Peter Fraser: Lifting the Vale
Peter Fraser is a man intent on establishing old-vine Grenache as the McLaren Vale’s prized viticultural possession. Here, Australia’s 2016 Winemaker of the Year talks about the variety’s extraordinary appeal.
Whenever we start a new year, there’s always a natural urge to look back at the past 12 months and pick out the most important moments.
Among these must be the sale of Diageo’s wine division to Treasury Wine Estates, or, in the UK specifically, Majestic’s acquisition of fast-growing online retailer Naked Wines.
But there’s something else that’s notable about 2015 – it was a great year for Grenache. And that’s thanks to one man: Peter Fraser, winemaker at McLaren Vale’s Yangarra Estate Vineyard – home to some of Australia’s oldest bush vine Grenache.
Fraser has been a long-time promoter of Grenache, but it wasn’t until this year that he received an impressive accolade for his skilled work, an award that has increased his international standing significantly, and consequently, the reputation of this underrated grape.
Named Australian Winemaker of the Year in July 2015 by the country’s most respected wine critic, James Halliday, Fraser has spent the past five months on a worldwide tour, meeting press and buyers, and, importantly, pouring Grenache. As part of this, Fraser joined forces with the drinks business to stage the UK’s first ever comparative Grenache tasting, featuring only the very finest wines made purely from the grape – his own High Sands Grenache from 70-year-old bush vines in McLaren Vale’s prized Blewitt Springs sub-region, but also the Barossa’s Les Amis from Torbreck, Spain’s Espactacle by René Barbier and Château Rayas, the only varietal Grenache from Châteauneuf-du-Pâpe (see boxout on page 23 for the list of wines).
This highlighted the wonderful traits of this grape and proved so successful that the same event will be repeated this year in Hong Kong with, once again, Fraser as frontman.
A GRAPE AMBASSADOR
High-achieving, smiley and approachable, Fraser has become an effective ambassador for Grenache, while also doing an important marketing job for McLaren Vale – a region that doesn’t have the same level of fame as the Barossa, or worldwide quality reputation of Coonawarra or Margaret River.
By focusing on Grenache, made using certified biodynamic techniques, he’s bringing more attention to McLaren Vale as a place for something environmentally sensitive and distinctive.
Although Yangarra produces first-rate Shiraz – and was pioneering in taking a more delicate approach to this grape (Fraser says that Yangarra was the first to make whole-bunch ferments with Shiraz in McLaren Vale), Fraser believes that the region should build its reputation around one thing: Grenache. As he says, “Your average McLaren Vale producer spends all their time promoting Chardonnay or Cabernet that no-one really wants and then complains that they can’t sell Grenache – there needs to be more discipline in thinking.”
But he is also keen to stress that there are plenty of others who are ambassadors for McLaren Vale Grenache. One of those is Steve Pannell, who also provided a notable boost to the fine wine reputation of the region and the grape last year, because he too was named Australian Winemaker of the Year – but by Gourmet Traveller magazine, not James Halliday.
Another important person is Paul Carpenter, who Fraser credits for the current quality of Chateau Reynella McLaren Vale Grenache, as well as “transforming” the ‘Absconder’ McLaren Vale Grenache from Wirra Wirra – where Carpenter was previously winemaker.
Fraser is also bursting with superlatives for the McLaren Vale Grenaches from producers Ministry of Clouds, Geddes and Shaw & Smith, with the latter, he says, making “cracking McLaren Vale Grenache that is lighter and more crunchy in style – a bit Pinot-esque”.
What makes McLaren Vale and Grenache such a successful combination? “We are in Blewitt Springs, which is renowned for its white sands, containing 99% silica.
These are wind-blown, not beach sands, and underneath them lies a layer of clay, like you find in Châteauneuf-du-Pape,” he begins. “It’s McLaren Vale’s clay layer that makes the region so great for Grenache.
It gives the wine brightness and freshness,” he adds. This sensation is also seen in the numbers: “Grenache across McLaren Vale, and particularly in our High Sands vineyard, has an incredibly low pH – it has the pH of a white wine, and so we don’t have to acidify,” he records.
Despite the quality of McLaren Vale Grenache, the grape only represents 8% of the region’s vineyard area today, although it was once the most planted variety, historically favoured because of its suitability for making fortified wine. But Fraser ascribes the grape’s decline to its relatively unfashionable status.
“If you are reliant on Dan Murphy’s [offlicence chain] or a supermarket to sell your wine, then Grenache would not be your priority, because it is a variety that needs a sommelier to hand-sell it.” However, for Yangarra, Fraser explains, “we are 80% on-premise in Australia”.
Yangarra Grenache volumes aren’t huge, however. “We are selling around 3,500 cases of Grenache internationally and 1,000 cases domestically.” Though this is “growing massively”, according to Fraser.
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GROWING DEMAND
Indeed, in the four-month period following the announcement that Fraser was Australia’s Winemaker of the Year, Yangarra sold a year’s worth of stock.
This may be partly due a wider uptick in demand for Grenache, along with other ‘Mediterranean’ grapes.
Fraser explains: “Data is showing that the major varieties are in massive decline in [Australian] restaurants, but there is a very long list of other varieties that are up by a ridiculous amount. This may be off small bases, but they are cannibalising sales of the traditional varieties.”
