Beechworth, a small town three-and-a-half hours northeast of Melbourne in the state of Victoria, is a land of flaxen hills amid granitic outcrops set in relief against the ascendency of the Australian Alps, diminutively referred to as the “Snowy Mountains” in local parlance. It is a beautiful town by virtue of its natural attributes, vineyards and stately architecture, the latter bequeathed by the discovery of gold at Spring Creek in 1852 and the wealth that came with it, shaping the local demography much like the Gold Rush of California. Optimistic prospectors descended on the town and its environs from the United States, China, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, bringing the population above 20,000 inhabitants by 1857. Today, though, many visitors come for the wine.
I made my umpteenth visit to the region in late January, tasting the best expressions from Beechworth and neighboring King Valley, a similarly sub-alpine region marked by the kinship of a continental climate, forceful winds and the inherent diurnal shifts of temperature that help to retain natural acidity in the grapes.
Unlike Beechworth’s more dramatic vineyards, however, this is a bucolic vineyard scape that runs contiguous to the King River, a sinuous flow from its upper reaches in the Alpine National Park, due north of the small city of Wangaratta, to a broader river basin in the north around Milawa and Moyhu, before growing in trajectory amid steeper alpine slopes in the south at over 800 meters.
Subsequently, the geological makeup of King Valley is starkly different than Beechworth. Beechworth boasts volcanic granite at higher points in the northern sector, and more siltstone, quartz, silica and shale in the lower southern zone, fragmented and dispersed across its lower southern ebbs to reflect ancient lava flows, seismic shifts and the subsequent geological formations. Conversely, the gentler landscape of the King Valley consists of a wash of deep red clays, high in iron content, to lighter gray and brown loams, planted to 1,535 hectares. This is considerably vaster than Beechworth’s meager 130.
If we observe the wines in these neighboring regions through a cultural lens, gold and the laissez-faire nature of its procurement and trading brought splendor to Beechworth. The attraction to a lifestyle founded on plenty eventually brought wine.
Symbolically, the region’s oldest vineyard, recently rejuvenated by Melbourne restaurateur Peter Bartholomew, is planted on precipitous slopes above an old quarry leading to Reid’s Creek Goldfield site and the old mine shafts scattered throughout. “The project at Granjoux vineyard has been most enjoyable and rewarding,” Bartholomew told me. “It has had its challenges and difficulties but I can only imagine the scale of the undertaking in the late 1850s. We have kept as true to the original planting as has been possible.”
The King Valley, on the other hand, was founded by Italian emigres, often from the north of the country, rather than the diaspora of the south that ventured to many larger cities of the New World. Local names such as Dal Zotto came from Valdobbiadene in the Prosecco district of Veneto, for example, while the Pizzini family hail from the alpine reaches of Trento. It is easy to see the resemblance to their homeland.
Before wine, the welfare of many of these King Valley families was dependent on tobacco, at least until the industry became virtually untenable by the late 1970s. The more savvy among them turned their home wine production into bona fide commercial enterprises, inspired by the success of the large Brown Brothers operation and its experimental nursery.
I can still recall intriguing wine styles from Brown Brothers when I first began working with wine in the late 1990s. As the King Valley’s reputation grew, others followed, inspired by the zeitgeist of cooler-climate wines, Italian heritage and goodwill. Even today, many of the region’s wineries are converted tobacco drying and storage sheds, replete with Italian restaurants serving hearty fare and local wines hewn of one of “the greatest concentration of varieties of any Australian wine region,” according to Wine Australia. These include Italian varieties sangiovese, barbera, verduzzo, arneis, oceans of Prosecco and best of all, nebbiolo.
Reflecting on my recent tasting, nebbiolo may well be the tie that binds Beechworth and the King Valley despite their disparate histories and geologies. While this this is merely a personal observation, the energy being invested into crafting seriously high-quality expressions is effusive and contagious, especially from the likes of Domenica, Sentio, Traviarti, Castagna and Schmolzer & Brown in Beechworth, alongside Pizzini in the King Valley, who prize long aging regimes, serving to express nebbiolo’s carnal underbelly.
I particularly enjoyed the refined Pizzini Nebbiolo King Valley l’Aquila 2019, while Domenica’s expression is the most detailed and filigreed with a pinotesque elegance and crunchy red fruit. Sentio’s is a little more generous with no paucity of the structural latticework-high toned acidity and spindly tannins intrinsic to the best iterations.
Meanwhile, Castagna, an evergreen biodynamic property overseen by the indomitable Julian Castagna and his ebullient son, Adam, is responsible for a wilder interpretation packed with dark and red fruits, earthenware and a jolt of volatility for perk. Julian Castagna calls it “that noble Italian bitterness, or ‘amar.’”
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All of these wines were from 2021, a coolish attenuated vintage, with the exception of Traviarti’s more rugged 2022 – a vintage of peripatetic temperature shifts, according to Keppell Smith of Savaterre, a producer of exquisite chardonnay, perhaps the grape that increasingly defines Beechworth at the pointy end. Indeed, his brilliant 2022 was among my highest-rated wines of the tasting, rivaled by Domenica, Traviarti and Fighting Gully Road, all 2022.
Beechworth is also a bastion of high-quality syrah, capable of parrying with the world’s very finest. The firmament of Castagna and Giaconda is joined by relative newcomer Weathercraft. Psychosomatic, perhaps, but the Spanish heritage of Weathercraft winemaker Raquel Jones seems to manifest as a certain polish to the style, not dissimilar to top Spanish reds. Her wines are defined by immaculate tannin management and precision. Sure, the warmer site delivers a bit more muscle than its peers, yet while there is density, there is also flare and freshness, deserved of time in the cellar for the discerning buyer.
These regions in northeastern Victoria are a relatively short, scenic drive from Melbourne. The bounty of exceptional food and wine is tempting for any visitor, but most of all for those who appreciate esprit, beauty and the superlative quality of their best wines.
– Ned Goodwin MW, Senior Editor
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