Master pieces

How long does it take to acquire enough knowledge in a chosen art to be considered a master - 10, 20, 30 years? The average time that members of a group of Victorian winemakers have devoted to the grape and the pursuit of good wine is 40.1 years.

But time alone doesn't fully explain why they have been chosen for a "Masters" tasting by the organisers of this year's Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. They are champions of a style as well as a region. Pioneers too, harking back to the modern rebirth of Victorian wine in the 1970s.

Phillip Jones and pinot noir go together like shoe and foot. His devotion to biodynamic wine-growing results in wines with a distinctive personality. No one else could have made Bass Phillip pinots.

Viv Thomson at Best's Wines celebrates 54 vintages this year. He was born into a winemaking family who were acknowledged as stalwarts of the Grampians region (then Great Western) and shiraz when he turned up for his first vintage. He is the personification of consistency and resilience.

Giaconda's Rick Kinzbrunner holds strong beliefs about where and how great chardonnay should be made. He chose the Beechworth region when others were still wondering what to do with this new grape called chardonnay.

Pat Carmody's Craiglee vineyard at Sunbury reached 150 years last year. There were no loud celebrations. This is a humble winemaker who goes about his job for the love of wine, not media recognition.

Ron Laughton arrived at Heathcote in 1976 as a food chemist with a bad dose of dreamer's disease. He bought a vineyard that had already been planted by an enthusiast and turned it into a national phrase: Heathcote shiraz.

John Thomson is a sheep farmer with an international wine palate who dreamed of making Chateau d'Yquem when he planted vines on his farm in 1975 and ended up producing iconic Aussie riesling under the Crawford River label.

Guill de Pury's ancestors go back to the early days of grape-growing in the Yarra Valley, which makes him, and Yeringberg winemaking, royalty in this country. His wines are also classically proportioned.

We asked the masters to talk about one wine they will be bringing to the Acqua Panna Global Wine Experience - the Masters tasting and lunch on March 1.

Phillip Jones

Bass Phillip, East Gippsland
2009 Premium Pinot Noir

Assumptions mean little to Phillip Jones. We assume 2009 in Victoria was a hot vintage. Think again. "We had a hailstorm in the third week of January. I wasn't sure of the totality of the damage and then along came February 7 (Black Saturday) and burnt them all anyway. That reduced the crop back to the level we normally pick at."

Thankfully, the heat was before veraison (colour change in grapes) and so '09 has deep colour, complexity, natural acidity and shows the kind of style that puts a big smile on Phillip Jones' dial. "For us, 2009 was one of our best vintages for a long time."

Also on tasting: 2003 premium pinot noir, 2011 premium chardonnay.

Viv Thomson

Best's Wines, Grampians
1980 Shiraz

Wedged in between 1979 (a wet year) and 1981 (a brilliant year), the 1980 vintage, according to Viv, should prove "interesting" drinking. "It's 30 years old, it's probably lost its glow of youth but I think it's still a good, sound wine." By 1980, Best's had employed its first trained winemaker, Trevor Mast, and had started using a little more new oak. Overall, it had better control over the winemaking reins.

Also on tasting: 2010 and 2012 shiraz.

Pat Carmody

Craiglee, Sunbury
1996 Shiraz

"The '96 shiraz is just a nice cool climate shiraz that I think has a well-defined style," says Pat Carmody, a leader of the movement to discover how a warm-climate grape like shiraz would behave in cooler climes. What he discovered was intense pepper and spice. "People thought it was an under-ripe character but it isn't," he says. He believes the character is "transient" in warm regions but remains concentrated in fruit in cool areas.

Also on tasting: 2008 and 2010 shiraz.

John Thomson

Crawford River, Henty
2005 Reserve Riesling

To John Thomson, an aged riesling is far, far more interesting than a young, unformed riesling can ever be.

"It's nearly nine years old, that wine, and it's still pretty fresh," he says of the '05 reserve. "I don't like edges. I like to look at that even palate that develops.

"We tend to do a lot of whole bunch pressing and you get a little bit more of that velvety smooth palate structure."

Also on tasting: 2005 reserve riesling and 2012 riesling.

Rick Kinzbrunner

Giaconda, Beechworth
2010 Chardonnay

For Rick Kinzbrunner, this is big - the pernickety perfectionist is showing a wine that he's 99 per cent happy with. Amazing. Unheard of. What makes the '10 so special? Kinzbrunner puts it down to a kind vintage but, more importantly, the wine cave that came into service in time for that vintage.

Dynamited 25 metres into a hill made of pure granite, the cave took a year to dig out and maintains a constant 15 degrees Celsius and 95-99 per cent humidity. "We fermented down there, it was aged down there for two years, it didn't go anywhere."

Also on tasting: 2004 and 2010 chardonnay.

Ron Laughton

Jasper Hill, Heathcote
2012 Emily's Paddock

Emily's Paddock has a very different personality to its better-known sibling, Georgia's Paddock. It's less boisterous, a little more prone to vintage variation and, some might even suggest, it's prettier. The splash of cabernet franc in the shiraz blend certainly brings out a perfumed charm. The cabernet franc was planted in the shiraz vineyard when Laughton bought the property. He considers the find "good luck".

Also on tasting: 2005 Emily's Paddock.

Guill de Pury

Yeringberg, Yarra Valley
2005 Yeringberg

"Our philosophy has always been that cabernet by itself is not terribly interesting," says Guill de Pury. "It needs the other varieties to round it off."

The single vineyard that produces Yeringberg is a Bordeaux mix of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, malbec and petit verdot. The blend mix is rarely the same from year to year.

Also on tasting: 2010 Yeringberg.

Acqua Panna Global Wine Experience - the Masters wine tasting and lunch ($380 a head) is on March 1 at the ANZ Pavilion Arts Centre. Details: melbournefoodandwine.com.au