by Wendy Fowler | Jan 29, 2024 | Bindi News
Bindi Block 5 Pinot Noir elevated to the top echelon in the Langton’s Classification.
Bindi Quartz Chardonnay joins the Bindi Original Vineyard Pinot Noir in the Langton’s Classification.
As we work hard to manage another challengingly cool season and hope for the forecast sunshine and warmth to arrive we reflect on some fabulous recent news. In 1990 Langton’s categorised Australia’s most recognised and sought after wines. In December 2023 the eighth Classification was issued, listing 100 wines in total, with the top category listing 21 wines. Whilst it is never the aim to attain such listings and critical review, that the vineyard work that began at Bindi in 1988 and the wine production commencing in 1991 has become meaningful is very rewarding. Our focus very much remains on nurturing and bettering our original sites and learning about and exploring the more recently planted sites while working towards several new plantings. The past and the future all playing their roles in the present.
by Wendy Fowler | Jul 22, 2023 | Bindi News
The shocks and the horrors were well worth the bother.
The fourth year of the cool and the damp has an undeniably admirable stamp. How could this be? Something precious has risen above its origins and holds an increasingly exciting and somewhat head scratching promise.
It’s a tough one to figure for the filigree found us rather than us finding it, strive as we did. The spring and early summer were diabolically damned with damp as those months overflowed the dams and underwhelmed our expectations. Bastard months, one after the other. Vignerons were stuck in the La Niña rut. Bogged even, rutted to near ruin by rain. Crops were downed by the downey, savior sought in systemic resorts while the weeds grew as fast as did our weariness from the worry. Oh buoy, hope almost drowned by the deluge, a vintage nearly washed away. But not quite!
In one day it turned.
Christmas Eve presented sunshine and the broken records of rain ceased. The spin cycled to dry, it was a mid summer season saving run of warmth and calm and respite. Without it surely we’d have been doomed? But then the overly arid threatened and we questioned this opposite stress; too dry? Not quite. La Niña wasn’t done. The teary damp was resurrected over Easter, a viticultural insurrection no less, and the humidity pushed hard again through April. The game had turned to dodge fast and avoid the fetid fungus. Act on a clear understanding of what was on offer and, critically, what the present threats were. Deciphering what was realistic (as opposed to hoped for) was the key. Then, after the sharp work of grape gathering was done, the fruit and ferment management lessons kicked in. The good old days, learnings from the cool 1990s, were revisited in mind and print and conversation.
Lo and behold, quite ridiculously so, the vineyards and the wines have pushed through and somehow worked out. There’s still a way to go, with malic acids to reduce, pHs to shift, young life on lees to live. In the cold months the wines keep shifting but they do so peacefully and we like to mimic them.
Comparing 2023 to recent challenging years (with the 2021 aberration standing among the greats) is a surprisingly happy reflection. In the furious moments of weather mayhem and emotional adjustments it seemed impossible to arrive at something wonderful. Yet here in mid July the 2023 wines in barrel rise above the testing season, above the difficulties in 2020 and 2022. Again the volumes are well down but in the face of what may have been in October, or December, or March, or April it’s a big win for meaningful wines.
by Wendy Fowler | Oct 16, 2022 | Bindi News
When you start to look around, to read the old words, to see the paintings from 1770 onwards and then view the photos beginning in the 1860s you begin to see and understand the landscape and the people who owned and managed it. An important painting, looking from Gisborne to Mount Macedon, by Robert Hoddle in 1838, before new settlers had the numbers or means to clear the land, shows open fields managed by First Nations custodians, the Gunung Willam Balluk.
The newly invaded Australia rode on the sheep’s back on pastures created by First Nations people (country repeatedly referred to as park like by early European settlers). We then mined and washed gold from First Nations’ land and creeks. We became wealthy on and by taking their carefully managed lands; our beautiful old shearing sheds and majestic stone buildings speak of this wealth. Often these original custodians were killed by disease, violence or mournfully removed from their lands and responsibilities and relocated to reserves. Taking people’s land and therefore breaking a way of life that evolved over such a monumental amount of time was an utter devastation of the first peoples (estimated to be between 300,000 to 1 million at 1788). Their devastation brought about the opportunity for the prosperity of todays multicultural 26 million.
It took a long time but I finally learned this name of the peoples of the land where we live and farm here at Bindi. I’m fascinated, saddened and challenged to begin to feel the landscape, the ancient trees, grasslands and waterways of our land and the greater local landscape as it was moulded and managed for many thousands of years. These people were responsible for much of the cleared lands we grow our vines on and for the magnificent curated stands of ancient trees on this land where we live. They have my admiration and curiosity. And some sense of responsibility.
