Barossa Valley - Charles Melton
The wines of Charles Melton on a houseboat on the Murray River
The wines of Charles Melton on a houseboat on the Murray River Barossa Valley is one of Australia’s most historic regions, first settled by Silesian immigrants in the mid-19th century. It remains primarily a region of small growers, many 7th generation, which offers some protection against the new money flowing into other Australian regions (dot-com investors, doctors, lawyers – all are investing madly and not always wisely) as that sort of tradition is not easily bought. As Charlie Melton pointed out, one of the greatest threats to the Australian wine industry today is not phylloxera, weevils or some strange disease but dentists.
Some of the oldest vineyards in the world are in Barossa – certainly it is believed that both the oldest Shiraz and the oldest Mouvedre vines, both still in production and both in the 140 – 160 year bracket are here. We stock the Dean Hewitson Old Garden Mouvedre which is from 140 year old vines and it is a monster of a wine – dense, intense, prune and tobacco flavours.
This is also the largest region in Australia and while in the imagination, it is a place of extreme heat and small, dusty bush vines, that is only part of the truth. In reality, this series of valleys set amongst rolling hills has a variety of microclimates and parts of it, at altitude, can be relatively cool.
The hills were certainly a surprise to me. They are abrupt and pointed – not unlike the hills of Piedmont in shape although the colour and vegetation are miles away. Soils here are relatively low in fertility which keeps yields in check. This is very obviously a wine region, with vineyards everywhere. In the small towns with their tin roofed houses, the presence of Barossa’s most commercially famous landmark (at least in the Uk) is horribly obvious – Jacob’s Creek banners are hung out in the streets like bunting.
Despite this, the overwhelming feel to Barossa is one of rusticity – it has none of the slick, manicured air you might expect of such an established region. It feels again very much like a farming community – albeit a farming community with quirky touches, most notably the roads lined with Palm Trees planted by the Seppelt family – one of the leading pioneers of the wine industry here. These seem perfectly melded to the landscape on the one hand and completely surreal on the other.
Charles Melton is, in the quality arena, one of Barossa’s most famous producers, his Nine Popes (a tribute to Chateauneauf du Pape) being one of the great, iconic Australian wines but he also produces a fantastic rose, straight Shiraz, Cabernet and a sparkling Shiraz which tastes like crushed berries, black pepper and chocolate crushed together in a glass, with bubbles. The latterwine is very much an acquired tastes, but in very hot weather, particularly if you are having a barbeque with lot of heavy red meat, this is complete nectar.
In spite of the aforementioned iconic status, the Melton winery is a small, low, tin roofed building at the end of a dusty track, looking out over a 60 year old bush trained Grenache vineyard, the vines thick and gnarled with age. As with all his vines, these are dry farmed and were not looking in bad shape considering the heat and the drought. We were welcomed with a glass of the sparkling Shiraz and given a brief run down of the vintage thus far.
Today was the last crushing day for their reds. As with everywhere else, this was a much smaller, ridiculously early vintage, finished a week to 10 days before they would usually start. The advantage of such small quantities is that this year, they are able to keep even small blocks completely separate which will be interesting at the blending stage. The smell of the crush hung heavy in the hot air – rich chocolate and ripe berries.
Charles Melton has 50 acres of vineyards and buys in grapes from another 100 acres grown under contract. He has been making his own wines since 1984 and sources his grapes from all over Barossa, from Williamstown to Ebenezer for extra complexity.
Charlie mentioned showing us the small winery quickly, before we headed out to the Murray River, where he was treating us to a night on a houseboat,. He never did though – which is apparently rather typical. Charlie does not in many ways seem to enjoy talking about his wines. They should speak for themselves, he believes and he has a complete aversion to anything which might be construed as marketing.
This is unbelievably refreshing.
The drive from Barossa to the Murray took about an hour and we skirted the very edges of the outback en route.
