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Blue Poles nails the art of Merlot

Whitey remains deeply impressed by the sensual – but not mellow – Merlot-dominant wines from Blue Poles Vineyard in Margaret River.

Oct 27, 2015, updated Oct 27, 2015
Elbow Room proprietor Nigel Rich, Mark Gifford and Tim Markwell of Blue Poles Vineyard, and Roger Pike of Marius.

Elbow Room proprietor Nigel Rich, Mark Gifford and Tim Markwell of Blue Poles Vineyard, and Roger Pike of Marius.

Had Cabernet sauvignon not been such a tough, easy-to-grow vine, and fairly easy to make, one wonders exactly what Australia would have chosen to plant in its place.

More Shiraz?

There. I’ve said it.

The point being that too much Australian viticulture has been steered by ease of production. Just as grape farmers tend to first plant the flattest ground with little attention paid to its location, chemical composition and geology, so they tend to plant tough, thick-skinned  vine types that are easiest to grow, hoping that the marketing division, the wine shows and the wine critics might magically make whatever it is fashionable.

David Wynn was the first winemaker I met who really bothered about which of the better varieties gave the best flavours in certain geologies at the required altitudes. After years trying Cabernet sauvignon and Shiraz in the conveniently flat and coolish Coonawarra, he decided instead to work at Pinot and Chardonnay and climbed up the hills to begin the development of the revolutionary Mountadam in 1969.

He’d drive around the South Mount Lofty Ranges with one eye on the geology map and the other on the altimeter he’d fixed to the dash of his Citroen. There was one bright, stylish dude, believe me.

In the decades since, two accomplished geologists, Mark Gifford and Tim Markwell, grew tired of too many long nights in the dongas of outback mining camps in the Australian desert or Africa and the like, dreaming of the elegant but opulent blends of Pomerol and St Emilion. In 2001 they decided to find a spot with the right geology and get on spending too much money buying it and planting vines to make wines in that general Bordeaux blend direction.

Something beyond the angular plainness of pure, raw Cabernet.

Eventually, they drilled enough holes to find a geological profile in Margaret River that suited their goals: iron-rich gravelly loams over clay, with just enough of the latter to hold some moisture, but never too much. They raided their banks, hocked everything, including partners and kids, and planted Merlot, Cabernet franc and Shiraz.

Mark and Tim called at the weekend, and together with the elusive Pike, of the Marius Wines on the faultline near Willunga, we took a full suite of their top reds to a very slow lunch at Nigel Rich’s exquisite temple of meat, the Elbow Room in McLaren Vale.

Being of like minds, there was little convincing to be done either way. We agree that Merlot and its image across most of the west has suffered terribly by the US’s determination that Merlot should be mellow. It can be mossy, sure. Sometimes mushroomy; at its best, often earthy.

I love it when it takes on the black Iberian ham/red charcuterie/blood pudding meatiness it can sometimes develop. Short of that, the meaty nature of blueberry will really swell it up. Sometimes it shows satsuma, sometimes prune. But it should hardly be mellow. I like it when its tannins are still a touch granular, before the wine takes on a simple silky sheen: the shiny hyper-filtered and fined character that I fear too often leads to bland, mindless mellow.

We also seem to agree that Cabernet franc is ideally a tighter, more angular variety if not grown too heavily or too ripe. To my synaesthesia it’s gunbarrel blue at its best; deep blue being a hue I often find arising from precise tannins like those of the juniper berry. It can have a meaty blueberry twang like Merlot, but often its best contribution to a blend is the ethereal violet and lavender floral topnotes it can release when it’s been grown and made in the happiest, coolest manner.

Wine-Blue-Poles-1

In the best years, Blue Poles Vineyard makes two sublime wines: the Reserve Merlot, and the Allouran blend.

We first slurped the Merlots.

2007 set the pace for the shape of premium Merlot: “it rises and subsides like a giant Pacific swell composed of prune and satsuma,” my notes record, “but it’s multi-faceted and granular … sexy, husky, moody, grainy, brooding … NOT creamy!”

Now, after two days, it’s still not slick. In fact, that grainy texture (like an old Bunuel movie) combined with its cracker natural acid, make it almost brusque. But it nevertheless retains that remarkable rise and fall that’s so gradual but massive. Not one mellow molecule in sight, but plenty of damp earth and charcuterie – 92+ points.

