The buzz words for Australian wine over the last decade have been “cool climate” and the resulting change in wine styles has lead to a distinct uptick in the elegance of Australian reds. Some of our elegant shiraz our now somewhat confusingly known as syrah and its seems like every winemaker around the country is making a cool climate style of Chardonnay – even in the Barossa Valley.
It’s also seen winemakers scrambling for fruit and vineyard sites in our cooler regions. The fortunes of Tasmania are rising like never before and the Southern regions of Western Australia are also getting in on the action. No doubt it’s great news with a greater diversity of wines readily available and plenty of wines forgoing the high octane levels of alcohol seen in many big Aussie reds of the past.
Yet cool climate winemaking is nothing new in Australia – in fact some of our best cooler regions were the first to be planted, such as Victorian regions of Yarra Valley and Great Western.
In the small Central Victorian town of Great Western the winery now known as Seppelt was founded in 1865 by Joseph Best, whom had made a small fortune supplying meat to miners at the nearby goldfields. Rather than chosen for its cooler climate, Great Western was a pragmatic choice close to a thriving population of gold miners, which would very much come in handy over the following years. Just prior in 1863 the great St Peters vineyard, which sits next to the winery, was planted and would loom large in the winery’s history.
It was only in 1918 that Benno Seppelt purchased the property and it took on the family name, although the winery’s roots were well and truly settled by then. Joseph Best began to build what would be his most enduring legacy fifty years before – deep ‘drives’ that wind for three kilometres below the winery and are a must see for any visitors. Initially conceived as a small addition to the winery, and dug by unemployed gold miners, the drives have over time grown into a labyrinth of underground cellars.
It was under the ownership of Hans Irvine, whom purchased the property in 1888, that the value of these drives would become clear. Irvine was a natural marketer and bought much of this flair to Seppelt, including encouraging Dame Nellie Melba to bathe in the local sparkling wine.
Irvine also employed Frenchman Charles Pierlot from Champagne and began to craft traditionally styled high quality sparkling wines using the methods perfected in France, including significant underground aging for sparkling wines to build quality and complexity. Seppelt Great Western quickly became a name synonymous with top quality sparkling wines, both of the traditional white and locally influenced Sparkling Shiraz style. Some of the Seppelt Sparkling Burgundies from the middle of the last century are still drinking well today, indicative of their legendary quality.
Before the Seppelt family took the reigns, Irvine had already developed his Central Victorian winery to be the largest wine company in Australia, with warehouses in London helping to drive export success. But the Seppelt family also did much to build on that success, particularly with expansions throughout Victoria in Heathcote, Rutherglen and the Grampians.
Searching for a new region to provide fruit for their sparkling wines Karl Seppelt planted vines in the as yet untested and wind swept low slung hills of Henty, in South Western Victoria. While it provided superb pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot meunier for their sparkling program, as late as 1983 the jury was still out on the local riesling and consideration was given to graft it over to the sparkling varieties. Luckily the vines remained as Henty has since proven itself to be among Australia’s greatest sources of high quality Riesling, which Seppelt bottles under their Drumborg label. A recent tasting of the still youthful and outstanding 1988 vintage illustrated Karl Seppelts foresight in setting up his vineyard in this far-flung region.
While much effort over the winery’s long history has gone into Seppelt’s expansion, its Great Western home and the local vineyards still create the brightest Seppelt star – the St Peters Shiraz. While not all the fruit is now sourced from the original vineyard its significant vine age is still on show in recent vintages with the wine’s understated power, depth and complexity of fruit showcasing the outstanding synergy between shiraz and the cool Grampians climate. No doubt its various owners over the last 150 years would be proud to see this exceptional vineyard and great label continuing to perform at the highest level and comfortably standing up among the county’s finest red wines.
