Duncan McGillivray is most famous as the Australian publican who invented Two Dogs, a highly questionable alcoholic lemonade which has arguably spawned a whole genre of drinks designed to wean young people on to strong drink but, as my colleague Margaret Rand greeted him at a tasting of wines from his new holdings in the Adelaide Hills in London recently, “I see you’ve gone legit”.
He has certainly struck gold again with the Shiraz in this particular vineyard at Macclesfield in the Adelaide Hills, my favourite by quite a margin of the Longview range (www.longviewvineyard.com.au). The vines were planted in 1995 and the wine was made by the talented team at Shaw & Smith winery at Woodside. Yakka plants apparently surround the vineyard and the word ‘yakka’ is also, we are told, Oz slag for hard work.
The fruit is clearly fully ripe but has the sort of suavity you associate with Australia’s cooler spots. There’s a distinctly Rhône-like savour to this particular vintage which may well be what attracted Sydney Morning Herald’s Huon Hooke to pronounce it Top Aussie Red. (At least that’s what a delighted announcement from McGillivray tells us all, although I know from personal experience that producers tend to put the best possible spin on the words of us hacks.) I know Huon is a great fan of Clonakilla’s similarly refined, smoky Shiraz – this time from the hills around Canberra and fermented with a little Viognier, thereby spawning a much healthier trend than Two Dogs ever did.
Only 261 cases of the wine were made and it is currently selling in Australia at Aus$30 from Best Cellars, East Sydney - or perhaps after Huon’s rave the Australian stock is already sold out.
The good news is however that the wine is available in both the US and the UK where it costs £11.99 (barely more than the price in Australia) from Arthur Rackham Emporia of Guildford (see the directory for details. They deliver anywhere in the UK mainland within three days with delivery free on orders of more than £100. US importer is The Country Vintner of Maidens, VA 23102 (tel 703 401 8073).
I have a horrid feeling that subsequent vintages of this toothsome wine will cost considerably more. I tasted the 2001 Adelaide Hills Shiraz, incidentally, from Petaluma, the grandaddy of this newish cool South Australian wine region recently and found it much less sophisticated – much bigger, riper and more obvious – but this is doubtless partly the characteristics of the very hot 2001 vintage and the very cool (by SA standards) 2002 one. It may be the vintage that particularly appeals to Huon and me about this wine just as much as the vineyard.
