wine business. Making many friends and a few enemies along the way, the reader becomes entrenched in Weeks’ discoveries.

The Wine Prospector is written with humour, but presented with an underlying passion for the people and experiences that make wine one of the few pursuits that cross the many borders from former Russia to northern Queensland.

Preface - The First Crossroad (Age 4)

Why does one become interested in travel? What is that underlying compulsion to see what is over the mountain, across the sea or around the next corner? What does it take to stir that most primal of urges - curiosity?

To this day I still do not completely understand why I love travel but I do know that, like wine, once you get a taste you yearn for more. For years I have pushed the frontiers back and wanted to be equally as comfortable in Beijing, or Barcelona, or the Barossa Valley. I enjoy hearing others relate their travel tales. It spurs me on to conquer new challenges. I have been to 65 countries, many multiple times, sometimes scores of times, but I still feel a twinge of jealousy for those who have been somewhere I have not. I was fortunate enough to be presented with the opportunities, and sensible enough to grab them as they came along. I am also privileged to work in an industry that has a global springboard from which to leap.

Linking a career of wine and travel together is as glamorous as it sounds, and it lends itself to a motto that I have come to enjoy which is, ‘Roam the world, meet interesting people, and drink their wine’. My introduction to the world of wine was, like so many young people, through drinking cheaper wines at social functions, normally in above prescribed volumes of moderation. As I was raised in a country wine region, the alternative job opportunities were a lot more limited than if I was living in a city. Like most people when leaving school, I did not really know what I wanted to do with my life. The idea of working in a winery appealed only after trying several other short-term vocation options and I landed a vintage job in a laboratory doing basic wine analysis for a few months during the grape harvest. The real intrigue was working with the winemakers as they premeditated over decisions as to what was going to happen to grapes and fermentations. I especially enjoyed working the night shifts where it seemed to me that senses were heightened and the ground work that was laid during the day came into fruition. The lights, the smells, the urgency all seemed to open an intriguing new world. Wine tasting and winemaking seemed a lot more appealing to me than simple analysis and as my job contract ran out, it was time to make the decision to go back to study and to become a student again. I had no idea at this stage as to how far the world of wine would eventually transport me. But travel was another thing.

My earliest solo journey was cut exceedingly short. I was contrary and somewhat confrontational as a child. After a heated argument in the lounge room with my mother, when I was obviously right, I literally ‘threw the toys out the cot’. I stormed out of the house shouting, I am running away forever. Goodbye!

No doubt I was wished good luck, safe travels and don’t forget to write, but I would have been halfway down the driveway by this time and making the life-altering decision for a four-year-old of turning left or right at the gate running as fast as my little legs would carry me.

After about twenty minutes I was found by my mother, sitting on the side of the road, crying that my voyage had been blocked by extenuating circumstances. Somehow she knew where to find me. She really only had to look out the front window as I was hunched in a dejected heap. What’s wrong, John? Why haven’t you run away? she almost sincerely asked. In between tears I told her, I am not allowed to cross the road without a grown-up.

So that was that, stymied at the first turn. But always knowing that there is something across the road or over the next hill has had a profound effect on my life, and I hope that some of the stories in this book give your childhood fire a bit of stoke, encourage you to leave the grown-up sensibilities behind, provoke interest outside of the mainstream and inspire you to look around the corner. The world is not as big as you think and the wine industry, like so many others, is a heck of a lot smaller!

Cheers,

JW

Acknowledgements To Those Who Made The Journey Worth It

It is an enormous challenge to capture all the people to say thanks to, as there are so many people around the world who have enriched my travels and made the arduous journey that much easier. The wine world is full of camaraderie and the kindness of people extends a lot further than just being a business. Experiencing what most people do not see or even hear of is where the real enrichment is and, hopefully, that comes out in the stories that follow. This is an industry that I love deeply, one that I have hopefully returned a slither of flavour to replace the handful I have taken, and which continues to give me a wonderful international insight. The world of wine revolves on reciprocal occasions and I hope that I can someday repay what I owe to those who gave me so much enjoyment and wonderful memories. They know who they are and have given because it is simply in their nature. There are, of course, a few people who stand out and have shaped a course for me. They are:

Ian Hollick - who gave me the initial chance of starting in the wine industry in a real way as a green, young winemaker in a region that was on top of its game at the time.

Kym Milne - whose influence in global winemaking is beyond compare.

Bill Hardy - whose passion for family and wine is highly contagious and, together with his family, made the first transition into a foreign country that much easier.

