Margan, Brokenwood, Binet add to Hunter Valley’s vintage quality

For Australia’s first single-estate, vintage-dated vermouth, the essential ingredients came from the Margan property.

Margan vermouth

Oh, I know I should be concentrating on the wines. The delicious, lemony 10-year-old semillon; the beautiful, earthy five-year-old barbera; the seven vintages of aged-release shiraz — all the bottles that grape-treader Andrew Margan has opened for the 20th birthday celebrations at his family’s eponymous winery in the Hunter Valley. But Andrew just mentioned he’s made a new vermouth and now I’m a bit distracted.

So I sneak out of the winery barrel room and persuade Andrew’s son, Ollie — who is studying winemaking and works as a bartender — to pour me a taste. Margan Jr tells me it’s Australia’s first single-estate, vintage-dated vermouth: the base wine (2015 semillon), the fortifying spirit and most of the botanicals used to enrich the vermouth with their spicy, herby complexity were grown and made on the property. It’s bloody good, too: punchy fragrant green aromas, nice citrusy hint of sweetness, good, tongue-gripping bitterness. It makes me think of making a martini, but Ollie — who is a professional mixologist, after all — suggests a drink he calls the Hunter Gatherer: equal parts vermouth, aged rum and lime juice, topped with some rosemary-infused honey. Yum.

The vermouth ($50 a bottle from cellar door) isn’t the only new development at Margan. I’m also really impressed with the 2016 albarino ($40), a debut vintage for this Spanish white grape in the Hunter, that tastes a bit like a young semillon but with some extra lovely, waxy yellow fruit weight; and the 2014 Breaking Ground tempranillo graciano shiraz ($40), a supple, dangerously slurpable red that picked up the international judge’s trophy at last year’s Hunter Valley Wine Show.

margan.com.au

Talking about gongs: while I was in the Hunter last week I also attended a big lunch to launch the 2014 Brokenwood Graveyard Vineyard Shiraz, which won a staggering five trophies at the same wine show. The 2014 vintage was a great one for shiraz in the region — up there with the legendary 1965 vintage, say the old-timers — and the Graveyard is one of the best of the bunch: incredible depth and complexity, super-seductive vinosity and super-long finish, but still medium-weight, poised and supple. Then again, at $250 a bottle you’d want it to be a bit spesh, wouldn’t you?

In keeping with longstanding Brokenwood tradition, the lunch was a riotous affair, the tone set by a hysterically funny speech from Nathan Earl, creator of the TV comedy wine show Plonk. Earl, who spent many of his formative years in the Hunter and obviously knows the place well, brought the house down with these two gags: “You can never truly say you’ve had a Lake’s Folly cabernet (one of the region’s most revered wines) until you’ve had it out of a styrofoam cup in the carpark of the Cessnock KFC ...” (cue much laughter of recognition); and, “I love how all other wine regions throw crap at us here in the Hunter like we’re the least talented Hemsworth brother.”

brokenwood.com.au

On my jaunt through the region I also caught up with young Hunter winemaker Daniel Binet, who produces both traditionally styled Hunter wines under the Ballabourneen label and less mainstream styles under his own, eponymous label. The Domaine de Binet cellar door/tasting bar is in a converted shipping container next to the winery on Lovedale Road, and is well worth a visit (weekends only): I can particularly recommend the tangy, ever-so-pale-pink 2015 pinot grigio, the bold purple 2014 petit verdot, and the gutsy, pizza-loving 2013 red blend of grenache, barbera and nebbiolo (all three are $28 a bottle).

I also really enjoyed tasting out of tank a yet-to-be-bottled white blend that Binet has made this vintage: a wonderfully perfumed, charming, grapy mash-up of riesling, chardonnay and traminer; it reminded me of the white wines of Alsace — which is fitting, as Binet fell in love with wine during a stint picking grapes in that picturesque French region when he was only 18.

domainedebinet.com.au