Nick’s Tasting Report: Canberra District – Capital Improvements

I was back in Canberra recently to host a sold out Canberra region wine dinner at the urbane and luxurious Peppers Gallery Hotel, and I took the opportunity to taste through the new and coming releases from the best winemakers in the area.

The big news this year is the outstanding quality of the 2015 vintage wines. These are without doubt the strongest set of wines I have tasted from this region. I had a preview during last year’s visit with one or two rieslings and the quality was certainly there (Ken Helm’s in particular), but this year there is a lot of wine to get excited about from 2015. Clear some space in the cellar too, as the best shiraz and riesling wines are delicious now and have considerable improvement in years ahead – a decade or more in many cases.

The way in which the leading and established producers continue to improve and chase down those elusive one-percenters in quality terms and work so hard to realize every ounce of possible greatness in a great vintage like 2015 is really something to marvel at. The most shining example? Clonakilla’s 2015 Shiraz Viognier is their greatest wine to date, which I included in my vertical tasting of that wine spanning back to their first release 1992 posted recently here.

But it’s not just the superstars that hit the heights in this tasting; in fact, every producer here has made truly great wine. Similarly, it’s not all shiraz and riesling in the limelight; tempranillo, chardonnay, viognier, pinot noir, grenache-based reds and cabernet blends all make it into the first division. 

The other big news is the innovation and imagination that is fast becoming a signature of the region. All possibilities are being explored as winemakers look to re-imagine what is on the ground with inspiration and techniques drawn from far and wide. They may be philosophically experimental but the resulting wines are polished and underpinned by exceptional cool-climate grapes grown at low yields – a hallmark of the whole region.

I raised the question about pinot noir in this report last year and I’m happy to say that vintage 2015 has swung the pendulum in the right direction there too. But there’s still plenty of room for improvement, great vintage or not. It will be interesting to watch this play out.

Note: As I did last year, I’ve included a handful of wines made by Canberra-based producers that are sourced from vineyards in nearby regions.

Photos: A vineyard in Canberra; a windmill in Canberra.

Contributing Editor Nick Stock is a renowned Australian wine writer, author, presenter and filmmaker who reports on his worldwide wine tasting experiences for JamesSuckling.com.