Alex Smith - a great mate, a Pom who should have been Spanish and who put much into context.

The wild bunch of so-called flying winemakers from an era now vanished, who are now scattered to all points of the compass, but happily we continue to meet randomly around the globe.

Finally, to all the people who not only drink wine but actually want to find out more about the world’s most interesting beverage.

El vino, para que sepa a vino, bebelo con un amigo - For a wine to taste like real wine, it has to be drunk with a friend. Spanish proverb

It wasn’t the wine, murmured Mr. Snodgrass, in a broken voice. It was the salmon - Charles Dickens, in the Pickwick Papers

I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. - A drunk winemaker somewhere, not that many years ago

What is man, when you come to think upon him, but a minutely set, ingenious machine for turning with infinite artfulness, the red wine of Shiraz into urine? - Karen Blixen, author of Seven Gothic Tales

Alcohol - the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems - Homer Simpson

PART 1: AUSTRALIA

Australia has no native grape varieties and vines were introduced with the First Fleet in 1788. Initial attempts at planting failed but by 1828 the Hunter Valley, in New South Wales, became the first commercial region, followed quickly by immigrants establishing vineyards in most states by 1850. Today there are more than 65 designated regions and 120 commercially-planted varieties. Exporting of wine, and viticultural and winemaking innovation, has made Australia one of the most significant wine countries in the world. Although phylloxera has reached parts of Australia, the majority remains louse free and planted on own roots. Some of the oldest surviving vineyards are more than 150 years of age. The Wine Prospector’s tip is aged Clare Valley Riesling for white wines, and Margaret River Shiraz for red wines.

The name Australia comes from ‘Terra Australis’ - the southern land.

The kangaroo and emu on the Australian coat of arms are two animals that cannot walk backwards.

Indigenous Australians believe that creation took place in the ‘dreamtime’. Stories are passed orally down the generations.

The Nullarbor Plain of Australia covers 10,000 square miles without a single tree.

The bag-in-a-box wine package is an Australian invention.

Australia is the smallest, flattest, driest inhabited continent on Earth and the sixth largest country.

The world’s fastest growing tree is the Australian Eucalyptus. It can grow up to 10 metres in one year.

Passport. Thanks mate - Me being funny at customs once. Once.

***

Those who lose dreaming are lost - Aboriginal proverb

Mate, you’re an absolute f*ckwit! - Modern Australian proverb

The Vintage Diet

I wish energy drinks were around when I started working vintage. ‘Vintage’ as it is known to all within the wine industry is more of a catch-cry for the lead up to, the picking and processing of grapes, the fermentation into wine and the wind-down afterwards. Vintage is not so much a time of the year, rather, it is the main event of the year, the raison d’être, and you have but one chance to get it right. It would be nice to have the luxury of brewing beer or distilling spirits where it is a year-round production cycle at a more tranquil pace, but that would take away the element of decision making and the stress that many winemakers thrive on. Grapegrowing and winemaking is all about decisions and blending but it is so important, nay critical, to have the right base components. This means not only having the right grapes for the wine style that you are trying to achieve, but the understanding of where the wine is going to finish up.

For most winemakers the vintage period is anywhere from two weeks to three months of madness but I punished myself a bit further each year by flying to the other hemisphere and repeating the process and continuing the process. One of the unique aspects of wine is that in most countries around the world, some fool has planted a vineyard. A lot of these are localised and not known by the international community. For example, there are 13 countries commercially and quite a few other non-commercial regions producing wine in Africa - try to name just half of them. It does not mean that because they are not recognised that their wines are any better or worse than the next producer, but there are so many wines that do not get recognition in any form. It is always ironic when a scribe ‘discovers’ a new wine or region that has been quietly producing for generations, if not hundreds of years. Along with the challenges of foreign language and customs there is the ongoing and universal battle with Mother Nature and the dilemmas that she can present, along with a lot of other interferences that we will get to shortly. It must be said though, that there is no substitute for experience and in many of the countries I have worked, information is derived from unlikely places. A lot of ‘local knowledge’ can be extracted fairly easily from the old timers in town propped on a bar stool or gathering in the town square. Each and every character is a given expert on any field that you wish to discuss and, more often than not, happy to share it with you, especially if you are buying drinks. I soon found out the truth in having grapes picked before the autumn equinox because after that the weather was sure to change, rain would commence and rot would set into the grapes. The eternal farmer’s code of planting crops three months after the first fogs to coincide with the winter rains or when someone will complain about their aching bones always weighs in the back of my mind now. That said, the chance element of pushing the boundaries on many ‘theories’ can make for a much better wine but you can also stand a good chance of having the proverbial egg on the face.