The edge of the outback is an amazingly dramatic sight. We descended parched, steeply rolling hills to the flat, which stretches far as the eye can see – bleached of colour and, apart from the occasional metallic glint from other cars, empty save for clumps of blue gums with immense, twisted trunks and contorted branches. Arriving finally at the river seems completely incongruous with this landscape.
The Murray River seems an extraordinary body of water for a country that is so much in the throes of a serious drought. Wide and deep khaki green, it flows full and strong from the Australian Alps down to the sea and gives no hint of the fact that parts of the country are completely parched. Willows and blue gums line its banks as do row upon row of squat, square house boats which are obviously a popular get-away in this part of the world. Once all aboard, we sailed from Mannum for about an hour and a half up the river until we found a quiet spot to berth – just down stream of an impressive, modern model of a Mississippi riverboat paddle steamer, called the Murray Princess. It was deeply peaceful, with Pelicans swooping low over the water and brightly coloured Galah’s flitting through the trees at the rivers edge.
Disembarking and then consequently embarking on the other boat was fairly challenging as there was no jetty or anything that could remotely be construed as a landing stage. Metal planks were merely swung from the boats on to the bank and, to get onto the smaller boat, one had to tramp through reeds before balancing on a tree trunk which led to the very precariously balanced metal plank, on to the boat. This is my excuse for the fact that I have no tasting notes for what followed. by the time it was dark and dinner was ready, my clip board, paper and pens were on the other boat and, feeling unutterably weary again, I could not be bothered to go and get them. Also, I was more than a little nervous of plummeting in the dark into the river and remain surprised that despite the amount of wine drunk, no one took the plunge in the end.
In my defence, this laissez-faire attitude to the meticulous recording of tasting notes was more than shared by our host. Charlie’s idea of a tasting of his range was to open bottles of the current vintages at the dinner table and then to produce various components of the 06 wines which have yet to be blended.
This is a range I know very well anyway and as always, the wines displayed exactly the right balance between rich, chocolaty fruit and fresh acidity and ripe tannins. The Nine Popes remains my favourite - it has the most layers of flavour – everything from sweet raspberry to dark chocolate, black pepper and blueberry. The straight Shiraz and both Cabernet are both well made as well – big wines but not clumsy, but they lack the complexity of the Nine Popes.
He was eventually cajoled into making some sort of speech – he was with a group of buyers after all – at which point I really regretted not having this fucking camcorder which was so much trouble to get hold of – it was simple but entirely heartfelt and prescient and something that all those who love wine in the world should hear. That is one of the very special things about Charlie - he is a very unassuming man who protests his lack of eloquence while speaking more honestly and eloquently about wine than most, completely without fuss or pretension. And that attitude translates into his wines which are similarly expressive without being even slightly worked or manipulated.
Charlie spoke about the fact that he did not believe in marketing and that he was not going to tell us all about which side of the hill any given bottle came from or the exact soil structure in any of his vineyards. He believed that it was more important that we left with a sense of place that comes from meeting the people and getting to know them because that, for him, was the essence of the Barossa. A place where people understood the land deep in their bones because their fathers and their father’s fathers and back down the line for generations had farmed these vineyards and grown these grapes. And It is this sense of being rooted in this land, having a complete understanding of what it is capable of producing that makes these wines what they are – solid, profound expressions of the terroir which in no way lack a deft touch in the finest examples.
This is the anti-dote to wines made to a marketing specification, those made to satisfy the ego of the wine maker or the investor, or those manufactured mainly to score highly in some ridiculous point system. That is not to say that Barossa does not produce its fair share of complete rubbish – given the scale of production here, there is an enormous amount churned out. But the best examples have a rugged integrity which I always find in Charlie’s and even if the style is perhaps too rich or too big for your personal taste, you have to admire the fact that it is real wine, very much of its place.
The next morning, I went for a long swim in the Murray, with the sun still low on the horizon and rich, gold sunlight on the water. This was warm and textured and I swam until I could no longer see boats and then stopped, treading water and imagining myself to be completely alone in the world. Perhaps it is tiredness, perhaps it is a case of keeping up with this trip and with what is happening at home (the drama of the expansion at the shop and bar is far from over) but it is taking me time to feel a connection to this place. In the river though, it started to happen.
