The Man from Mosel River

As in previous years, our 2006 Merlot was made by Alan Johns, owner and winemaker of Yering Farm Wines. We were there to do some tastings before bottling started. From 18 old-French oak-barrique barrels we took samples of the young wine. It showed all the varietal character of Merlot, had a deep red colour, a bouquet of ripe red forest fruit, good structure and a long finish. We were very satisfied with the quality of the new drop from Two Hills Vineyard. The wine from the barrels was pumped into a steel tank, blended and then filtered. It is in bottles now and we will release it in December.

2006 Two Hills Merlot in old oak

Alan getting ready for the Merlot tasting

The Adam family tasting crew

Yering Farm Wines is a great place to visit in the Yarra Valley. I love the rustic tasting shed. It has a great atmosphere, not the rather sleek and sterile type foften preferred by urbanites, but one which reminds any visitor that grapes are grown on a real farm, in a real vineyard, in earth and soil and have not fallen fully pressed into bottles out of nowhere. Alan Johns Yering Farm series wines are delicious and brilliant for easy drinking especially in warm summer. For advanced drinkers, he has various award-winning wines at hand, for instance Yering Farm Chardonnay (see the various awards at http://www.yeringfarm.com.au). In 2007 the late frost wiped out all of Alan’s fruit. If you are in the Yarra Valley don’t forget to drive by for a tasting.

Yering Farm Vineyard

The “Mayer Vineyard” is located in the Yarra Valley, about halfway between Healesville and Yarra Junction on a steep slope overlooking the surrounding valley. The vineyard belongs to the Mayer family, Timo and his wife Rhonda. They and their three children (Rivar, Ruby and Ivy) live in a beautiful, rammed earth house on the top of the hill.

The Mayer and the Adam families (Rivar missing from the picture)

Timo is the winemaker cum viticulturist at Gembrook Hill, a well-known boutique vineyard at the far southern and cooler end of the Yarra Valley. He is famous for his fine palate and a much sought-after wine consultant.

His own vineyard covers about 6 acres (VSP trellising, cane pruned, row spacing 2.5 m, vine spacing 1.5 and 0.75 m) and his wine label is called “Bloody Hill” which is also “written” or should I better say “slashed” (by a tractor slasher) into the remaining paddock in between the two vineyard blocks. Timo produces a “Bloody Hill” Chardonnay, a Pinot Noir and a “Big Betty” Shriaz. The wines can be obtained from various retail outlets (for instance the Wine Hub at the Yarra Valley Dairy or the Winehouse at Southbank in Melbourne) and by mail order. Timo makes also a very delicious Rosé. The total yearly production is about 12 tonnes of fruit which is ‘transformed’ into about 700 cases of wine.

One part of Bloody Hill, the Mayer Vineyard

We were lucky to have had Timo make our 2002 award winning Sauvignon Blanc. However, we have more in common than a love for wine. Timo is also of German origin. He is the son of a farmer from the beautiful lands of the Suebians (Schwaben), home to a German tribe in the South and he cherishes many old local traditions. During a recent birthday celebration we were involved in a breathtaking collective “move the table” ritual, nothing spiritual of course but rather a rustic rural drinking game (with all the glasses and the crockery standing on it), where we physically lifted the table to above our heads chanting merryily, entirely in the Suebian language. All this went very well in the Australian setting of multiculturalism.

My suggestion: Check out the wines now and fill your wine cellar to capacity before they become a cult wine and very, very expensive.

The most important person to our small vineyard was and is Steve Sadlier from Yarra Glen who convinced us many years ago to plant the first grapes on Two Hills Road in Glenburn. Ever since, he has been our viticulturist consultant. But Steve Sadlier has not only a consultancy business, called “vineadvice”, but also a vineyard of his own. Its name is Nenagh Park. He choose the name in commemoration of his great-grandfather, also called Stephen Sadlier, who came from Ireland to Australia in the mid 19th century from the town of Nenagh in the county of Tipperary.

Steve Sadlier

The Sadlier family moved to Yarra Glen more than 100 years ago. The original homestead burned down in the bushfire of 1939. Steve and his family of six (wife Meagan and the children Bronte, Lou-Allan, Millicet and Heidi) live in the little house which was erected as replacement for the lost homestead. Of the original family land, Steve farms about 60 acres of which 21.5 acres are under vines. The vines are between 10 and 17 years old. Before 1997 Steve was the chief viticulturist at Yarra Ridge which is just across the road from his own vineyard and the Sadlier property.