The actual process of making wine itself is not as difficult as you may be led to believe. It is the continual splitting of hairs and striving for quality that causes the anguish. Anyone who has experienced the frustration of making their own home brew of either beer or wine will relate to this. For every decision there is to be made, you can split that into countless options and alternatives. It is a bit like the story about the grain of rice on a chessboard, doubling the amount as you move to the next square until the amount becomes incalculable. This is where the long, long hours commence as many of the judgments mean more work for oneself, but something that is imperative to do if you want to maintain worth and value.

Sitting at a wine press at 5am in the rain is something that you have to experience to be able to smile about later on, and that is only the beginning of the process. The number of times that I have worked 20-hour shifts can be counted on one hand, of every person in Sydney. I have fallen asleep in front of my one meal for the day only to wake up with it all over my lap, then shower, and go straight back to work again. I have fallen asleep at 3am driving an open-topped moving tractor in near freezing conditions that caught on fire. I have gone for weeks without shaving because you think you are too busy. No wonder the 34-hour week in ‘civilised countries’ is slowing down their productivity and efficiency; this is a mere two days of work during vintage!

At the end of every vintage there is fulfillment, gratification and contentment, and that is what it is all about. If a winemaker is satisfied that he or she has achieved the best possible result under the trying conditions that are enforced, then whatever the wine taste likes, it is a good result.

As with any high pressure environment you are what you eat, so the vintage diet for me was nicotine, caffeine and thiamine.

Nicotine and caffeine were taken regularly throughout the day and a couple of beers (with thiamine) will send you straight to sleep at the end of a hard day’s shift. This was back in the days when it was possible to work 16 hours straight without worrying about occupational health and safety issues. Another of the main driving forces was financial gain and the aim was to get into the penalty rate areas where the real money was made on an hourly basis. Most of the wineries today still do the work when the work has to be done, however long it takes. This is part of the apprenticeship that every budding young gun should be exposed to.

During one of the first vintages I worked as a winery worker I shared a house with two other winemakers in the Hunter Valley, in New South Wales. The industry term for a winery worker is ‘cellar rat’, as you are climbing and diving into all sorts of nooks and crevices. When I say a house, it was actually a large cabin at the Cessnock caravan park. Each one of us was on a different starting time for a 12-hour shift, so that the only time you saw each other was when one was asleep, or when you were either leaving to go or arriving back from work. We took it in turns making huge meals or buying food that would disappear over a 24 or 48-hour period and then the food mysteriously appeared again. This went on for two months. That is just how the wine industry functions, people putting their heart and soul into a few short months each year and along the way building a camaraderie that will last a lifetime.

Enjoy grasshopper, enjoy.

The Black Swan Of The Group

Coonawarra. The name itself is enough to raise interest in any wine buff and generate some tales of wine folklore and the heady heights to which wine can reach. For me it holds the starting point in a very real sense. Having worked and lived in other wine regions in Australia before arriving in Coonawarra, in many ways it was not until I got to Coonawarra that my wine education started. These were exciting days because, at that time, I was the youngest winemaker in the region, which was being heralded as the premium region in Australia. The Jimmy Watson Trophy is the most celebrated wine trophy in Australia, awarded annually at the Melbourne wine show for the best one-year old red. Wines from the Coonawarra region were consistently winning the award. The fact that it is awarded to wines that are not finished and not yet released is a continual bone of contention. However, in my view, it is winemakers and industry peers that judge the wines and they have the experience to see where the potential lies. The argument is immaterial though, as whichever winery won this trophy received huge press coverage, meaning it could charge whatever it wanted for the wine, paving its road to financial security. These days, a lot of the wine competitions are totally dominated by the large corporates that have the money and time to dedicate to wine shows. Coonawarra was getting a lot of media interest.

One of the best ways to get to know, and be known in, a small community is to drink regularly at the local pub and play sport, both of which I did with healthy abandon. But there was another way to get an insight into the local wine community in Coonawarra and it happened one night a month. It was called ‘bottle night’. On the last Friday of each month many of us would descend on a nominated winery with a bottle in hand and spend a few hours ‘looking’ at wines. Have a look at this is one of the great terms in wine tasting (snobbishly known as organoleptical assessment, or sensory evaluation, if you must) and to ‘look’ at a wine you must first assess the colour, which does actually mean look at it and look for various colours that indicate youth or age. Tilt the glass on a 45-degree angle and look through the wine and colour range around the outside of the wine. Deciding if the wine is white or red is a no-brainer, but then you have colour spectrums for white wines ranging from water white to orange depending on the age and other winemaking factors like oak maturation or high levels of sugar. White wines actually increase in colour with time, while red wines lose colour intensity. Red wines range from soft purple red to brick/orange red for aged-developed wines. Rosé wines can range from light nipple pink, to a deep cherry red colour, to a bizarre onion skin colour that European producers obtain with ease and one that the technical people at Canon are trying to duplicate without much success.