2006 Charles Melton Rose of Virginia - £13.50
Prices on application for the rest of the range.
Some of the oldest vineyards in the world are in Barossa – certainly it is believed that both the oldest Shiraz and the oldest Mouvedre vines, both still in production and both in the 140 – 160 year bracket are here. We stock the Dean Hewitson Old Garden Mouvedre which is from 140 year old vines and it is a monster of a wine – dense, intense, prune and tobacco flavours.
This is also the largest region in Australia and while in the imagination, it is a place of extreme heat and small, dusty bush vines, that is only part of the truth. In reality, this series of valleys set amongst rolling hills has a variety of microclimates and parts of it, at altitude, can be relatively cool.
The hills were certainly a surprise to me. They are abrupt and pointed – not unlike the hills of Piedmont in shape although the colour and vegetation are miles away. Soils here are relatively low in fertility which keeps yields in check. This is very obviously a wine region, with vineyards everywhere. In the small towns with their tin roofed houses, the presence of Barossa’s most commercially famous landmark (at least in the Uk) is horribly obvious – Jacob’s Creek banners are hung out in the streets like bunting.
Despite this, the overwhelming feel to Barossa is one of rusticity – it has none of the slick, manicured air you might expect of such an established region. It feels again very much like a farming community – albeit a farming community with quirky touches, most notably the roads lined with Palm Trees planted by the Seppelt family – one of the leading pioneers of the wine industry here. These seem perfectly melded to the landscape on the one hand and completely surreal on the other.
Charles Melton is, in the quality arena, one of Barossa’s most famous producers, his Nine Popes (a tribute to Chateauneauf du Pape) being one of the great, iconic Australian wines but he also produces a fantastic rose, straight Shiraz, Cabernet and a sparkling Shiraz which tastes like crushed berries, black pepper and chocolate crushed together in a glass, with bubbles. The latterwine is very much an acquired tastes, but in very hot weather, particularly if you are having a barbeque with lot of heavy red meat, this is complete nectar.
In spite of the aforementioned iconic status, the Melton winery is a small, low, tin roofed building at the end of a dusty track, looking out over a 60 year old bush trained Grenache vineyard, the vines thick and gnarled with age. As with all his vines, these are dry farmed and were not looking in bad shape considering the heat and the drought. We were welcomed with a glass of the sparkling Shiraz and given a brief run down of the vintage thus far.
Today was the last crushing day for their reds. As with everywhere else, this was a much smaller, ridiculously early vintage, finished a week to 10 days before they would usually start. The advantage of such small quantities is that this year, they are able to keep even small blocks completely separate which will be interesting at the blending stage. The smell of the crush hung heavy in the hot air – rich chocolate and ripe berries.
Charles Melton has 50 acres of vineyards and buys in grapes from another 100 acres grown under contract. He has been making his own wines since 1984 and sources his grapes from all over Barossa, from Williamstown to Ebenezer for extra complexity.
Charlie mentioned showing us the small winery quickly, before we headed out to the Murray River, where he was treating us to a night on a houseboat,. He never did though – which is apparently rather typical. Charlie does not in many ways seem to enjoy talking about his wines. They should speak for themselves, he believes and he has a complete aversion to anything which might be construed as marketing.
This is unbelievably refreshing.
The drive from Barossa to the Murray took about an hour and we skirted the very edges of the outback en route.
The edge of the outback is an amazingly dramatic sight. We descended parched, steeply rolling hills to the flat, which stretches far as the eye can see – bleached of colour and, apart from the occasional metallic glint from other cars, empty save for clumps of blue gums with immense, twisted trunks and contorted branches. Arriving finally at the river seems completely incongruous with this landscape.
