Croser and Wynn
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THE two men live and work 50 miles apart — close neighbours by Australian stan- dards — in the steep green range of hills which runs north of Adelaide: in tempera- ment and philosophy of wine-making they are at opposite ends of the planet. Each produces some of Australia's finest wines, which reflect their differences of character, and belie the image of factory standard production which the Australian wine in- dustry can convey.
Brian Croser of Petaluma is an intense, dark, serious man, apt to fix you with a steely glare which can be intimidating. For long the golden boy of the Australian wine scene, in early middle age he is beginning to attract a few brickbats — boring, over- technical, an ex-school prefect who cannot resist telling others what to do. Croser is certainly a consummate technician. Some of the things he does would amaze wine- makers in the old world — for instance, keeping his riesling juice chilled for four months before fermentation. But Croser is something of an artist too: the purity of style and the combination of restraint and intensity of his wines compel admiration.
Petaluma Riesling, from vineyards in the Clare valley 80 miles north of Adelaide, is for me his greatest wine. Quite restrained when young, it develops a marvellous honeyed, peachy complexity with age. The 1980 vintage, which Croser described as the best wine he had made, from an ullaged bottle, had acquired a biscuity, toasty richness. This type of riesling, or rhine as the Aussies call it, dry, full- bodied, gathering complexity with age, is, like shiraz, a more original Australian contribution to the world of wine than either cabernet or chardonnay, and absurdly underrated. The advantage is a very reasonable price.
Petaluma is probably better known over here for its chardonnay, and very good that is too — subtle, nervy, fine, the opposite of the big broad style of Rosemount. You would never guess that the 1987 chardon- nay had spent a year in new oak; but then the oak is subtlest-flavoured Vosges, and the barrels are chilled to 10°C in an apple warehouse. Croser may be regarded pri- marily as a white wine-maker, but his Coonawarra Red (70 per cent cabernet sauvignon, 30 per cent merlot) is formid- able too, with pure fruit intensity as always (mainly blackcurrant), and what Croser describes as 'yoghurt texture, sandy but 'In layman's terms? I'm afraid I don't know any layman's terms.' creamy'. Croser's most disappointing effort for me is his methode champenoise sparkler: called simply, and not modestly, Croser ('better than Brian, I suppose', commented one wine-writing wit), it is well-made, rich yet lively, but somehow lacks distinction.
Adam Wynn is not above a little self- promotion: his and his father's winery perched on the crest of the hills, looking down over the Eden valley and quite Edenic itself on a warm autumn evening, is called Mountadam. It is modern and well- equipped, but there the resemblance with Petaluma ends. Wynn is a cuddly, round- ed, witty man in his early thirties, who exudes ease and enjoyment of the good things in life. Some of this ease may come from family money: his father sold the family winery, Wynns in Coonawarra, to Tuohy's brewery (part of the Showerings empire) in 1972. Wynns was known above all for its splendid, big bold cabernet sauvignon: David and Adam Wynn de- cided to concentrate on the Burgundian grapes, chardonnay and pinot noir.
Adam Wynn is, if anything, more French than the French. He studied wine- making at Bordeaux (where he came out top of his class) and Dijon, where he completed a thesis on Chardonnay produc- tion. He aims not for Croser's purity, which he considers sterile and boring, but for what he calls 'symphonic' richness and complexity. His chardonnay juice, far from being centrifuged, filtered, cleaned up to within an inch of its life, goes straight from the press into the barrel. The advantage of barrel-fermentation, for Wynn, is 'the wonderful way the wood gets tangled up in the wine'. Certainly with his buttery, rich chardonnay, golden in colour even when young, you cannot tell where the fruit ends and the oak begins. The most remarkable thing about this wine, for me, is its texture; crumbly like a buttery, nutty biscuit. These are dangerous wines; Wynn risks bacter- iological spoilage by leaving the wine on the lees for months without any sulphur; there are rumours that the 1988 chardon- nay is not what it might be. The 1984 chardonnay, however, is a full-bodied, luscious, unctuous wine in prime condi- tion, and the 1989 is precociously rich and complex.
Most Australian pinot noirs are dis- appointingly weedy, pallid creatures: not the Mountadam 1988, a big, generous full-bodied number, with hints of black cherry and beetroot, quite tannic at the finish but velvety in texture. Voluptuous indeed — and not a word one would ever use of a Petaluma wine. But like satisfying system, the Australian wine industry needs its polar opposites, yin Croser and yang Wynn.
Petaluma wines are available from Majestic and Les Amis du Vin; Mounta- dam wines from Oddbins.
Harry Eyres
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