Yangarra Estate Vineyard – Peter Fraser

What a great tasting, and what an honor to meet Peter Fraser, one of Australia’s most acclaimed winemakers, here thanks to Sergio Valente’s charismatic boss, William Hsu. All Sergio’s wineries are led by luminous and renowned figures in the wine industry, icons like Bruno Pratt (formerly of Cos Estournel), Michael Moosebruger (Schloss Gobelsburg), Tim Mondavi (Continuum), Pedro Alvarez (Vega Sicilia and Oremos), Eduardo Chadwick, Susana Balbo, Francis Ford Copolla (all with eponymous Domaines)… and the list goes on. All these names are written large across contemporary wine history, but William recognized them early on their trajectories of innovation and fame, and most of us first heard about them through William.

But first, like I did when I saw the name Yangarra Estate Vineyard, you other grammar Nazis out there will have noticed instantly that the name should have an ‘s’ on Vineyard. Wrong. The singular usage here is both correct and purposeful, for although Yangarra makes many different wines, all the blocks lie within a contiguous estate. In the Rhône Valley, I have heard Chateau used to distinguish a continuous estate, and Domaine to indicate a collection of separate vineyards, but I doubt Australians would follow this rule anyway, and so Yangarra found this eye-catching way to stress the contiguity of their vineyard.

The estate has been around since 1946, just after the 2nd World War, when the founders planted 60ha of Grenache. In the 1980s the Australian government was paying good money for producers to grub up their odd-ball varieties and plant economically viable Shiraz and Chardonnay. Thankfully, the owners of Yangarra resisted this fatal temptation, and now, 40 years on, we can enjoy High Sands Grenache. The vines are now 76 years old, and High Sands comes from the best of them. That said, all the Yangarra wines are amazingly good, all of them, but to me they would be hard to identify as Australian… Peter Fraser declares confidently that he has chosen grape varieties from the Southern Rhone, like Grenache and Roussanne, because he feels they are more suited to the warming climate of S Australia, though he crafts wines according to his own lights, nothing like Chateau Neuf du Pape, so don’t go looking for that similarity. Peter would probably be much happier if we compared his wines to elegant expressions of Nebbiolo from Piemonte or Burgundian Pinot noir, well, who wouldn’t be, but I contend that Yangarra wines defy typicity. Peter Fraser prefers to reach self-effacingly to express through his wines the environment from which the wines emerge. This attitude is correct for any winemaker, and Peter Fraser leads the way in Australia.

Lately we read journalists reporting on heroic wine making, usually referring to places like the cliff-vineyards of the Mosel and Ribera Sacra, or the tempest-fraught plantings for sparkling wine in northern Tasmania, and it’s true that Australia has a reputation for fostering free thinkers. In 1999 Peter Fraser and his team showed remarkable courage to take on the Yangarra project. In those days, Australia was known mainly for muscle-bound, “generous” Shirazes and oaky Chardonnays, but off the beaten track Peter Fraser was already producing atypical wines, and for more than a decade now, the general crowd has recognized Peter Fraser’s mastery with cupfuls of awards (See them all here https://www.yangarra.com/yangarra-people). Indeed, his wines are prized all over the world, though supplies are always short. If you get a chance to try any one of these beauties, better not pass it up, and get ready to change your mind about Australian typicity.

Yangarra practices Biodynamic winemaking, but in his presentation for us Peter Fraser did not overly stress the point. The fact sheets on Yangarra.com demonstrate clearly how he balances the paradox of scientific precision with the homeopathy of biodynamics to nurture the microbiological health of the soil.

Peter Fraser told me he had his epiphany in 2008 when he attended a lecture on Biodynamic Agriculture delivered by Dr Manfred Klett, a Steinerite (follower of Rudolph Steiner). To put it most simply, he learned to picture the earth and cosmos as a single living organism, and the key to completing this image was the microscopic life in the soil, the bacteria that convey raw minerals from the earth to root psylla and so to the plant above ground. From this experience forward Peter Fraser saw the vital importance of bacteria in living soil.

Perhaps he talks so little about Biodynamics in public because mainstream wine markets still perceives Biodynamics as new-age lunacy, and reflex resistance distracts them from the evidence in the glass, for quite apart from their philosophy, Biodynamic wines simply taste better, and the wines of Yangarra Estate Vineyard are very tasty.

Our first surprise at the tasting was the 開胃酒, a Roussanne from 2017. This astonishingly intense and textural white wine was left on its skins for 120 days, a strategy I’ve only heard of for Vin Jaun, but this wine was quite normal looking, and it was lovely and complex on the nose, lovely to taste, and I even saved some in my glass to test again after the meal. It was even more lovely after an hour at room temperature. The only problem with this wine is it’s impossible to buy, so all I can do is tell you how wonderful it was. Roussanne is not a common grape to find in Australia, to say the least, and Yangarra Roussanne comes from a block on just one hectare. We drank the 2017 because, after a couple of difficult vintages, the winery simply had nothing else to offer. Lucky us. This wine certainly can’t be explained away by citing Byodynamics.

My favorite wine of the day was the 2020 Estate Grenache from dry-farmed bush vines planted in 1946, 70ha of them, high on the Estate’s deep, sandy soils. Even this basic expression from the big block is complex, scented and sophisticated with, according to Peter Fraser, a signature tannin structure.

The 2020 harvest was disastrous for many, but not in Maclaren Vale. Bushfires devastated vast areas of Australia, but left Maclaren Vale free, even of smoke taint. The early summer was Dantéesque, but weather relented to a cool and gentle fall, contentrating fruit flavours, retaining natural acidity and brightness, but best of all, laying a foundation of tannins with finesse and balance.

Moving up to warp 6, High Sands Grenache is expresses the very best of these ancient vines. The biodynamic High Sands block perches on the spine of a ridge, the heart of the old vines, and extra-special care is taken in processing these grapes into the ne plus ultra of Australian Grenache, maybe even Grenache world wide.

But the short story is that every one of these wines was extraordinary, albeit in different ways according to their needs and potentials, but regrettably none of them will be available in Taiwan until early next year. Keep an eye open for them to appear and don’t miss the chance to get your hands on whichever variety and style appeals to you most.

Let me end with one note cribbed from Gary Walsh of WINE FRONT, who added this note to the discourse on IronHeart Estate Shiraz:

“Dried mint, sage, iodine, blackberry, spice. The region is stamped firmly on this wine. It picks up on the palate, with deep ferrous tannin, plenty more of that inky and sizzled sage leaf character, deep black fruit, menthol, bacon bone and black olive flavour, furry feel and a powerful finish of fennel and sage sausage. It offers a distinctive flavour profile, and it’s a curious wine in a way, high quality, but kind of overt.”