Also make sure the wine is clear and not hazy with sediment or cloudy, which could indicate a degree of instability. In some cases, there are excessive gas bubbles which means the wine could be re-fermenting.

A wine glass is actually designed to capture aromas and that is why it is smaller up the top to allow the fragrances to be limited to a smaller area, and larger at the base to increase the surface area of the wine. Smell the wine by swirling the wine in the glass and then sticking your nose in the glass. Go on, get your hooter right in there. The best rule is to go with first impressions on what you can smell. Don’t be swayed by others saying some shit like, I can smell the tobacco aromas of handrolled leaves on a Dominican virgin’s thigh surrounded by a symphony of forest fruits after crisp morning dew. Go with what you know and what you are comfortable in using to describe the wine. There are no right or wrong answers with wine tasting. You actually have the answers as all odours are stored in your long-term and emotional memory, so you will have the ability to relate a specific smell to your own experiences and recollections. So, your descriptor might be, Yes, it smells like the time my pine cubbyhouse burnt down. Of course, if your memory is fading or you suffer from anosmia, the inability to smell, it will be a lot harder and you will struggle for words, but then again, most people do struggle with terms anyway when describing wine.

Finally, after all that, take a sip and aspirate the wine by sucking air back through it and rolling your tongue around in your mouth and chewing it for all it is worth. This helps to release the wine’s volatile components which then go back into more sensitive parts of the mouth for flavour recognition. It is not an attractive look or sound and will not endear you to women, unless they are also aspirating or have aspirations to aspirate. Try not to wear white clothes in case you dribble down your chin. Basically you have to do all this because the nose is smart but the mouth is dumb. While a nose can detect countless thousands of odours, the mouth is content with tastes that you can count on just one hand.

Following this it is a quick, well-aimed spit into the nearest receptacle and onto the discussion with worthy peers. Also, in many of the cases when you are ‘looking’ at a wine it is being served ‘blind’ which means the label is covered - usually the bottle is placed in a paper bag or an old sock. Certainly it is a fine line between the wino image of clutching a bottle in a paper bag and having six bottles of Bordeaux first growths lined up in a row. Often when a wine is blind you are given the benefit of an options game which allows for three choices per aspect of the wine where there is only one right answer. For example, the questions would be is it 2004, 2008, 2010 vintage? Is it a Shiraz, a Merlot or a blend? You get the idea, but the object is to identify the wine by age, region, variety, maker and even price point, or however long you want to drag it out for.

Well that is how it was at bottle nights, except for the quick spit! Really the only rule that was followed was not to bring another person’s wine to be tasted blind without their prior knowledge. Many of the regulars at these soirees were lifers of Coonawarra and their combined experience totalled many, many decades. On the wine side I learnt much and have fond memories of how a group of established, professional, dedicated winemakers and viticulturists willingly and freely shared their knowledge and experience. In many ways it sums up the solidarity that is found in the wine industry around the world with its candidness and inclination to learn from others and to discuss information freely.

On the other side one of the great experiences of ‘bottle night’ was that you never knew what wines you were going to taste that night, but also you never knew what adventures and mishaps were going to happen.

Coonawarra is only a small community and that, of course, means that memories are long. Saturday mornings would often reveal the previous night’s activities. I am sure if you visit the region today and ask a local about how a newly-erected flag pole could be nearly touching the ground, or how someone could jump three stories with nothing but a rope to grab on the way down, or how quick houses can really be scaled and obscenities yelled down a chimney, grabbing electric fences or how quickly Polish pure spirit really does catch on fire, along with the bar and innocent bystanders, you may not get the full answer but you will get a wry smile of recollection. Long may it be so, and long may communities like Coonawarra prosper.

