Changeable climate proving a headache for winemakers

Feb 13 2009 by Helen Savage, The Journal

PHILIP Laffer is one of Australia’s most experienced, gifted and thoughtful winemakers, and the brains behind the best selling wine brand in the UK – Jacob’s Creek.

It’s number one, he insists, because it’s good (and marketed very effectively). But he says: “The bigger you are, the better you have to be. We can’t just slide along in the middle; we have to deliver above people’s expectations. They need to be surprised.”

I went to Edinburgh to meet Philip, where Jacob’s Creek were launching four new wines at the annual trade tastings of Australian wines.

Even after a lifetime of winemaking, Philip admits he still has a lot to learn. He insists that “there’s no such thing as a perfect wine.” Because he’s a leading light in the research body set up by the Australian wine industry, I asked him about the biggest challenges now facing winemakers in the country. “We’re having to cope with climate unpredictability even more than with climate change. We need better weather forecasting and we’re having to learn to cope with less water,” he revealed.

The devastating bush fires in Victoria, following record breaking temperatures, have since put the power of extreme weather events into tragic context. Many of the people who died lived close to one of Australia’s prime vineyard regions.

The optimistic ‘can do’ attitude of so many Australians, so evident this week in peoples’ determination to rebuild their lives, is typified by Philip, who now accepts that although Australian winemaking technology leads the world, more attention needs to be given to how the grapes are grown. “We know how to grow grapes in a hot climate,” he says, “but we don’t know enough about what affects flavour in the grapes. If we have less rainfall, we may have to plant more vines in cooler southern areas.”

He’s clearly riled that some people accuse big outfits like Jacob’s Creek of industrial winemaking, by suggesting that faults are covered up in the winery by chemical manipulation. He stresses that winemaking needs to be as simple and natural as possible. Good wine only starts with good quality grapes.

Other concerns are about how to get the fruit to the winery, and then on to the consumer in the best possible condition. Still more work needs to be done on bottle closures, but “our biggest risk”, he believes, comes in having to ship containers of wine across the Equator. They cannot afford to splash out on refrigerated containers for anything except the top-of-the-range wines if they are to keep prices competitive.

The Jacob’s Creek offering is surprisingly large. As well as the traditional range of single variety wines – classic blends (like Shiraz/Cabernet) – sparkling and ‘‘three vines’’ which “seek to ameliorate the fruity flavours of Australian wine with the savoury flavours of Southern Europe”, there’s also a more special reserve and then the very fine Heritage Collection, which you’ll only find in top restaurants and small, independent wine merchants.

As we talked, we sipped a glass of Jacob’s Creek Reeves Point Chardonnay 2005, a Heritage wine. It was delightful, with subtle oaking, lovely crisp acidity and real complexity. “But any winemaker worth his salt can make something like Reeves Point,” Philip argued. “For me the challenge is to make high-quality fruity, food-friendly wine, in quantity.”