The wines of Wynns, Coonawarra – interviewing Sue Hodder, chief winemaker of Australia’s leading producers
Coonawarra is a celebrated wine region in South Australia, and Wynns are one of the most important players here. It was one of Australia’s first distinguished terroirs, and when I first got into wine I remember reading about the terra rossa over limestone soils, when soil talk was much rarer than it is now, especially in Australia. So it was great to catch with Sue Hodder, long time winemaker at Wynns, to taste some of the wines and talk about the region.
Coonawarra is different. ‘Initially it was planted as a genuine site selection,’ says Sue, ‘and it was the first region that was away from a capital city.’ She points out that while it turns out that the Yarra, Barossa and Hunter Valley are good places to grow wine grapes, they were initially planted because of their proximity to cities in early European settlement of Australia.
Coonawarra’s development as a wine region was thanks to a couple of academics who worked with John Riddoch, the Scottish pioneer of the region in that anglo wave of settlement, who said that Coonawarra is going to be the next Bordeaux.
‘They planted a vineyard in Coonawarra in the terra rossa soil, and at that stage they were shipping wine in bulk to the UK, into Bristol,’ says Sue. ‘It was going very well. And then John Riddoch died in 1901 and the region languished for many reasons, for the first half of the 20th century. There were no exports, and Australians weren’t drinking claret. Then the Wynn family bought a property in 1951.’
There had been some table wines made from Coonawarra fruit in the 1940s and these were largely blended with wines other regions. Sue gives a specific mention to one producer: Woodleys Treasure Chest wines. ‘The labels are works of art,’ she says. ‘I have [tasted] a vertical of Woodleys Treasure Chest from 1949-1954 and they were amazing wines. Their story is not widely known because Woodleys doesn’t exist now. This is an indication of great terroir.’
Then the Wynn family came along. ‘They were Polish religious refugees, Jewish people who came [to Australia] in the 1930s. The father Samuel Wynn was a unionist and a Zionist, a wine blender, a restaurateur and a painter. They used to blend wine in Melbourne from different regions. Then the Coonawarra property came up: there is a famous letter that says the property had the stink of failure all over it. They bought it, and they did everything so well, including commissioning an artist to do the label.’
‘They made wine from the estate that was varietally labelled, and they planted quite a large area in the terra rossa soil, which I’m immensely grateful for. When we do the big vertical tastings, which of course we love, we see the 1960s really was an amazing era of quality, with medium-bodied low-oaked wines that have aged so gracefully. When I tasted those wines at the 50 year vertical in 2004, it was truly inspirational. As you know, in that era the wines being pursued around the world were more powerful, more concentrated wines, and these medium-bodied wines didn’t really have a place. Thankfully there is more interest in them now.’
‘Then in the 1990s it was a golden era climatically, but we hadn’t put enough effort into our vineyards. We had a big area. When we do verticals now the 1990s were good wines. But when Alan Jenkins my colleague arrived – he was a viticulture professor – he was shocked by our low yields. We started a two-decade project of cutting back dead wood and rebalancing and retrellising, pulling out vines. If I am honest, the results were immediate with brighter wines. This also coincided with a greater interrogation into the terroir, and the differences in limestone, in soil microbes.’
Wynns have 500 hectares but only about 380 hectares are planted. While they are part of Treasury, they operate autonomously, and Penfolds have their own vineyards in Coonawarra as well. As well as Cabernet Sauvignon they have a lot of Shiraz, and their oldest vines are Shiraz.
‘In Coonawarra there were several waves of expansion,’ says Sue. ‘One was in the 1970s, and then the 1990s, and then around the 2000 mark. There was a legal controversy, defining the boundaries. It got very messy. We were trying to keep it small on the terra rossa. There is a series of ancient coastlines, so there are little pockets of limestone, but in between there is all this black soil. It can’t be an unbroken line: this is the premise of the GI scene.’
‘The wines from the black soil as you can imagine are quite different, because they have a greater clay content and more organic matter. [These soils] are beautiful for growing plants but they are not the terra rossa soil. They can be good well-made wines, but they are not what we are making.’
‘Then there are some transition soils, and this is largely where we have planted our white vineyards, Chardonnay and Riesling. If you have whites on the terra rossa it is too shallow and they get too sunburned.’
The climate is relatively cool here. ‘It is trending towards variable, to say the least,’ says Sue. ‘It is quite similar to Bordeaux, except our rainfall is winter-dominant, so we do need the drip irrigation to finish the grapes off phenologically. But it is significantly cooler than most of South Australia, more akin to the Victorian regions. In fact we are often the latest significant region in Australia to be picking, because we have the later ripening varieties, and also because the cold water off the southern coastline is very cold, and if we get the cold upwelling, a breeze inevitably comes in and really cools the region down. Some years we are weeks later than the Barossa and Clare, and sometimes the Yarra Valley.’
Coonawarra has a long growing season which is a great attribute. If there’s a warm spring and they pick in April, it can be close to seven months.
