Tastings

Honour for the tale-teller

Jane Ferrari is probably the only person employed in wine whose official title is storyteller. Ferrari, the storyteller for the family-owned Barossa Valley winery Yalumba, is one of the three latest additions to the Barons of Barossa. The others are the Governor of South Australia, Kevin Scarce, and Barossa winemaker Wayne Dutschke, who not only makes excellent wine under the Dutschke label, but published a successful children's picture book titled My Dad Has Purple Hands.

Ferrari's award comes on top of her 2012 honour: the Wine Communicators of Australia named her Wine Communicator of the Year for her efforts in promoting, speaking and educating about not just Yalumba wines but all Barossa and Australian wines. ''I have had the privilege of having three of the greatest mentors,'' she says. ''John Glaetzer [formerly Wolf Blass chief winemaker for 30 years] taught me about making wine, Robert O'Callaghan [of Rockford winery] taught me about the Barossa's winemaking tradition, and Robert Hill Smith [Yalumba proprietor and chief executive] has given me the opportunity to travel the globe sharing the story of Yalumba and the Barossa.''

Mint: taint or terroir?

The question of whether mintiness is part of terroir resurfaced recently when I tasted Brian Croser's latest Tapanappa Whalebone Vineyard Cabernet Shiraz 2008 ($55). It's from Wrattonbully, a notoriously mint-prone region. I described it in a blind tasting as a modern-day Peppermint Pattie - a reference to a famous Coonawarra cabernet, the 1963 Mildara. The Tapanappa back-label says: ''A pure expression of a unique Australian terroir''. In light of the work on this subject by the Australian Wine Research Institute's Dimitra Capone and others, this is increasingly questionable. If, as her studies suggest, the expressions of eucalyptus and mint are caused by leaves and bits of bark from gumtrees blowing into the vines and finding their way into the fermenters with the grapes, surely mint is more of a taint than a feature of terroir? On the other hand, using this reasoning the garrigue herb character of southern French reds, and probably a multitude of other environmental factors, would also have to be considered taints.

Auld and new, a legend

Veteran Hunter Valley winemaker Patrick Auld has bobbed up in a new job, this time in Orange. He is general manager at Cumulus, which has more than 500 hectares of vineyards in the Orange and Central Ranges region. Auld is a fifth-generation member of a winemaking family, with more than 40 years' experience. He served two terms as president of the Hunter Valley Wine Industry Association and in 2012 was made a Hunter Valley living legend. He's looking forward to working with the Cumulus team, and polishing the jewel that is the Orange region.