I had spent the day gradually winding my way up the valley from Melbourne following the itinerary organised for me by Steve Webber who I had met back in London in May, and ended up in Dixons Creek at the Yarra Valley home of De Bortoli wines. Steve and his wife Leanne live with their two daughters on the property and very kindly put me up while I was visiting the region.
De Bortoli are a family owned company (Leanne’s maiden name is De Bortoli and she is one of the board of directors..) which in the wine trade is not so unusual, but they are not exactly a small company, and most of the big players in the Australian wine industry are part of giant multinationals.. The Dixons Creek winery in the Yarra Valley is a reasonably recent addition to the De Bortoli empire, set up by Leanne and Steve about twenty years ago, but back then the Yarra Valley was still a developing region, with only 15 other wineries.
Nowadays the Dixons Creek winery not only produces some of De Bortoli’s top quality Burgundian style wines, but also has an award winning restaurant and cellar door – so worth a detour if travelling through the region. I was eating at the even-more exclusive table of Steve and Leanne’s home, the first night Steve was out on the deck barbecuing for us all. That day, while I’d been driving up from Melbourne and visiting Gembrook Hill and Giant Steps, Steve had been entertaining a group of Scandinavian importers, who joined us for dinner.
Before we got started with the food, we had a chance to taste our way through the range of Yarra Chardonnays. Starting with the excellent-value-for-money ‘Gulf Station’ 2007 Chardonnay, which is a light fresh style with a touch of coconut creaminess on the finish – reflecting the use of some new oak in it’s production – often high quality French oak. This conditions the barrels for premium wines, where new oak would impart too much influence.
The next was the De Bortoli Yarra Valley Chardonnay 2006, with a fresh nose once again – but more refined on the palate – with deeper more integrated oak along with some tropical fruit and citrus and a nutty finish.
The star for me was the De Bortoli Yarra Valley Reserve Chardonnay 2005 which was, to quote from my tasting notebook: Serious Chardonnay, very Burgundian in style with mineral character along with super subtle and integrated oak. Only 400 dozen of these are produced per year, and we were selling it at Kemenys (so I bought one of course, as well as recommending it to quite a few people!) – I intended to have it with my Christmas turkey, but ended up having it just recently with a fellow ex-Oddbins friend in Bondi before we headed off to Tasmania (where I am currently – updates soon! the backlog is shortening!!)
I have been begging, borrowing and internet cafeing computer time – and while at De Bortoli, Steve let me use one of the desktops in the lab after everyone had gone home!