The name Coonawarra is derived from an aboriginal word meaning ‘wild honey suckle’ but there is also a line of thought that it means ‘black swan’ as well. You will see a lot of black swans swimming around in the lakes and wetlands in the district. South Australia’s capital of Adelaide is 380 kilometres north of Coonawarra. The region is defined by its true character for grapegrowing, which is the terra rossa soil. Terra rossa is a red brown earth over a limestone base. As you drive into Coonawarra there is an area that is exposed that demonstrates this phenomenon beautifully. Ask a local where it is as you will probably not see it as you drive into town. It is on the north end of Coonawarra on the right as you enter the region. You have to drive as there is no public transport there, so unless you are willing to run the gauntlet of visiting all the wineries in the region and driving through back roads, designate a driver.

People here take their soil very seriously. Never enter a vineyard by jumping a fence. It is certainly more than bad form to enter a vineyard without permission, as you can unknowingly introduce some pretty nasty creatures that can do incalculable damage to a vineyard. Worst case scenario is that you could get shot. There is one critter called phylloxera (fill-ox-er-rah) that is the scourge of all vineyards on the face of the Earth. If there is an insect equivalent to Al-Qaeda, this is it. This louse will feed on the vine roots, ultimately destroying the vines’ capacity to function and they will consequently die. While Australia is one of the few countries that are largely free from phylloxera, it does exist in some regions, all outside of South Australia. So by casually jumping a fence with some dirt on your shoes from a contaminated area you could cause the biggest upheaval and total devastation to an entire region, effectively rendering it a wasteland for years. Vines can exist in phylloxera-ridden areas but you need special rootstocks for this to happen and most of South Australia’s vineyards are on the vines’ own roots. Diligence and respect are essential here, but back to the good earth.

Terra rossa is spoken about in revered tones and now that the region’s vineyards are quite widely planted the debate is never far from entering conversation. Those who owned some of the land were proud, those who had a small parcel exaggerated as to how much they had, and those who did not have any said they were in the zone. Finally, lines had to be drawn.

The terra rossa argument was one that went on for eight long years, with court battles deciding who had vineyards that were classified as Coonawarra. The true terra rossa strip is 12 kilometres long and only two kilometres wide in its girth. A map of it would look like a giant cigar, a vinous cohiba if you will. The problem is that there is satellite pockets of terra rossa outside of the strip and this is where the arguments began. Also within the areas of what was established as Coonawarra there are patches of black clay, so cannot claim to be terra rossa soil. As you can envisage it became a difficult and argumentative process that split some of the community. Imagine if your vineyard of terra rossa soil was across the road (yes, it was that close) and you were not included, but your neighbour with some ugly black soil was classified as Coonawarra. It has now been defined and makes for an interesting review. In the final analysis there is only one winery with all of its grapes grown on terra rossa and that is one of the oldest, most established families in the region; the Redmans.

The first vineyards in Coonawarra were planted in the 1890s as part of the Penola Fruit Colony, the headquarters of which was Yallum Park. John Riddoch was lord and master of all he surveyed in the region at the time, and Yallum Park today remains as one of the best preserved houses in Australia from this era. As with most wine regions there are a lot of other points of interest to see, so spend the time absorbing the wine and some other regional highlights. As Coonawarra is halfway between Adelaide and Melbourne, make it a long stop over.

Blessed Are The Winemakers

The patron saint of all winemakers and vignerons is St Vincent of Saragossa. It must also be said that he is also patron saint to vinegar makers, which could incorporate a few winemakers to boot. Not a lot is known about St Vincent, except that he was born in Spain in the early fourth century.

The story goes that St Vincent and his bishop were brought to trial for their beliefs against the ruling parties but, unfortunately, the bishop had a regrettable speech impediment. Vincent, therefore, spoke for both of them, and I like to think suitably fortified with wine, in such a fearless and daring manner that the government of the time banished the bishop to exile but tortured and ultimately killed poor Vincent. His body was tossed to the vultures but was defended, and the carrion-munching birds were fought off by a single raven. He was then tossed out to sea but his body washed up and was found, which was suitably buried by a pious widow. As it turns out the body of water that is offshore from Adelaide, the capital of Australia’s wine state of South Australia, is Gulf St Vincent.

Many European countries have a list of saints as long as your arm. Every day in France is a name day or saints’ day recognised to a specific saint. I miss out on Vincent by two days. Every town in Italy and Spain has a patron saint. Australia does not have that many. In fact, there is just one.

Australia’s only beatified person is Mary Mackillop. She was beatified by the Pope in 1995 for her first miracle and received her saintly status in 2010 after the church found a second miracle. Although she was born in Melbourne, Mary Mackillop spent a large amount of her life in the Coonawarra region, and I think that it is quite fitting that the wine