In McLaren Vale specifically, such a trend is encouraging winemakers to experiment with new grape varieties, according to Fraser, who says that a grape such as Italy’s Fiano is “really suited to the McLaren Vale”, along with red grapes like Nero d’Avola, Tempranillo and Touriga Nacional.
GOING BLANC
And for Yangarra, “the big push” in 2015 and the year ahead is Grenache Blanc, which is forming the “backbone of new plantings”, and Fraser plans to end up with four hectares of the variety, which will entrench the estate’s reputation as a Grenache specialist and augment its existing 35ha of Grenache Noir.
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He also says that he has “a very strong gut feeling that it will be good” based on the quality of the Roussanne at the Yangarra property – a grape that grows together with Grenache Blanc and Marsanne in southern France, as well as other white varieties native to the Mediterranean, in particular Bourboulenc and Piquepoul, which Fraser has also planted on a small scale.
“We are so red-heavy as a business that we feel there is an opportunity to do more with white, which would help us during the summer, when our domestic sales dip,” he says, giving a commercial reason for the new plantings.
However, he then warns: “Warm climate Mediterranean varieties have a great reputation in our region, but you’ve got to be careful not to say ‘yes’ to all of them, otherwise you go from being interesting to being confusing.”
Viticulturally, Fraser could be described as a traditionalist, although, increasingly, it is considered fashionable to embrace ancient techniques.
Not only does Fraser eschew all synthetic inputs, as well as follow the rules of biodynamic farming, but he has decided to ditch trellising for his new Grenache plantings.
“It is law in Châteauneuf to grow Grenache as a bush vine and we have chosen to do the same in McLaren Vale, out of respect to the Grenache of France and Spain, but also because we want to make great wine,” he explains.
However, this does make the vineyard management labour intensive, although Yangarra is lucky to have the assistance of Bernard Smart, an octogenarian who planted the High Sands Grenache in 1946 and still lives on the estate.
As for his approach to winemaking, Fraser is experimental. His latest trial concerns 675-litre egg-shaped fermentation and ageing vessels, which are made from ceramic because it doesn’t need to be lined with wax, unlike concrete – the more common material for such tools.
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MATERIAL DIFFERENCE
“I started in 2013 with four eggs, then I bought another four the following vintage, and another eight for this year, so going into 2016 we will have 16 ceramic eggs,” he says, pointing out that they bring “amazing texture and complexity” to wines made from Grenache as well as Roussanne.
Significantly, although Fraser uses French oak to age the majority of his reds, his range-topping wine, the High Sands Grenache, sees no new oak whatsoever, ensuring the wine doesn’t have any overt wood-derived characters, from vanilla to chocolate, although he does try to bring extra texture to the wines from extended lees contact in barrel, an approach that can increase the reductive nature of the wines.
He explains: “If there is one criticism of Australian wine, it’s that it can be too fruity, so by keeping it in a reductive environment you can enhance the savoury characters and dumb down the primary fruit.
If you say that High Sands is a bit closed, then I’m pleased, because I want that, and then in five years time it will start to open and come alive.”
Considering Fraser’s recent accolade, and, as a result, elevated reputation, is there are danger he might be poached from Yangarra? Fraser is quick to assure that he wouldn’t be tempted to leave.
Aside from the fact that he’s built the winery around his needs and works with some of Australia’s most prized vineyards, he is pleased to be part of a global business – Yangarra is owned by Jackson Family Wines, producer of America’s best-selling Chardonnay under the Kendall-Jackson brand, but also operator of wineries across California and Oregon, as well as France, Italy and Chile, along with vineyards in South Africa.
This has given him the chance to make wine at other properties and share ideas with other experienced winemakers, as well as receive the necessary funding for his improvements and experiments.
Indeed, he says that Jackson company chairman and owner, Barbara Banke, “looks after me”, while he points out that his current challenge is to live up to the award by continuing to improve the quality of Yangarra wines. “The pressure now is to back it up,” he states.
More generally, having travelled extensively since winning the award in July last year, he’s observed a renewed interest in Australia among major wine importing countries, such as the UK.
EXCITING TIMES
“It is exciting. We are back to being that little challenger again, not just cheap and cheerful sunshine in a bottle.” Nevertheless, he says that “there is still work to be done”.
Explaining this latter comment, he says that he wants to see the country invest in building regional brands, rather than promoting its wines as a nation. “Wine Australia needs to fund the regions to brand what they do,” he states. “You don’t talk about Wine Italy or Wine France, but Barolo or Burgundy.
In some ways, we’ve got it wrong, because by promoting ourselves as Wine Australia, we are undermining the regions and what they are trying to achieve.”
So, when it comes to McLaren Vale, Fraser believes it has the potential to hugely elevate its fine wine reputation based on old bush vine Grenache, grown as naturally as possible, and handled sensitively in the cellar.
In attempting to achieve this, he’s doing something to that should make all Grenache lovers grateful – he’s promoting the quality traits of this underrated grape.
• This article originally appeared in the January issue of the drinks business.
So sad that we paid growers to pull out old bush vine Grenache in the 1980’s. I guess history should now tell us that the industry moves in cycles!