Noon is that rare thing - a world renowned two person winery in McLaren Vale. Drew Noon MW and Rae only get in friends to help with the harvest. Otherwise their dry-farmed, biodynamic vineyard is tended only by them. When Drew returned to the farm where he was raised, the wines were distinctively average and the reputation worse. Drew had done a lot of travelling around south east Australia since leaving home to become an oenologist and eventually realised that he preferred pruning to man-managing.
Australia
Australia
In wine terms, there's been a bit of falling out of love between the Australian producers and British wine drinkers. It has been years since the Australians were pressured into taking the constant revolving discount route into the evil empires of the supermarket chains and they cannot extricate themselves from this sticky morass. It's ironic, since it was the introduction of their wines in the mid eighties that recruited so many people into wine drinking in the first place. But supermarket shoppers have been carefully trained by our masters and are now notoriously promiscuous when considering their purchases. Big business has conspired to turn the word loyalty into an oxymoron. But I digress.
Australia is a country with a diverse range of climate and soils, well suited somewhere to just about every grape grown.
- Greenock Creek
`If I had to select the number one Australian winery, it would be hard not to choose Greenock Creek, run by the humble, shy Michael and Annabelle Waugh. The quality that emerges from this estate is extraordinary. In short, these are thrilling, world-class wines that are about as compelling as wine can be.` - Robert Parker, The Wine Advocate, October 2005
- Jim Barry
The story of Jim Barry wines is very much the story of South Australia’s Clare Valley. Jim Barry was an early graduate (number 17, if you are counting) of Australia’s first oenology course at the trailblazing Roseworthy Agricultural College (since folded into the University of Adelaide). He became the first qualified winemaker to work in the Clare Valley, first making wine for the Clare co-op, later establishing his own winery. Over many decades, the Barry family has built up a vineyard mosaic of some of Clare’s best spots, notably but not exclusively for Riesling.
- Kilikanoon
`This is one of the most brilliantly run wineries in Australia, and the quality of the entire portfolio is impressive thanks to the enviable talents of winemaker Kevin Mitchell... also one of South Australia`s `good guys.` - Robert Parker, Wine Advocate, October 2005
`Kilikanoon produces some of the world`s finest value-priced, full-flavored, dry reds` - Robert Parker, The Wine Advocate, October 2006
- Leeuwin Estate
In 1972, Perth businessman Denis Horgan received an unusual piece of news. An American man had been digging holes in the ground on his cattle farm, without asking permission; now he wanted to buy the farm. Denis had no intention of selling, and no idea who this American was (a ‘Mr Robert Mondavi’, anybody?) But when someone showed him a copy of Time magazine with Mondavi’s face on the cover, he agreed to meet him. Mondavi was convinced that the farm would be an amazing spot for premium winemaking. Denis still wasn’t selling, but decided that he had better start making wine himself.
- Yarra Yering
Yarra Yering is an iconic name in the Australian wine industry. Wine was grown in the Yarra Valley itself (just outside Melbourne) from the mid-1800s to the 1920s. That stopped when the high price of wool and the changing tastes of drinkers made wine production less economic. It was not to resume again until 1969 and one Dr Bailey Carrodus arrived on the scene. When he took up a position teaching botany at Melbourne University, he was fresh from a study tour of the best vineyards and wineries of France, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
