Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 32

"The 1970s and
'80s were the
beautiful decades
of naturally made
wines. In the 1990s,
young winemakers
armed with a lot
of technology
began playing with
ways to make the
wines bigger, more
pronounced. Then
you see it getting
reined back in, less
pushed, less fattened.
Nature played a hand
in forcing the finer
lines in 2002, 2004
and 2008. Then there
was a consistent
backing off with 2010;
the wines became
Margaret River
again." -Virginia
Willcock, Vasse Felix

32

WINE & SPIRITS

you have a strong silica cell wall, fungus cannot
WHAT STRUCK ME MOST AFTER A WEEK ON THE
penetrate it." During the course of the season, he INDIAN OCEAN COAST, TASTING MATURE CABERNETS
works with Vanya Cullen to get enough sunlight
AND YOUNG JUICE OUT OF BARRELS, was how consisinto the grapes, shifting the tannins from green to tently the Margaret River identity showed in the
ripe. In cabernet, Cullen finds that green tannins wines, whether made by careful, pragmatic oenolpull the flavors to the front of the palate, creating
ogists working sustainably in the vineyards-the
a hole in the middle of the wine that she and Derlikes of Cape Mentelle, Xanadu, Leeuwin, Vasse
mody work to fill through viticultural work.
Felix and Moss Wood-or by naturalists like CulThis is a block Vanya Cullen includes in her top
len, Dormilona and Cloudburst (the latter from
cabernet sauvignon-merlot blend, Diana Made- Mike Berliner, a New Yorker with 100 acres of forline, named for her mother, who early on brought
est and pink granite quarries west of Caves Road,
merlot and cabernet franc to Wilyabrup (her top
where he practices some of the most radical intenchardonnay is named for her father, Kevin John). sive farming on barely two acres of vines).
And, in 2012, she selected a small lot from that
The wines share a similar musculature, their
block and two others for a new cabernet sauvi- tannins cool, with none of the barriers formed by
gnon, labeled Vanya.
water stress or heat stress. Their fruit plays in variaI'd gotten the chance to taste that 2012 earlier
tions of fresh currants, often red, sometimes black.
in the week, late one night at the Settlers Tavern It may be their ability to age with grace, continuin Margaret River. Mike Gadd, a local winemaker, ing to offer pleasure as they pass from their first
sometime journalist and rep for barrel-maker
decade into their second, that places them on the
Seguin Moreau, was sharing a beer with a group of
world stage of great cabernet sauvignon. And it
visiting journalists, and blind-tasted us on a couple may be their transparency that distinguishes them
of wines. One turned out to be Dormilona Clayfrom most any other long-lived cabernets.
face, a single-vineyard cabernet made in amphorae
If you talk with growers in Burgundy, you won't
by Josephine Perry; the other was the 2012 Vanya, hear them discuss varietal character in chardonnay
a bigger, more voluptuous, more fully oaked wine, or pinot noir. Instead, they focus on the varieties as
as if Margaret River had birthed its own version of a means of expressing differences from one site to
a Napa Valley cult cabernet.
Gadd's pairing began to make
sense when I tasted the 2015 Vanya
at the winery. Vanya Cullen explained
that, in 2013, she worked with a local
artisan to produce amphorae from
the clay soils at her vineyard, then
experimented with fermenting cabernet in the vessels. She described
the local cabernet as being strong in
the aroma and in the end, but weak in
the middle. And while there are many
ways to bulk up the texture and flavor
in the middle of a wine-blending in
other varieties, or enriching the texture by aging the wine in new oak-
she had found that fermenting cabernet in amphorae was a solution that
worked beautifully for the style of
wine she wanted to grow in Margaret
River. "The amphora adds another
type of structure and detail-that
texture," she said, "so you don't get
mid-palate weakness." So her second
vintage of Vanya, in 2015, fermented
in amphorae, two-thirds as whole berries, the balance crushed, then she
left the juice on the skins for three
months. Compared to the 2012, the
yields were 40 percent lower, and the
wine spent five months in new oak
Will Berliner planted 4,050 vines per acre
barrels, rather than 19 months for the
at Cloudburst, signficantly denser than
2012. The younger vintage is finer, a
Margaret River's original plantings
sylvan, coastal Margaret River beauty.
(600 to 750 vines per acre).

FEBRUARY 2018



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - February 2018

Contents
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - Cover1
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - Cover2
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 1
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 2
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 3
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 4
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - Contents
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 6
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 7
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 8
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 9
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 10
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 11
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 12
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 13
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 14
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 15
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 16
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 17
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 18
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 19
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 20
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 21
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 22
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 23
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 24
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 25
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 26
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 27
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 28
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 29
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 30
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 31
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 32
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 33
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 34
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 35
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 36
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 37
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 38
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 39
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 40
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 41
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 42
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 43
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 44
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 45
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 46
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 47
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 48
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 49
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 50
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 51
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Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 53
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 54
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 55
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 56
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 57
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 58
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Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 87
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 88
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - Cover3
Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - Cover4
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