A Spectacular Heathcote Wine Show!

Heathcote‘s annual Wine Show must be Victoria’s premier wine dinner. For Shiraz-lovers in particular, the event is a singularity. We cannot think of any other wine dinner anywhere across Australia at which we would rather find ourselves. Sadly, the most recent (who can keep count anymore!) COVID outbreak/lockdown has just forced the postponement of this year’s show until September, but a couple weeks prior, we had the good fortune to visit a few of Heathcote’s best producers and live out our own sort of Heathcote wine show. Anyone who recreates our journey post-lockdown will be handsomely rewarded with some of Australia’s best wine.

 

Only 90 or so minutes out of Melbs, these four wine stops may just revolutionise your understanding of Victorian wine’s true potential.

 

* Run by the ever hospitable winemaker and wine historian, Andrew Pattinson and his partner Heather McCormack, Burke & Wills Winery is one of the last and best examples of what boutique winemaking should be. Under hands guided by decades of experience and a broad command of wine history, Burke & Wills crafts a range of wines that capture the best of both Heathcote and global wine traditions. There may be no better capture of the traditional Heathcote Shiraz style than B&W’s glorious 2018 Vat 1 Shiraz. On the other end of the spectrum, their Bordeaux blend (the 2015 Aristocrat) is a more faithful representation of adroit French blending than any import you will find on Australian shelves. And rounding all of that out, their plump and textural Pinot Gris is one of the best whites you’ll find around. Boutique winemaking at its best!

 

* More than any other player, Condie Estate represents the recent evolution and bright future of Heathcote wine. It has been quite the ride watching Richie Condie’s journey these last five or six years. His wines have always been excellent, but most recently, they are pointing toward a new direction for Heathcote. At their best, Heathcote wines offer a rare and unique marriage of power and restraint. With his increasing focus on the restraint side of that equation, Richie Condie is uncovering an elegance in Heathcote Shiraz heretofore unseen (my wine notes for the 2018 Max Shiraz read: “Wow. Just wow. You sense the volcanic power beneath, but this wine is all Swan Lake across the palate.” And it’s not just Shiraz – Condie is doing something special with Sangiovese as well, that is uncovering at long last this legendary Italian varietal’s true potential in Australian soils. If you are passionate about Australian wine, it would be a sin not to visit Condie Estate.

 

* She Oak Hill Vineyard is one of modern Heathcote’s founding vineyards (alongside such icons as Jasper Hill and Wild Duck Creek) and its wines live up to if not surpass the region’s rich history. Their 2015 and 2017 Shiraz are simply two of the most sublime examples of this variety to be found in Australia. And alongside the wines, the She Oak experience is priceless. We know of no other winery in Australia where you can still do a vertical tasting of five vintages of Shiraz from one of an iconic region’s most famed vineyards, and each next drop is incomprehensibly more astounding than the jaw-dropping wine before. And what may be most refreshing of all to us is that She Oak never got caught up in its own fame, legend, or hubris. To this day, if you book a tasting (She Oaks has no cellar door as such), Jane Leckie (from the owning family) herself will meet you at the vineyard and guide you through a tasting rich in history and personal experience. We pinch ourselves every time we visit. She Oak Hill is our best dream of wine. You simply cannot find better Shiraz, and that it can be had for $30 a bottle … a dream indeed …

 

* Not much on the socials and mostly quite private, The Bridge Vineyard flies well under most radars. And while we always find this surprising, given the stature of their wines, it is so much the better for visitors. The Bridge Vineyard is never overrun by tourists, which means you’ll get to spend plenty of time with veteran winemaker, Lindsay Ross as you go through his formidable range of wines. With a focus more on quality and less on the commercial aspects of the trade, the Bridge offers a suite of wines crafted at a level of winemaking you just don’t see much of any more (e.g., years (plural!) in oak, years in the bottle, hand picking, etc etc etc). The focus on quality pays in spades with a range of wines that are powerful, imminently structured, and immediately satisfying – and all at better than reasonable prices. The Bridge also offers some of the only Malbec to be found around Heathcote and one of the region’s punchies rosés.

 

Wineries like the ones above are how we fell in love with wine in the first place. They are #WhyWeLoveWine.  Long live the best of Heathcote!!!