An outsider from the Adelaide Hills has been voted Australia's best shiraz out of a field of 100. MAX ALLEN, an associate judge at the event, reports.
And the winner of the first Qantas Great Australian Shiraz Challenge is ... the Geoff Hardy shiraz from the Kuitpo vineyard. And tying for second place are ... wait a minute. Geoff hardy? We had all heard of Thomas Hardy and Eileen Hardy, but Geoff? And where's Kuitpo? This is meant to be Australia's best shiraz, and few of those present at the event had come across it before.
That's the beauty of an open competition like the Shiraz Challenge; it can throw up all sorts of surprises. The only criterion for entry was that the wines to be judged should be commercially available - at whatever cost and in whatever quantity. So in they came, more than 100 shirazes (about one quarter of all those produced) from all the country, from big companies like Southcorp, and from tiny producers like Geoff Hardy.
The challenge had been laid down by the vignerons of the Goulburn Valley, whose cellar doors played host to eager shirazophiles on a tasting trail of the top 80 wines from the competition.
The wines had been judged by James Halliday, Geoff Merrill and Brian Croser. Unusually, due to the hectic schedule of these three industry heavyweights, each judge tasted separate bottles of each wine at a different location. The consequent lack of discussion and argument that is usually such an important feature of show judging may be one reason why only one gold medal and so many silvers (12) were awarded by the judges. Either that, or the more unlikely scenario that there is a paucity of gold medal-standard shiraz wines around at the moment.
But back to the one that won Geoff Hardy is indeed related to the more famous Hardys, but rather than join the family firm after doing wine science at Roseworthy college in the late 1970s, he decided to set out as an independent grape grower. He planted his first vineyard at McLaren Vale in 1980, and began to sell fruit to companies such as Petaluma.
The Kuitpo vineyard was first planted east of McLaren Vale in the lower reaches of the Adelaide Hills in 1987. Fruit from this 32-hectare vineyard ends up in prestigious brands such as Shaw and Smith chardonnay and sauvignon blanc - an indication of the vineyard's ability to produce quality grapes. And that's another ironic thing about this win: the Adelaide Hills region isn't historically associated with top-notch shiraz. McLaren Vale, maybe, but not the cooler Adelaide Hills. History obviously isn't something that bothers Hardy, though.
"In a way, I was breaking new ground, planting shiraz in that cooler climate," he said. "But I had to have a go at the trophy, because it was one worth winning. And I knew the Kuitpo shiraz was a wine that could win it."
From the beginning as a grape grower, Hardy always kept back a few tonnes of fruit to make his own wine, using other people's wineries. The 1993 shiraz was made with the help of Ben Riggs at Wirra Wirra. It won the challenge perhaps because its flavours manage to sit somewhere in the middle of the shiraz spectrum, combining the weight, concentration and chocolatey fruit of warm-climate wines like those from the Barossa, with the spice and deft structure of cooler-climate wines like those from southern Victoria.
Unfortunately, only three hundred cases were produced and most was sold in Adelaide. This might have something to do with it not exactly being a common sight on Melbourne bottle shop shelves: what little there was is probably long gone. Ah well, at least it was commercially available.
This was the first challenge, and many famous shiraz makers were conspicuous by their absence (Penfolds, Leasingham and Jasper Hill spring to mind). Hopefully, when the challenge is held next year, these and many others will participate (Penfolds' topshelf reds are no longer included in the show system, but can it truly be a search for Australia's greatest shiraz without Grange in the running?). Until then, the mantle is held by Geoff Hardy and the Kuitpo Vineyard.
Oh, and the other top wines? Well, in no particular order, the 12 silver medals went to: 1993 Steve Maglieri and 1991 Grant Burge Meshach (equal second place); 1990 Peter Lehmann Stonewell; 1993 De Bortoli Yarra Valley; 1993 Jim Barry The Armagh; 1993 Maglieri; 1993 Rosemount Balmoral syrah; 1992 Yalumba Family Reserve; 1994 Mount langi Ghiran; 1993 Plantagenet. And you should have more luck finding most of these in your local bottle shop.
by Max Allen
