The birth of Prima

DURING the past 70 years, Yalumba has been the pacemaker in the development of the riesling style, several steps ahead of the field.

WINE: James Halliday

September 28, 20099:14pm

DURING the past 70 years, Yalumba has been the pacemaker in the development of the riesling style, several steps ahead of the field.

In the 1930s it recruited German-trained Rudi Kronberger, who set a fresh standard for riesling, some from the Eden Valley, which was then a novelty. In 1952-53 Kronberger ordered the first stainless-steel pressure fermenter from Germany but, by a quirk of fate, Orlando (second off the mark) got its fermenter a year earlier, in time for the 1953 vintage. The two companies radically changed the style of riesling during the next few years, bringing it close to that of today.

In 1961, Yalumba decided to develop Pewsey Vale, high in the Eden Valley, to move production away from the much warmer valley floor. Heggies followed 10 years later. It was about this time that Yalumba started trials with Stelvin screwcaps; by the end of the '70s the intention was to bottle all Pewsey Vale using these. However, the market refused to accept the closure, associating it with poor-quality wine.

Yalumba also developed its own vine nurseries to propagate new varieties (viognier) and new clones (chardonnay and pinot noir from Burgundy selected by Dijon University's Raymond Bernard). It developed a radical system of evaluating the juice of unfermented grapes and, at the other end of the cycle, began its museum tastings every two years, unequalled by any other company before or since.

Against this background, it moved slowly (and behind others) in the development of what I loosely call a Mosel-style riesling, one with alcohol of less than 10 per cent, the unfermented sugar balanced by higher than normal acidity.

Among others, my database records three superb vintages from Bellarmine in Pemberton, Western Australia; two from Delatite (the 2006 Sylvia with 9per cent alcohol and 22g sugar, quite beautiful); '06 Macforbes (exceptional Strathbogie Ranges, 9per cent alcohol and 16g sugar); '06 Mount Langi Ghiran Cliff Edge Riesling No.2; '04 Poacher's Ridge Late Harvest Riesling; '06 Frogmore Creek FGR Riesling and the earlier Wellington FGR Rieslings by Andrew Hood, both Tasmanian. (FGR stands for 40g residual sugar.)

To be fair, Yalumba winemaker Louisa Rose has been on the case for some time. She says that in 1997 she tasted a museum selection of the Pewsey Vale rieslings from the '60s to the '90s and was fascinated by a 1979 spatlese riesling. "At 10 per cent alcohol and 20g/l of sugar, with 18 years of bottle age (under Stelvin), the wine was still looking fresh and balanced, without obvious sugar but gorgeous fruit intensity," she observes. With encouragement from commander-in-chief Robert Hill Smith, a program began in 2004 to "make a wine with hallmarks of what we know Pewsey Vale riesling is, yet with lower alcohol and a fine balance of natural acid and residual fruit sugar".

Innovation is not always successful. Rather than selecting a parcel of grapes, they decided to pick a single row from each of the 25 blocks on the Pewsey Vale vineyard. Instead of complaining, the viticultural crew was delighted to have an accurate measure of the overall yield three to four weeks from normal harvest. "Looking for the first hint of citrus flavours in the grapes," Rose says. "We typically picked at around 10 degrees baume."

Doubtless with German practices -- or the ghost of Kronberger -- in mind, for three years Rose and her team tried various techniques, including wild fermentation, oxidative handling and fermentation on juice solids.

"Although the wines were interesting, they did not quite have that something special we were looking for," she says. "In 2007, we made the wine using much more conservative riesling techniques: reductive fruit handling, juice settling and cool fermentation with inoculated yeast.

"It is exactly what we were trying to achieve in making a wine with vibrant fruit flavours and a succulent, mouth-watering palate."

Prima was born.

www.winecompanion.com.au

* * *

FROM THE REGION: 2007 Pewsey Vale Eden Valley Prima Riesling
THIS riesling (96 points, $24.95) is like a stealth bomber but unarmed (it has only 9.5 per cent alcohol). The stealth comes from the realisation you have consumed a bottle when you go to pour what you think is a second (or perhaps third) glass. The only equivalent I can think of is a bottle of chilled, fresh Spanish manzanilla sherry, which I have banned from my cellar on the grounds of addiction. Prima has a magical balance of sweetness and acidity, the sweetness apparent in the intense lime juice of the mid-palate but washed away by the crisp acidity of the finish, making another sip, or a mouthful, essential. For the record, it has 22g/l of residual grape sugar and 7.7g/l of acid to go with its alcohol. The 2008 Prima is under way.
www.pewseyvale.com

Originally published as The birth of Prima

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