The road to Mount Terrible
It pays to have a sense of humour if you’re a small winery owner, and John Eason’s has been tested to the limit.
If you are the owner and winemaker of a small winery in Australia, it helps to have a sense of humour. This is particularly essential if you are self-taught and don’t know the name of your banker – unless, that is, you are terribly poor or terribly wealthy. For every sling of outrageous fortune (frost, fire, drought, flood) there are gnomes in the halls of power working day and night to come up with ever more visions of hellfire and damnation.
Enter English-born John Eason. Eason studied medicine at Cambridge and was one of a team of three who set up London’s first liver transplant program before becoming so dismayed by the British health system that he moved in 1991 to Victoria’s remote Jamieson Valley with his Australian-born wife Janene, then pregnant with their son Harry. He spent two years building a house and writing two (unpublished) novels. The couple planted oranges, lemon and olive trees, and a couple of hundred vines of cabernet sauvignon, shiraz, merlot, pinot noir and garganega. Armed with a bucket and stick, Eason made several vintages of what he describes as “mouth-puckeringly undrinkable” wines except for two pinots that “turned out nice(ish)”.
It was enough for the Easons. They pulled out the existing vines in 2001 and planted 2ha of clonal pinot noir MV6, 114, 115 and 777. The first vintage was 2006; it, and 2008 were made at Delatite, with the involvement of Eason. The 2007 vintage was trashed by frost, 2009 was blighted by smoke, 2011 by incessant rain, and smoke taint returned in 2020. It tested his sense of humour to the limit, prompting him to email me: “I have just finished building my winery/fire-bunker, of which I enclose a photo. I’m all tooled up to make the 2011 vintage myself: all I need is the grapes. Knew I should have sacrificed more virgins…” Perhaps he did: the chardonnay is a wine for them, even if it was a long time coming.
2022 Mount Terrible Chardonnay
This inaugural release is a triumph. Its purity, focus and length hasn’t been achieved by cutting down every facet of the wine. It has all the indicia of cool-grown chardonnay, starting quietly but accelerating continuously to the intense, classic white peach and grapefruit duo on the long palate and lingering, fresh aftertaste. Only 45 dozen produced. 12.7% alc, screwcap
97 points, drink to 2037, $45
2019 Mount Terrible Jamieson Pinot Noir
Hand-picked, 5-day cold soak, 20% whole bunches open fermented, basket pressed gravity flow, French barriques (33% new) for 18 months, racked three times. It has complex cherry/plum/spice/earth flavours on the long palate, which have a savoury anchor. 13.3% alc, screwcap
95 points, drink to 2030, $45
2022 Mount Terrible Pinot Noir Rosé
Light but vivid hue. Strawberry/raspberry aromas: purity for short. This has real presence, real pinot fruit; made from the ground up. Its mouthfeel and texture are also admirable. 13% alc, screwcap
94 points, drink to 2027, $25
‘Darkest period of my life’: Price on violence, her drug abuse and rehab
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price knows trauma and tragedy, and experienced shocking domestic violence firsthand. It led, she says to a period of drug use and despair, one which she is lucky to have come back from.
A fresh and healthy Vietnamese salad
This salad is completely customisable. Build it with what you like or have access to.