Mornington applies ‘Pinot hands’ to Shiraz

Mornington Peninsula has a “hidden gem” in its Shiraz to show off alongside the Australian region’s flagship Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, believes Lindsay McCall of Paringa Estate.

The Mornington Peninsula coastline

“One of the challenges I’ve got even after 30 years is that people come to the cellar door and say, ‘Oh, you grow Shiraz down here, do you?’”, he told the drinks business during a visit to the UK. “No amount of success can get the message through.”

Although the region has built its reputation on Pinot Noir, which dominates local vineyards, McCall’s first plantings back in 1985 were Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon. “The industry was in its fledging stage so I just planted what people were planting,” he recalled.

He eventually pulled up the Cabernet Sauvignon in 1995, replacing the variety with another Mornington Peninsula speciality, Pinot Gris. “It was always an uphill struggle,” said McCall of growing this Bordeaux grape in the region. “Cabernet just goes leafy and gets those capsicum flavours.”

By contrast, he described Shiraz as being “much more adaptable to our cool climate,” although noted: “The perfect conditions for Shiraz are hotter than what you want for Pinot Noir.”

Nevertheless, McCall continued: “Shiraz is a little hidden gem. If global warming affects us to the extent that some people say then I’ve got something to fall back on.”

For the moment, however, the region looks set to remain one of Australia’s key sources of high quality Pinot Noir.

Amelia Jukes, managing director of Hallowed Ground, which imports Paringa Estate to the UK, highlighted its appeal, observing: “As the Yarra gets hotter, Mornington Peninsula becomes increasingly important for Pinot Noir. It’s always going to be protected because of the coast.”

Lindsay McCall

Indeed, asserts McCall, “I’ve put my faith in Pinot Noir”. He confirmed that the grape accounts for around 60% of Paringa’s total 15,000 case production, split between three expressions: one made with bought in Mornington Peninsula grapes, an estate Pinot Noir and, at the top of the range, single vineyard bottling The Paringa, which comes from the estate’s original Pinot vines planted in 1988.

The remaining 40% of Paringa’s output is split between Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and Shiraz, with the latter totaling just 2-3,000 cases. There is also a small quantity of Viognier, which is co-fermented with the Syrah in line with the approach commonly seen in the Rhône’s Côte Rôtie.

Suggesting that around 23 producers in the region are currently producing Shiraz, including high profile estates such as Moorooduc and Yabby Lake, McCall remarked: “Most of the better producers here have Shiraz but in a scaled back quantity that reflects the market.”

Jukes pointed to the rise of Shiraz in this part of Australia, where it is building a reputation as offering a very different style to traditional hotspots for the variety such as the Barossa and McLaren Vale.

“Victorian Shiraz has really built its own identity in the last few years and made a big distinction from South Australia,” she told db, but acknowledged: “There’s still a long way to go.”

As for the awareness and reception of this fresh, peppery expression of Australian Shiraz in the UK market, Jukes commented: “People love it but you have to keep opening bottles. When people taste it they are so excited, you see it in their faces when they smell the wine.”

Explaining the key to the rising reputation of Paringa’s Shiraz, whose top expression The Paringa retails for around £55, she suggested: “Most people treat Shiraz as a bit of a brute but Lindsay treats it in the same way and with the same hands as Pinot Noir.”

By way of explanation, McCall remarked: “There’s no large format fermenting and we’re not trying for big tannins so there’s gentle extraction.”

Just as many producers in Australia are now working with larger format barrels as part of the wider stylistic shift for the country’s Chardonnay – Paringa itself is currently trialling 500-litre puncheons – McCall has also introduced a similar approach to his red wines, bringing in 3,500l foudres.

Although expensive at around AUD$28,000 (£13,500) each, the foudres can be reused year after year and, enthused McCall, “they’re just fantastic; they’ve brought a new dimension to our Pinot Noir and Shiraz.”

Tracking the evolution of Mornington Peninsula as a whole, McCall observed: “What we’ve done in the last 10 years is so much bigger than the 10 years before. Ten years ago my Pinot Noir and some of the others would have stood head and shoulders above the rest, but the quality level has improved so much that you can go to Melbourne, order a glass from pretty much anywhere and it’s going to be good.”

Key to this high level consistency, he suggested, is Mornington Peninsula’s prevalence of small, family-owned producers – with rare exceptions such as Lion Nathan-owned Stonier – which helps engender a collaborative outlook.

This desire for shared knowledge manifests itself in initiatives such as a benchmarking programme organised by the Mornington Peninsula Vignerons Association, which brings together 25 local producers to share ideas and technical analysis.

“We all taste each others wines and see what people are doing,” explained McCall. “It’s been a learning curve.”