Canberra a capital place for wine

BY HEATHER TYLER

More than 50 half-empty bottles litter the long table covered in a wine-stained tablecloth.

Some bottles have hastily hand-scrawled labels, but there's no mistaking the pedigrees: Clonakilla, Four Winds, Capital Wines, Joshua's Fault.

At another long table near by, winemakers from the Canberra region are drinking after-dinner coffees.

In the tiny town of Gundaroo (population 330, blink and you'll miss it), 40 minutes north of Canberra, vintners gather annually at The Royal Hotel, after the harvest is picked and the wine is bottled.

They chew the fat and taste each other's new wines.

There's also a bit of good-natured criticism as well as appreciation, and a lot of talk about where the industry is headed.

"We all bring our new wines and try to learn from each other," Capital Wines owner Andrew McEwin says.

"We've had a good harvest this year even though it was a very wet picking season. The soft-skinned varieties split in the rain."

Varieties tasted this evening included riesling and pinot gris, merlot, the Spanish red accent of tempranillo and Italian method sangiovese.

The region's shiraz wins awards - lots of them.

Many Canberra wineries are contained on The Poacher's Way triangle, an eclectic collective of artists, chefs, winemakers and rural retreats.

The area stretches as far as Yass to the northwest and Collector to the northeast.

Fifteen years ago, the wine industry in the ACT was still in its infancy, although one vineyard began in 1971. Now it's arguably the boutique wine capital of Australia.

It may have something to do with the fact that some Canberra winemakers were scientists in a previous life.

"Canberra's well-educated... you need to know a thing or two about science in order to be a winemaker," McEwin says.

There are 140 vineyards and 44 wineries in the region.

Yields can be as low as five tonnes or as high as 150 tonnes.

"The potential is huge for cool climate wines. I don't think people expected the spectrum of flavours," McEwin says.

Capital Wines grows its grapes at Murrumbateman and has a cellar door at Grazing, the restaurant in The Royal Hotel.

Parts of the hotel's interior seem little changed from when it was built in 1865. It's colonial style, large and draughty with high ceilings, and patrons warm themselves in front of roaring fires in almost every room.

Grazing, run by the exuberant chef Tom Moore, does d'augustation dinners where regional wines and produce are matched.

"I'm hugely enthusiastic about using local wines and produce," says Moore.

"There's also a wonderful co-operative structure here, and by using what we all produce locally we are reducing our carbon footprint."

Not far from Gundaroo is the hallowed ground of Clonakilla, the first vineyard in the region, established in 1971 by John Kirk.

Of Irish descent, John came to Australia with his family in 1968 to work with the CSIRO.

"When my dad came here, there were no vines. He was puzzled about why there were no grapes in the area," says one of his sons, Tim.

"He bought 44 acres, planted them and our first wine was released in 1976.

"It was a weekend thing for a start and we came out from Canberra regularly. It was dad's hobby, and at that stage we didn't see the potential in the region."

The winery built up a reputation for cabernet and shiraz blends in the Australian tradition, and then decided to bottle separately. Wine awards started to flow in.

Tim Kirk travelled to the Northern Rhone Valley in France to taste shiraz, and viognier made from a rare white grape, and had a eureka moment.

In 1998 Tim and his wife Lara bought the 50-acre property next door and planted shiraz and viognier as well as a small olive grove on the warm northeast facing slope.

The Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier has become one of the most sought-after wines in the country.

It is one of only five shiraz to receive a perfect rating in Jeremy Oliver's Australian Wine Annual.

The vineyard also produces a straight viognier - intense floral flavours with a long finish.

Clonakilla, which has a distinctive 7th century Celtic design on its labels, now produces 9000 cases a year, none of which can be found at your local wine shop. It's cellar door, mailing list and limited export only.

Kirk says wines should be "liquid geography".

"We work in a landscape of integral elements: wind, rain, soil, plants and trees. It's our job to convey all that movement and energy and capture it in a bottle."

He describes the Canberra region as having vigorous soil, volcanic with sandy clay over clay sub-soil. In other words, damn good for growing grapes.

- AAP