Meet the Victorian winemakers taking on the world

Two of the state’s best winemakers have travelled to Europe’s Old World regions, and armed with new insight gleaned from hundreds of years of viticulture and tradition, have returned home with incredible results.

Australia has become a nation of wine lovers. And whether you’re picking up a bottle to share on a Friday night or building a cellar, there’s no shortage of choice when it comes to Victorian wines.

Just a short distance from Melbourne, wine lovers can discover some of the country’s best cool-climate wines in the Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula and Geelong.

Or travel further afield to the King Valley or Heathcote to seek out more top drops from one of the state’s 800 wineries and 600 cellar doors.

But despite the incredible wine on our doorstep, two of the state’s best winemakers have travelled to Old World wine regions in Europe and returned to Victoria with new insight gleaned from hundreds of years of viticulture and tradition.

At a time when many winemakers are driven by the need to make consistent wine or are pressured by changing trends and styles, Jane Eyre and David Fletcher are changing the landscape.

For Eyre, years spent in Burgundy — a French wine region famous for its pinot noir — has only reinforced the “courage to do nothing” as French linguist Rene Lafon once said.

Her philosophy, one of letting nature take its course with minimum intervention, is shared by Fletcher.

Originally from Adelaide, Fletcher is a self-confessed nebbiolo obsessive, whose time at one of Italy’s premier wineries has led to a unique expression of the varietal in Victoria.

The result for both winemakers is incredible wine that reflects the season, terroir and characteristics of the areas where the grapes are grown.

Winemaker Dave Fletcher has Fletcher Wines in Italy where he creates with his favourite grape, nebbiolo. Picture: James Morgan

FROM FRANCE WITH LOVE

Eyre’s reputation precedes her.

As modest and self-deprecating as she is talented, the former hairdresser never planned on becoming a winemaker.

An interest in wine combined with a chance meeting with Jennifer Oliver, the wife of wine critic Jeremy Oliver, led to an introduction to a winemaker in Burgundy.

A vintage at Domaine Chevrot was followed by a job at Prince Wine Store in Melbourne, which opened up a wealth of possibilities, both in terms of tasting and creative opportunities.

Eyre turned her hand to working vintages — gaining experience at Cullen in Western Australia and Ata Rangi in New Zealand — before heading to France for the harvest at Domaine des Comtes Lafon and JF Mugnier.

She eventually left Australia to make wine in Burgundy, got a job working with Dominique Lafon in early 2004 and has been in the region since.

But when she decided to go back to Australia for summer one year, another opportunity presented itself.

“My good friend, wine grower William Downie, suggested I go help him for harvest and said he would give me some fruit,” Eyre explains.

“In 2011 I helped him with vintage and then in 2012 he took me to all the vineyards where he buys fruit.

“The best-tasting fruit that year was from Merricks on the Mornington Peninsula. He said I could have a tonne of fruit, which makes three barrels of wine.

Winemaker Jane Eyre loves working with pinot noirs. Picture: James Broadway

Eyre previously worked as a hairdresser: Picture: James Broadway

“So, I started there and now my holidays are a vintage in Australia where Bill very kindly lets me make wine at his facility in Gippsland,” she says.

“I make some Gippsland wine, I make some in the Mornington Peninsula, and I’ve just started making some Yarra Valley wine. It’s all pinot noir.”

Originally from Gippsland, Eyre now makes wine under her own label in France as well as producing the pinot noir in the Mornington Peninsula and the Yarra Valley.

With a growing appreciation for her wine in Australia and in France, Eyre will soon finish up her day job as assistant winemaker at Domaine Newman, where she has been for 13 years, to focus on her own labels.

“When it’s great, it really is great. I love pinot noir’s aromatics and its complexity, and I think like riesling and nebbiolo, they are very much windows into where they are grown,” she said.

“You see quite clearly the climate, the growing season and the type of soil that it’s grown in.

“Also, because it’s a cooler climate varietal, the richness and ripeness of the fruit doesn’t tend to mask those things.

Eyre returns home from France to make wine in different Victorian locations.

“If it’s a slightly cooler year, I think you see much more of the differences in where the grapes come from. And I like that.”

Part of what Eyre enjoys most about working in Australia is that she is free from the constraints of winemaking in Europe.

“In Australia you can get grapes from anywhere and you can do whatever the hell you want. If it doesn’t work, you can just tip it out. You can’t do that in Burgundy. You have to declare every litre of wine that you make and every kilogram of grapes that you buy has to be accounted for,” she says.

“There’s a lot more freedom to experiment in Australia, which is one of the things I love about going home. I learn so much when I go home.”

LA DOLCE VITA

Fletcher had never planned on winemaking.

Instead, the idea was to follow his dad into civil engineering.

But a harvest job at O’Leary Walker in Clare Valley in 2004 turned into a job offer as assistant winemaker. A move to the Yarra Valley followed.

He spent three harvests at Sticks Yarra Valley and another three years as a roaming winemaker for Treasury Wine Estates.

And then Fletcher discovered nebbiolo.

“After a good 10 years of working with pinot noir and thinking that was the Holy Grail and the be all and end all as a winemaker, I discovered this other variety that few people were talking about that had similar characteristics — light in colour, amazing complexity of palate and longevity in the cellar,” he says.

“Nebbiolo is just an incredible wine — it’s a great varietal. It’s an incredibly complex wine.”

Now a self-confessed nebbiolo obsessive, Fletcher had Italy in his sights from early in his career.

An apprenticeship at famed organic producer Ceretto Winery in Piedmont only intensified his love of the varietal.

Dave Fletcher never imagined wine to be his calling. Picture: James Morgan

“I was hooked on nebbiolo so I had in the back of my mind that I wanted to get to Piedmont,” Fletcher says.

“When I was working for Sticks I took time off to come and work at Ceretto, and I absolutely loved it. I fell in love with the area. The rolling hills are just spectacular.”

The traditional style of winemaking in Italy, combined with the different varietals available in Australia, enables Fletcher to experiment with different expressions of nebbiolo.

“Nebbiolo will work in pretty much any soil,” he says.

“From my experience, a drier, warmer sun tends to bring out more sweetness in the fruit. It’s a similarity that we see in the pinot noir as well. In terms of tannin structure in nebbiolo, it’s much softer in Australia. Yarra Valley is probably one of the peak areas to put nebbiolo, but Beechworth is turning out to be a great area. Heathcote is probably a bit too warm and dry. Parts of the Pyrenees are really good. It’s a great plant, it’ll grow on anything.”

Fletcher is keen to bring nebbiolo to the Australian market.

Fletcher on the vineyard in Barbaresco, Italy.

Fletcher flies home to Australia to see the wine through picking and fermentation and into the barrel, leaving long-time friend Yarra Valley winemaker Mac Forbes to watch over the wine between visits.

Preferring a minimum intervention approach, Fletcher focuses on creating the best possible fruit in the vineyard rather than relying on manipulation in the winery.

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“It’s all done in the vineyard. I make decisions based on what I feel at the time. I like to have fruit that is bright and fresh and I also don’t have any preconceived ideas that are delivered to me.”

When it comes to selecting vineyards to work with, Fletcher says he looks for well-established vines that are at least 10 years old to provide the best expression of the terroir.

He doesn’t like to create wines that are too high in alcohol, preferring elegant wines with a bright colour and a good tannin structure.

“Part of a varietal’s ability to succeed is to be able to provide an Australian version of it,” he says.

“It was a no-brainer to bring nebbiolo to the Australian market and keep a foot in both doors. It’s a good story.”