Mark Hoddy in Oz - visiting a legend

Philbo: a Wine Legend

Phil(bo) Christiansen, owner of Longwood Wines, is a living legend in McLaren Vale.

As a born and bred child of the Vale, he remembers the place being very different indeed before all the investment and wine hype.  Phil started work as a trainee cellar hand at Hardy’s local Tintara winery but it wasn’t until Hardy’s appointed Steve Pannell as head winemaker back in the 90’s that things would change for him.  

Through Pannell’s inspiration and great cellar communications, Phil learnt how to make wine commercially and how to develop exciting wines for himself. Philbo was a big part of Tony Laithwaite’s highly successful RedHeads movement and today he has his own winery nestled high in the hills above McLaren Vale where he makes his own range of exquisite wines alongside contract winemaking for other talented growers. 

I have known Phil for many years from his frequent visits to Bordeaux to help with the harvest. I now find myself here in his home town and working for his mentor Steve Pannell who has returned to this part of the world to set up his own winery.

Philbo in his winery

Phil and his wife Lauren have kindly put me up at their place for a few days after the madness of harvest. Now I can get to see a bit of the Vale before heading off. And I can taste some of Phil’s exciting wines like his Adelaide Pinot Noir, a superb Cabernet Sauvignon and old-vine Grenache.

However, first things first in true Australian fashion: “let’s go and see a mate for a beer”. That ‘mate’ was Philbo’s school mate Drew Noon … another living legend in the Vale. 

Drew is a quiet, interesting and charming character. A winemaker of great experience, he is also one of the very few in Australia to pass the Master of Wine and now runs his small Noon Winery just down the road from Phil’s place. Drew has quite a following and all his wine is sells out pre-release … he even has a waiting list!  The cellar door opens on only a couple of weekends in November where wines are available to buy in limited quantities … these usually sell out within the first Saturday!

Drew and Phil ... living legends in the Vale

Therefore it was great to have a little look around, meet Drew personally to chat about his winemaking and how the 2015 went.  Drew unscrewed an old-vine Noon Eclipse Grenache for us to taste which was really lovely and superbly balanced. We also tasted/drank a bottle of his limited 150 bottle 2014 rose instead of a beer!

Tasting Drew's old-vine Grenache

Nikki at RedHeads - last day

Last day – a busy one ... what did I expect!

My last day helping Dan at RedHeads : (

I could tell as soon as I arrived, Dan had big plans for the day. He was buzzing around already. Nice to meet his Dad, Ralph, popped up from Riverina, Dan's home. Ralph is a winemaker too. See if you can spot him in the picture down the page.

Ebb and flow, pattern and rhythm
I've come to understand a few things over the last two weeks. There's a certain pattern and rhythm and logic to everything that goes on in the winery at vintage. Receive (or fetch) the grapes, destem them and get them into vat, plunge and let them ferment in their own good time. Drain the juice, press the rest, get all the batch of wine into tank. Then, for the majority, pump it into barrel. This is, of course, simplified and takes some weeks.

Short on pump capacity, Dan said we'd need to collect the
wine from the basket press in a bucket and carry it to tank
– call these wines handcrafted? You bet!

If you're not careful, you get a blockage ... not enough tanks, need quickly to get onto cleaning the barrels and filling them, to clear some tank space, so you can drain and press.

We were very pleased to have extra hands for cleaning the barrels
and filling them – Mark Hoddy from Bordeaux's Le Chai

Well, today we did it all! Plunging, it's as normal as breathing and coffee in the morning. Clear the cake from the press. Clean some barrels and fill them, six in total today. Two new, as well – a French and an American – to hold the gorgeous Dogs of the Barossa Shiraz. Powerful stuff. As you fill the new barrels, they do give off an awesome toasty, vanilla and oak aroma.

You have to watch the level of the wine rising very carefully as
you fill the barrel ... here, it's Dan busy at the task,
and can you spot Dan's dad behind him?

And I thought, just before I left, I'd empty out another large coffin container. Well, it was my favourite-smelling fermentation vat – the chunky Durif, black-as-your-hat, smelt very dark, chocolaty and spicy. They couldn't keep me out!

