Southern exposure

COOL climate wines are the toast of the wine world. And while less than 10% of Australia is officially classified as temperate, we’re definitely pulling our weight in cool climate wine production. This week, SuperLiving goes south for the autumn harvest season and a glass or two of the good stuff.

What makes a cool climate wine is not easily defined. Viticulturists swear there’s an official definition floating out there somewhere, but no one seems to be able to pin it down. Average temperatures and weather data for the growing region will ultimately classify a wine as cool climate or not. The bottom line, however, is always taste, and cool climate wines stand out as being among the most robust in all winedom.

Cool climates are usually more sophisticated, boutique-type wines. They’re more full-bodied, more complex, and frankly, more expensive. In terms of grape tonnage, you get much less wine per acre in cool climate grape growing areas. The flavours are more intense so the wine has a much bigger and more complex character.

Technical talk to explain this phenomenon often evokes a vineyard’s growing degree days, a convolutedly calculated horticulture unit. But you don’t have to be a scientist to discover that those cool regions hovering around the 40th parallel are churning out some of the finest wines in the country.

With the beauty of autumn colours starting to transform those southerly fringes of Australia, SuperLiving decided to spotlight a few of our coolest and most luscious wine regions. From the most southern brink of South Australia to Tasmania and Victoria’s coastal perimeter, we’re going all the way down to wine heaven.

Tasmania

Few people would expect the island state to be the oldest wine producer in Australia, but in fact, the country’s first vineyard was planted here in 1823. The classic growing conditions of the area, however, leave little wonder to this prestigious claim.

Tasmania’s climate is classified as cool-temperate, which translates to picturesque scenery in autumn. David Sanderson, a viticulturist with Wine Tasmania, says autumn is a particularly good time to see the vineyards, especially in the state’s more southern region.

“We get an excellent colouring of the vines,” he said. “The vines in a lot of the warmer regions would sort of go yellow and the leaves would fall off. In Tasmania, there’s yellow and oranges and reds.”

“It’s a very pretty scene. The landscape surrounding the vineyards ranges from the wonderfully pastoral to the naturally dramatic,” he said.

Tasmania’s cooler climate allows for a longer grape ripening period. Milder days and quite chilly nights tend to cause the vine to slow down. This environment extends the maturing process of the fruit.

Factor that with Tasmania’s unique soil and you begin to understand the formula that produces the state’s esteemed bubbly. Most wine regions are dominated by sedimentary basins from the Jurassic and Triassic periods, but Tasmania’s iron-rich clays are even older than the dinosaur era.

Sanderson said Tasmania’s geography has established a singular personality for the island as a wine producing region.

“A lot of the Tasmanian wine landscape is made up of very, very small vineyards,” he said. “We’re talking of an average size here of less than four hectares, which is about 10 acres. The small size is basically due to the importance of site selection.”

• Signature wines: Sparkling wines, pinot noir

The Coonawarra wine region is one of the Limestone Coast’s most renowned areas. The extreme flatness of this big-sky country means there’s no buffer for the winds off the Southern Ocean. The night-cooling effect works in harmony with the region’s most celebrated characteristic: its soil.

“The soil that we have is terra rossa,” Coonawarra Vignerons Association president Sue Hodder explained. “It’s a red clay loam over limestone and it just seems to have the right physical properties, mainly drainage, that enable the vines to hold the right amount of water for growth, but not too much that they become heavy.”

This marriage of climate and soil makes Coonawarra wines more deeply coloured than other varieties. Hodder says this rich colour is usually linked to flavour and the ageing ability of a bottle in the cellar.

Hodder hinted that the leaves in Coonawarra country were already starting to change and while this may be one of the best times to visit, the secret is not out yet.

“There’re never hordes of people here,” she said. “The feedback that we get about Coonawarra is that you can have a chat with the people in the wineries and talk about what’s happening. Everybody knows because we all live here in the vineyards and you can really meet locals.”

“The trees have their autumn colours and the grass is starting to grow in the paddocks for the sheep and cattle in autumn. It’s a lovely time of year.”

• Signature wine: Cabernet sauvignon

In a part of Victoria with a lot of major players, the inconspicuous Geelong region has quietly exploited the idyllic conditions of the area to produce an iconic gamut of wines. The microclimates and geographic particulars of Geelong’s three sub-regions open up a diverse catalogue of wines which nevertheless maintain an intangible Geelong commonality.

The Moorabool Valley sub-region, which dominated the area’s winemaking in the 19th century, stands apart from other cool climate wine regions at the ground level. Chocolaty, dark volcanic topsoils make for a significant departure from the loamy clays that typically root cool climate grapes.

Geelong Winegrowers Association executive Robyn Fitzpatrick said a lot of the region’s personality stems from the more intimate nature of local wineries.

“Every vineyard and winery in Geelong is all family-owned, so there’re no corporate players in Geelong at all,” she said. “This means that usually one of the owners will be in the cellar door pouring the wine tastings or out in the vineyard picking the grapes or making the wine.”

Autumn is the best time to experience this atmosphere as the harvest season sees Geelong in the middle of its vintage.

“Right at the moment we’re harvesting the grapes off the vineyard and making them into wines so there’s a lot of things to see and do in the cellar doors and at the wineries,” Fitzpatrick said. “You can see the entire winemaking process, from the picking of the grapes right through to the crushing of the wine and then it being put into bottles or wine tanks.”

• Signature wine: Chardonnay