The Murray River seems an extraordinary body of water for a country that is so much in the throes of a serious drought. Wide and deep khaki green, it flows full and strong from the Australian Alps down to the sea and gives no hint of the fact that parts of the country are completely parched. Willows and blue gums line its banks as do row upon row of squat, square house boats which are obviously a popular get-away in this part of the world. Once all aboard, we sailed from Mannum for about an hour and a half up the river until we found a quiet spot to berth – just down stream of an impressive, modern model of a Mississippi riverboat paddle steamer, called the Murray Princess. It was deeply peaceful, with Pelicans swooping low over the water and brightly coloured Galah’s flitting through the trees at the rivers edge.
Disembarking and then consequently embarking on the other boat was fairly challenging as there was no jetty or anything that could remotely be construed as a landing stage. Metal planks were merely swung from the boats on to the bank and, to get onto the smaller boat, one had to tramp through reeds before balancing on a tree trunk which led to the very precariously balanced metal plank, on to the boat. This is my excuse for the fact that I have no tasting notes for what followed. by the time it was dark and dinner was ready, my clip board, paper and pens were on the other boat and, feeling unutterably weary again, I could not be bothered to go and get them. Also, I was more than a little nervous of plummeting in the dark into the river and remain surprised that despite the amount of wine drunk, no one took the plunge in the end.
In my defence, this laissez-faire attitude to the meticulous recording of tasting notes was more than shared by our host. Charlie’s idea of a tasting of his range was to open bottles of the current vintages at the dinner table and then to produce various components of the 06 wines which have yet to be blended.
This is a range I know very well anyway and as always, the wines displayed exactly the right balance between rich, chocolaty fruit and fresh acidity and ripe tannins. The Nine Popes remains my favourite - it has the most layers of flavour – everything from sweet raspberry to dark chocolate, black pepper and blueberry. The straight Shiraz and both Cabernet are both well made as well – big wines but not clumsy, but they lack the complexity of the Nine Popes.
He was eventually cajoled into making some sort of speech – he was with a group of buyers after all – at which point I really regretted not having this fucking camcorder which was so much trouble to get hold of – it was simple but entirely heartfelt and prescient and something that all those who love wine in the world should hear. That is one of the very special things about Charlie - he is a very unassuming man who protests his lack of eloquence while speaking more honestly and eloquently about wine than most, completely without fuss or pretension. And that attitude translates into his wines which are similarly expressive without being even slightly worked or manipulated.
Charlie spoke about the fact that he did not believe in marketing and that he was not going to tell us all about which side of the hill any given bottle came from or the exact soil structure in any of his vineyards. He believed that it was more important that we left with a sense of place that comes from meeting the people and getting to know them because that, for him, was the essence of the Barossa. A place where people understood the land deep in their bones because their fathers and their father’s fathers and back down the line for generations had farmed these vineyards and grown these grapes. And It is this sense of being rooted in this land, having a complete understanding of what it is capable of producing that makes these wines what they are – solid, profound expressions of the terroir which in no way lack a deft touch in the finest examples.
This is the anti-dote to wines made to a marketing specification, those made to satisfy the ego of the wine maker or the investor, or those manufactured mainly to score highly in some ridiculous point system. That is not to say that Barossa does not produce its fair share of complete rubbish – given the scale of production here, there is an enormous amount churned out. But the best examples have a rugged integrity which I always find in Charlie’s and even if the style is perhaps too rich or too big for your personal taste, you have to admire the fact that it is real wine, very much of its place.
The next morning, I went for a long swim in the Murray, with the sun still low on the horizon and rich, gold sunlight on the water. This was warm and textured and I swam until I could no longer see boats and then stopped, treading water and imagining myself to be completely alone in the world. Perhaps it is tiredness, perhaps it is a case of keeping up with this trip and with what is happening at home (the drama of the expansion at the shop and bar is far from over) but it is taking me time to feel a connection to this place. In the river though, it started to happen.
2006 Charles Melton Rose of Virginia - £13.50
Prices on application for the rest of the range.