When I suggested 2008 was more conventional, Mark shot back: “’08 was a more conventional vintage.” My comment was about its polished smoothness and sheen. “Americans could drink it,” I dared. Its flavours first opened were along the lines of Bickfords’ Essence of Coffee and Chicory (more chicory than coffee) with a rich plum syrup; after two days it’s slumped to an even more conventional aged dry red – 85 points.

2010 was immediately closer in form to the ’07, with more granular tea tin tannin and visceral fatty acid. After days open, it’s lost much of its primary plummy fruit, but remains an appetising, matte black serpent of a drink, lithe and velvety – 90+ points.

2011, the current release, takes the cake. I reviewed it here in June, with 93+++ points. On opening this time, it immediately confirmed my suggestion: “When it tumbles over the little waterfall of your front teeth it turns your mouth into a very dark pool of swirling mystery. Blackcurrant pressings and juniper tannins well up across the tongue and just sit there. Like for five minutes. They don’t even look at you.” It is at once the most elegant and fine of these Merlots, with the best balance and harmony, even with the brash summer-dust prickle of terroir it shows in this its youth. I’d call it 94+ now. It’s a mighty Merlot, with not one mellow hint. Yum.

At which point Tim pulled out a 2014 barrel sample which pretty well undressed me at lunch, and has worked away at devouring all my sensories since, getting greedier and more demanding and deserving of attention with each hour. Watch for that one!

Tim Markwell and Mark Gifford at Elbow Room.

Tim Markwell and Mark Gifford at Elbow Room.

The first Allouran, the 2005, was called  Merlot/Cabernet Franc. Typical of the grocers in the wine trade, most found this confronting nomenclatural complexity impossible to grasp, and therefore,  not unexpectedly, impossible to sell. It’s tired and a bit short now, but given its radical nature at birth, remains a pleasing curio.

Allouran 2006 was most impressive when first opened. Svelte, lissom, perfumed “as balanced, determined and elegant as Audrey Hepburn – 93++ points”. Now I wish I’d drunk it all that evening – it’s flopped into its evening chair, and won’t be rising. So remove one of those pluses, eh?

2007 Allouran was pure blue. It seemed franc dominant, with gunbarrel blue, Miles Davis Kinda Blue, Joni Mitchell Blue … even though franc was only 33 per cent of the blend. Now, it’s slick, svelte, magically elegant and lithe, its blackcurrant, blueberry and aniseed swimming about my sensories like an electric eel set on just a tingle – 95 points.

2008 was as meaty and soused with slippery umami as a hotpot of boar’s liver cooked with shiitake and oyster fungus grown in straw. But its tannins were still dusty and dry; never mellow. Even now its primary fruit has fallen, but that slipperiness, acid and tannin maintain its prime sensuality – 92+ points.

Mark reckons 2010 is their “most holistic and complete Allouran philosophically”. Freshly-opened, it seemed to leap with ozone, as if lightning had just struck the berry patch. It has blue, it has fur, it has cacao powder tannin, and now, after days, it’s almost sickening in its heady sensual wallow – 94++ points.

But 2011? Well, 2011 was a shit year nearly everywhere in Australia apart from Western Australia. Margaret River had none of the terrible rains and moulds and funguses that butchered just about everything ordinary this side of the border. This wine overwhelmed me at the table, and it’s simply grown in stature, compression and determination since. It has aniseed, juniper, blackcurrant, soft blackstrap licorice, sarsaparilla, beetroot and blueberry. It has pure cast iron and steely stainless resolve. It has brilliantly-balanced tannins. It’s bright and racy and I reckon probably the best such blend I’ve yet seen in Australia. Try one now, but keep enough to do a bottle every year until at least 2022 – 95 points.

Merlot, when done properly, is not mellow, see?

It was a very brave thing to do, naming this vineyard after Jackson Pollock’s anguished explosion of colour and contrast: the mighty painting which David Wynn and some erudite mates convinced Prime Minister Gough Whitlam to buy on Australia’s behalf. People whined about wasting $1.3 million on the work of a drunk. What’s it worth now, measured in mere money? $200 million?

How do you value a work which has dazzled and turned on the brains of 40 years of Australians?

With every vintage they choose to release, the impassioned, driven work of these two rock doctors picks closer to the heart of that painting. Their wines are nowhere near as angular and cracked but  they’re all visceral and sensual justifications of their presumption.  It’s risky, but measured, and driven by thirsty desert visions of the very best of Bordeaux.

Blue Poles Vineyard is not going away. Prepare to be dazzled.

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