Gunung Willam Balluk, meaning creek dwelling people, managed the region south of Mount Macedon and towards Bacchus Marsh. This is the land of what’s been called Gisborne for a little short of 200 years. If you live in this area you know the creeks and the landscapes they were responsible for….for….30,000 years (120,000 if you follow Bruce Pascoe). They cleared and managed the land with fire. They deliberately created wildlife habitats and corridors and ensured their own safety by strategically reducing fuel loads to prevent and restrict bushfires. Their small family group farmed and formed our defined local areas and were responsible for their upkeep. They were not randomly passing though; they lived with the lands we live on today and they intimately knew and manipulated the views, the plants, the animals and ways of the seasons. They adjusted the randomness of the landscape into an order that gave sustenance, safety and cultural bonds.
Perversely, to the eventual detriment of the Gunung Willam Balluk (and all clans and nations) they created an open grazing oasis of productive grasslands, managed clean creeks and shelter belts that drew European farmers to quickly dominate this land and the local culture in a very short time. A tragedy in many ways that profoundly endures (yet has the possibility of some remedy).
Henry Gisborne, of the Border Police, came to the Macedon Ranges in 1840 to deal with the “aboriginal issue” faced by the first new settlers, who arrived in 1836 (long time locals were considered recalcitrants needing suppression). Gisborne left, his name stayed; the long continuing local culture was disrupted, dominated, alienated and driven away. Or worse. Their open pastures and creeks were taken and used for wealth creation of the new arrivals.
My family began here in Gisborne from 1850 in various forms; the Telegraph pub, New Gisborne butcher shop and the railway line establishment. In 1872 my grandmother’s father witnessed the last gathering of the Gunung Willam Balluk peoples on the banks of Jackson’s Creek. This family story always held a fascination. I was born about 500m from this creek. And then grew up on the open grasslands on Mount Gisborne, with its bordering defined stands of forest, significant individual ancient trees and grand views from strategic points. The grazing of the 120 years before I was born in many ways kept the landscape open and framed as it was before 1836, broadly before 1788. When you stop grazing or burning strategically the regrowth trees reclaim the space. It was not by accident we have many ancient preserved trees and then only the regrowth of recent years when the grazing stopped. The grazing gave an important economic return but also compacted the ground, led to water runoff and erosion into creeks and halted the diversity of sensitive plants and much animal habitat. Australia’s true first settlers and local people cleared land with fire and carefully lived for tens of thousands of years in small, sustainable numbers. The new graziers expanded in both human and stock numbers rapidly. Some complain about the growth in houses and traffic today in and around Gisborne; imagine 1836 and then the gold rush of the 1860s and the effect on the long time locals who lived in harmony with this land. That really was a radical and heartbreaking disruption.
So, why “this”?
Wandering our land, seeing old trees and open ground, rock outcrops, long views to Mt Macedon, the You Yangs, Ballan and beyond has always made me think about how it was then and how it came to be. That European settlers, relatively few in number and without machines for clearing, being capable of making this open land so quickly never made sense to me. The old drawings of the town, early photos of the region made it impossible to be convinced that random nature or early European management made this amazing open grazing land. Bill Gammage’s The Greatest Estate on Earth helped explain our open grasslands and ancient trees. This land we work and farm and live on tells us of those who lived and worked here for so long. Our land at Bindi tells me stories and demands respect and understanding. So we begin. Reading AW Howitt, La Trobe’s compilation of letters from new settlers around the 1840s, Bill Gammage and Bruce Pascoe’s works has been revelatory and brings some clarity. Rachel Tanner’s 2001 research and compilation of information on the Gunung Willam Balluk is a very important work, a local starting point. These and other works are well worth reading and giving opportunity to make up your own mind on how things came to be and how our collective future can be improved.
by admin | Apr 4, 2022 | Bindi News
The 2021-2022 season has become one of the most memorable of our 32 cropping years since the vineyard began in 1988. An incredibly wet winter flowed, literally, into an incredibly wet spring which then ran into a very wet summer. Challenging!
Pleasingly there have been bursts of dry and brightness as the green vines have progressed their small crops to ripeness. Mid April will the see the harvest in full swing. Some blocks have rather meagre crops, others are more prolific and hopefully overall the volumes are reasonable. Pleasingly we have ‘banked’ some outstanding Heathcote Shiraz and Grenache in barrel and we have another project commencing early April under the Dhillon label; Riesling, Chardonnay and Rosé from the Macedon Ranges.
