It is 43ºC and there is not a breath of wind. As the sun pounds down mercilessly, it seems even the grapevines surrounding the winery are gasping in the heat. I ponder the fact that the winemaker I am talking to in this searing climate is responsible for one of the world’s finest fortified wines, just perfect for drinking on cold winter nights. An irony for sure but a delicious one to be even surer.
Rutherglen, northern Victoria, Australia. Home of a truly unique style of fortified wines, made from Muscat and Muscadelle grapes. You can be forgiven for not having heard of these wines as fortified wine sales are not exactly booming anywhere around the world and Rutherglen produces only a tiny amount of their liquid gold wines. However I am always amazed that more people haven’t discovered Rutherglen Muscat and Tokay (as the Muscadelle based wines are known – well, at least for a little while longer anyway as they are required to change it by law due to conflict with Tokaji) as these wines offer unbelievable quality and value for money. They regularly win awards at shows around the world and always bring a slightly glazed look to the eyes of those in the know, shortly followed by drooling.
What has prompted me to write about these wines after one of the more blistering November weekends seen in Taupo for a long time? Last night I found a bottle of Morris Old Premium Liqueur Muscat under the stairs, and couldn’t resist opening it. Needless to say, it was fabulous and even my tragically near tee-total husband scoffed a fair bit down, so irresistible were its dark depths. And it reminded me of a recent trip to the home of these decadent wines.
Rutherglen is a tiny town on the border of northern Victoria and New South Wales with a history of wine production going back over 150 years. It is the sort of town where people who shifted there in the 1940s are still regarded as newcomers. There is a pub, a few shops, a mighty good bakery and pie shop and that’s about it. Wineries tend towards the boutique-end of things and mostly consist of old sheds and barns. Locals don’t seem to regard the climate as especially hot, and probably by Australian standards it is not, but the combination of 40 degree days, masses of sunshine and cool nights is perfect for allowing the muscat and muscadelle grapes to hang on the vines until almost semi-raisined, achieving intense levels of sweetness and flavour. But this is not especially unusual in itself – the twist is what happens in the winery. This, more or less, is nothing. Tempting though it is to bore you with all the exact details, I shall just briefly outline them: the grapes are picked and partly fermented (fermentation being a massive struggle for the yeast with such ripe grapes, they pretty much just die from sugar overload) and the wine is then fortified with a neutral grape spirit, which raises the alcohol level to around 17-18%/vol, effectively stabilizing the wine. And then comes the ‘nothing’ bit – the wines are put in ancient oak casks (often well over a hundred years old) and just left alone. For years. And years. And years. In fact, Chambers Rosewood winery (one of the region’s finest) recently found an old barrel of muscat that they estimate had been lurking in the back of the winery for about 130 years. Under the tin roof, in the baking summers and cold winters. And it was most certainly not ruined, far from it in fact. What was in the barrel was the consistency of thick treacle and had to be blended with young wines (read 50-80 years) as bottled straight it would have been so hedonistically rich and decadent it would undoubtedly have required a health-warning. Plus it would likely to have been impossible to pour out of the bottle.
Most Rutherglen Muscats and Tokays are not quite as old as that barrel, yet the remarkable ageing and subsequent blending process they undergo (the very youngest wines for sale will still have an average age of 12-15 years) results in distinctive richness and complexity, offering amazing aromas of raisins, nuts, cold tea, exotic spices, malted molasses…but really, my descriptions can’t do these wines justice. You must instead leave your computer right now (well, at the end of the article anyway) and rush to your nearest fine wine store and buy some. Look out for Chambers Rosewood, Morris, Campbell’s and Stanton & Killeen. And this is the best bit – these wines don’t cost the earth, although they should. They start at around $25 per bottle and some of the very best can be bought for around $70 per bottle. Now I know that $70 is still a bit of money to spend on a bottle of wine, but surely not for a unique piece of wine history and an aged wine with such a fabulous aroma that you could just sniff it all night, without even tasting the intoxicating contents of the bottle. Although I doubt that you will. They taste too damn good to miss out on that bit. So, off you go then. Just don’t blame me if you develop a habit.
(EJ)