The Yarra Valley is one of the most famous wine regions in Victoria. Outstanding cool climate wines are made here, especially Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. In the last couple of years late frosts destroyed most of Steve’s fruit. In 2002 only two tonnes of fruit were harvested from 21 acres; in 2006 the harvested volume was 32 tonnes which compares to a normal year of 75 tonnes. Severe frosts usually do not only have a negative impact on the fruit in the year the frost occurs but also the subsequent year. Usually, volumes are down until the vines recovered.

The Chardonnay block

Steve grows Chardonnay (about 9 acres), Pinot Noir (7.5 acres), and to a lesser extent Merlot (0.75 acres), Cabernet (2.5 acres) and Sauvignon Blanc (1.3 acres). Some of his fruit is contracted on a long term basis by one of the oldest wineries in the Yarra Valley, Yering Station. Steve sells mainly the fruit but in some years produces up to 250 cases of his own wine, usually made by Alan Johns of Yering Farm who makes also our wines. He sells his own wine as “clean skins” but plans are underway to develop a label and for the more distant future the vision is to develop the old house into a cellar door-cum-bed and breakfast.

According to an article in The Age (18.08. titled “The singles scene”), Steve Flamsteed, the winemaker of Giant Steps in Healesville in the Yarra Valley allegedly said that “the future is in single-vineyard wines”. In fact one of his own single-vineyard wines, a 2005 Sexton Chardonnay, only recently won a gold medal at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show. And his second single-vineyard wine, a 2005 Terraford Chardonnay, won a silver medal at the same event.

It is easy to be a supporter of single-vineyard wines when you have only a single vineyard, like me (Two Hills Vineyard has only one site). However, where I come from, the Mosel River valley, single vineyard wines are very common, rather the rule than the exception. It comes as no suprise to me that if you have selected the perfect site and planted the right grape variety, your fruit and with it your wine must be exceptionally good. The proliferation of the industry and also the expansion to second grade locations must have a negative effect on quality, which will show somewhere.

Well, the vintners at the Mosel had about 2000 years to select the right sites and the right varieties. We in Australia are not as fortunate as far as the time frame is concerned. But our entrepreneurial spirit, our love for quality and the beauty of the land allow for exceptional finds and with it for exceptional wines. Its great to contribute to this, especially if you are only a miniscule vintner with a very small and rather new vineyard in the Upper Goulburn Wine Region. Let’s move it.

Where Two Hills Vineyard is located, among the beautiful rolling hills between Yarra Glen and Yea at the Southern edge of what is commonly known as the Upper Goulburn Wine Region (www.uppergoulburnwine.org.au), there are many more small and very small vineyards and wineries out there.

Definitions of what a boutique vineyard and/or winery are vary. Some think the total tonnage for the wine label should be below a certain limit (for instance a maximum of 250 tonnes crushed per year). Others see the limitation of yields as crucial (for instance less than 3-4 tonnes per acre). Specialised organisations of producers and wine merchants support the Boutique vineyard sector (for instance www.boutiquewineries.com.au) and cater to their needs. The size differential is usually compensated by outstanding product quality. Hand crafted, artisan wines from Boutique vineyards and wineries can certainly compete with mass-produced, industrial products.

Two Hills Vineyard in Glenburn

What they all have in common is the limitation of overall quantity for the sake of quality.This is exactly what we at Two Hills are attempting to do. Less is more for us. Our philosophy is that only excellence is worth being produced. This is also our economic niche which hopefully allows us to survive in this very competitive market. Fortunately, wine drinkers always want to try something new, they want to explore new opportunities, find new challenges. We attempt to serve this urge. And since every year’s grapes are different also the wines we make out of these grapes are different. We only use high quality fruit. In order to get to the 3 tonnes yield per acre we have to drop a lot of fruit in order to ripen the remaining one to the highest standard. Steve Sadlier of Vineadvice, our viticulturist, makes sure that the standards are high and consistently maintained.

Another aspect of Two Hills Vineyard is that it is a single site (in German: Lagenwein). Therefore the “terroir” matters to us more than to others. Our wines are made in the vineyard. There is no blending going on. What we get at harvest time, is what we process. We do not buy grapes from other locations. This is why we devote all our times and effort to the production of clean and healthy, top quality fruit. The wines we produce are witness to this philosophy. Alan Johns, our winemaker at Yering Farm (www.yeringfarm.com.au), has the passion and devotion to producing top wines. The Merlot 2006 which we are going to release soon will prove this. Unfortunately we have only a couple of thousand bottles of this treasure.