Looks small, I can assure you it wasn't.
There's a certain satisfaction in getting it done.
90 minutes roundabout, not bad! Smelt great

I popped out to the Elderton winery (top wine is the world-famous Command) straight after, luckily looking in a mirror first as my face was smeared with wine splashes – a bit of a sight. And no, I didn't bother taking a picture of that!

Hey Dan. It's been a really great two weeks. Thanks for putting up with me. Hope I was more help than hindrance and that the rest of the vintage goes really well. I look forward to tasting the finished wines.

And also that you get a day off soon!

Nikki at RedHeads - bathing in it is good for you

Bathing in it is good for you, and Le Chai's Mark lends a hand

As I bucketed out my third coffin container (I found out they hold about 2.5 tonnes of fruit – sounds a lot to me!) this morning – smelt nice, so I wasn't complaining – Mark H, winemaker from Bordeaux, came up and said "in Bordeaux, in Smith Haut Lafite to be precise, they pay a lot of money to bathe in this stuff" ... that is the grape juice and skins etc. And I was getting it for free! And I wasn't bathing in it either, by the way!

Having enjoyed such a warm, sunny weekend, today's very cold (about 9°) temperatures were a bit of a shock. Much more like home. Oh : (

Good to have another professional in the
building – Mark H from Le Chai, Bordeaux

However, it's been great today to have Mark Hoddy from our Bordeaux winemaking headquarters, Le Chai au Quai, assisting at RedHeads. It really helped us get through the pressing.

Mark H and Dan talking shop

And that was lucky as the afternoon involved a bomb over in the Ute to the McLaren Vale, to do a quick tasting. I was keen to take another look at the McLaren – I haven't been there for 20 years. Prettier, more hilly than the Barossa, with the vines on slopes. Altogether it has smaller feel.

 

The boys checking out the Cabernet grapes at Jeff Erkhart's vineyard

On the way we stopped at the Erkhart vineyard from which Dan is hoping to pick up some Cabernet. And the berries were still tiny and nowhere near ripe. It's flipping cold too, until the weekend they say, so not much prospect of that this side of Easter.

 

The Cabernet berries were
very small and only 12° baume

Dan and Mark tasting some McLaren wines

No chance of scenic shots .... Dan was driving fast. I could have got a shot of Hahnsdorf town as we stopped there – silly me. It's extremely Germanic in every way. No surprise as the first settlers were from there. Of course, we had to sample a stein of beer.

Only one day to go : (

Nikki at RedHeads - it's a matter of logistics

It poured in the night ... well, so it sounded at least. Just 1mm according to Dan, so nothing of note or anything much to disturb the Mataro grapes still hanging out.

Plunging this morning, the Saperavi had got going on its ferment and was looking good.

 

The vat of Saperavi was looking
lively, frothing purple with its daily plunge

The Merlot from Domaine Day was smelling delicious too – really creamy plum and toffee notes.

Dan wanted to get a few vats through pressing, so before I knew it I was back in the coffin container (they are big) bucketing the Shiraz into Nally bins so we could get press the skins, juice, pulp in the basket press. It was a nicer ferment to bucket out than the Grenache – it smelled of chocolaty black fruit and there were less whole bunches which made it easier.

No bee stings today and about 2 hours later it was done.

And this is what my feet (and hands, but I couldn't do a picture of both!) looked like:

Shiraz feet – and my hands looked exactly
the same, worse in fact, and now have a dirty
black hue to them

After that I certainly deserved our lunch. I'm normally a bit cagey about sardines, having come a cropper in Portugal once, with fresh, grilled ones. This, however, was a delicious mix. The spelt wraps are really thin, rectangle – how sensible is that! – the tinned sardines have to be Portuguese and preferably spicy, with salad, a bit of harissa paste, and lots of other bits and bobs. Fab.

Ingredients for our spelt sardine wraps

It was a busy afternoon – pressing, running out of tank space, so cleaning and filling barrels to create some.  I realise now there are a lot of logistics involved.

I left feeling macerated in everything to do with wine – wine, juice, skins – plus a fair amount of water spray from the cleaning, and fair-do's tired.

Another lovely day at RedHeads.