Because this is an isolated region and labour was scarce, some have played with minimal pruning. Wynns didn’t, but Mildara and Lindemans did, for example. ‘It was about labour shortages, but it was also based on the work of Peter Clingeleffer, who was a big researcher at the time,’ says Sue. His idea was that minimal pruning gave smaller berries and more concentration. This results in small clusters all over the canopy, so machine harvesting is needed to make it work. But it can give too many buds. ‘They were never that great,’ says Sue. ‘Some of them still exist and they’ve been cut back and are going OK. I did see somewhere someone telling their story about their label, and they were embracing minimal pruning as just letting the vines sprawl naturally in line with a minimalist approach to winemaking. There was certainly machine pruning at Wynns, and this resulted in some dead wood.’
Have Sue’s ideas about ripeness changed over the years? ‘Yes. Some of this happened organically when we did all this vineyard rejuvenation and the wines were brighter and had more red fruits. When we look at the wines of the 1990s they a bit darker. But parallel to all that oak is a bit better now. For us the holy grail is when we pick early and have good acid, and good tannin and flavour ripeness all at the same time with moderate sugar levels. We have a better chance of doing this in our old vineyards in the terra rossa soil than we have in younger vineyards.’
‘With climate change, increasingly I feel fortunate that my winemaking has been in Coonawarra,’ she adds. ‘Water is another issue: the allocation of water to vineyards is something we take for granted.’
THE WINES
Wynns Coonawarra Estate John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 Coonawarra, Australia
13.5% alcohol. This is ripe and bold with sweet blackcurrant fruit showing good structure and also some fine mint and herb notes. Primary with bright blackcurrant and cherry fruit and also good structure and acidity. There’s freshness here and amazing potential for development with nice tannins and acidity providing the skeleton. Classically weighted, with some subtle olive and iron notes on the finish, this puts on weight in the glass. 96/100
Wynns Coonawarra Estate John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 Coonawarra, Australia
A low yielding year because of flowering, and the result is a very concentrated wine. Intense and dense with rich, bold blackcurrant fruit and a spicy structure. Lovely density here: grippy and firm with nice structure under the sweet fruit. Very expressive and rich with nice freshness on the finish. 95/100
Wynns Coonawarra Estate John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 Coonawarra, Australia
13.5% alcohol. Brooding, gravelly and intense, this has aromatics of blackcurrant and a touch of green pepper. The palate is intense and vivid with lovely concentration to the bright blackcurrant fruit with the grippy structure, spice and pepper. Really vivid but with great concentration and a lovely sweet, spicy core. Lovely density and flesh. 94/100
Wynns Coonawarra Estate Michael Shiraz 2021 Coonawarra, Australia
13.2% alcohol. Sweet aromatics of cherries and raspberries with a hint of mint. The palate is beautifully balanced with sweet cherries, plums and berries, showing some juicy acidity. Beautifully poised with fruit to the fore. Finely tuned, this is really fine with a tapering finish. 95/100
Wynns Coonawarra Estate ‘Black Label’ Cabernet Sauvignon 2022 Coonawarra, Australia
13.4% alcohol. The classic black label Cabernet. This is fresh and vivid with lovely black cherry and blackberry fruit, as well as some sweet blackcurrant. Juicy and vivid with hints of mint and dried herbs, as well as good acidity. There are some savoury blood and iodine notes on the finish. Beautifully focused and fresh with acidity and tannin providing a structural platform. Should age well. 94/100
Wynns Coonawarra Estate ‘Black Label’ Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 Coonawarra, Australia
14% alcohol. This is a fresh, beautifully balanced expression of Cabernet Sauvignon with sweet blackcurrant fruit, a touch of bright cherry character, and a lovely grainy, chalky texture. Deliciously fresh and focused now, with a bit of grippy structure, this has a lot of potential for ageing. A classic: one for the cellar by the case. 94/100
Wynns Coonawarra Estate ‘Black Label’ Cabernet Sauvignon 1994 Coonawarra, Australia
13.5% alcohol. This was Sue Hodder’s second year at Wynns. Bright and linear with nice blackcurrant fruit and a touch of olive and spice. This is delicious with lovely focus and an appealing savoury dimension. Has good acidity and a touch of raspberry as well as ripe blackcurrant fruit. Apparently acid was added then to a point not done now. 93/100
Wynns Coonawarra Estate ‘Black Label’ Cabernet Sauvignon 1986 Coonawarra, Australia
This is brilliant. Fresh and pure with lovely blackcurrant fruit and chalky detail. Fine, mineral, stony, with beautiful fruit. So refined. 96/100
Wynns Coonawarra Estate V&A Lane Shiraz 2021 Coonawarra, Australia
12.7% alcohol. This is from a cool site at higher altitude, picked early. Lovely fresh aromatics with bright cherry fruit, some sappy notes and some red berries. Fresh and concentrated on the palate with supple berry and cherry fruits. Very fine and expressive with good acidity, and finishing with notes of pepper and gravel. This could age brilliantly. 95/100
Wynns Coonawarra Estate Shiraz 2020 Coonawarra, Australia
14% alcohol. This is generous and inviting, but still retains freshness. There’s a lot of sweet juicy berry fruit here with some cherry notes in the mix, as well as a twist of ginger and some warm herbal characters. It finishes quite peppery and bright, but overall there’s generosity and lush fruit at its core. Great value at the mix six price. 92/100