Excitingly, another wine release looms. We shall begin releasing some of the outstanding 2021 wines in late April, early May. The 2021 season was quite mild and was upgraded incredibly by two of the most outstanding ‘finishing’ weeks in Bindi history. The last week of March and the first week of April 2021 were truly golden times for elevating our quality to equal the best of anything done before.
by admin | Aug 18, 2021 | Bindi News
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From wide to close, our pinot journey.
It’s a nice nostalgia to reflect on the explorative days in 2010 and 2011 as plans were made to establish the Darshan and Block 8 sites, for an evolution from our 1988 commencement plantings at 2,500 vines per hectare to 11,000+. Whoosh….time flies! It’s a sadness that founding Father Bill (Darshan) isn’t here to enjoy the results of those discussions and decisions; we are farming relationships with family and friends as much as we are farming vines for wines.
In 2010 an enlightening visit to the adventurous Erinn Klein at the Adelaide Hills winery Ngeringa was made to discuss closer planting and its management. Erinn showed me his narrow German Niko ‘tractor’. Erinn imported (as far as I know) the first narrow track machine to Australia in 2004. At this exploratory time the successfully established Victorian references we used were Bannockburn (1.2 meter rows in the 1986 Serre vineyard) and Bass Philip (1979, 9,000 to 17,000 vines per hectare). Visiting Bass Phillip often in 1991-1993 was confounding and inspiring for the vineyard was provocatively closer and lower than most (and Philip is an engaging and idiosyncratic character!).
It’s true that less intensively planted, carefully farmed vines on a fabulous site will produce superior wine to intensively farmed vines on a lesser site. Having vision is necessary, but having site is fundamental. There are many great wines made around the world from varying planting densities. The vineyard site is absolutely the key and thereafter appropriate vineyard configuration and farming maximise the potential. For example, the wide rows of Hill of Grace will make superior wine to a 10,000 vine per hectare vineyard on a poorer site nearby. And, within reason, vineyard site trumps expenditure; the most intensively and obsessively farmed flat land Bourgogne Rouge will not be as good as a merely well farmed Grand Cru half way up the hill. Hence established greats like Hill of Grace and Richebourg honour site first and vision second. This is the nature of ‘Terroir’.
Hands on and back bending learnings came from picking and pruning in Champagne in 1994 with Delphine Vesselle in Bouzy. Further education came from visiting 25 other small grower Champagne producers at that time. Seeing how closely planted vines were farmed (and wines made) during an inspiring 50 Domaine tour in Burgundy in January 1995 provided many ‘light bulb’ moments that could not and would not be ignored. It goes back even further though, to the late 1980s in fact, to Stuart Anderson (ex Balgownie) and Ann and John Ellis (Hanging Rock). Stuart had done 20 or so vintages in France in the vineyards of Burgundy and Bordeaux and spoke inspiringly and encouragingly about their ways of farming when I began helping him in 1991 making Pinot Noir. In the 1970s and 1980s Stuart was also involved in importing wines grown this way from many of the great small producers of France. What he had and what he knew from making, buying and selling he shared generously with us and the local Macedon Ranges vignerons. At this time Ann and John had planted at 2m x 1m (after toying with the idea of an over the row tractor for farming at 1m x 1m but opted to stay wider) and they discussed the benchmarks and logic for intensively farmed vines.
In recent years there’s been inspiring and excitingly adventurous progress. In our region the Coopers at Cobaw Ridge (wide rows established in 1985 and a reference for us in our early days) went closer first with their 2011 Pinot planting of 1.2m wide rows. At home our Bindi tribute Darshan was planted in 2014 (11k to 22k Ha) and Block 8 in 2016 (11k to 22k), which also coincided with the 2016 Ten Minutes by Tractor commencement in Mornington of their dense (12k) adventure. Dwarfing these is the grand vision of the Sandro Mosel led Mornington Peninsula project with 120,000 vines at 11,111 per hectare! Viticulturist Tim Brown (starting with his father in 1988, now starting his own intensive project at Taradale in the Macedon Ranges and working with Bindi since 2005) has been a godsend, drawing on 30+ years of viticultural work and thought. A lot has changed in Victoria in this decade of increased density; there are many more Nikos on the ground and on the way. Excitingly, there are four new projects in our region that are soon to be planted (Drummond, Taradale, Bullengarook and Trentham) with their own interpretations of close on intriguing, diverse sites. The more the merrier, for we all benefit and share as the sum of the parts combine for the greater good (the rising tide lifts all boats).
So what have we learned? A lot. It takes visits and tastings to do explanations justice and enjoyably there’s been quite a bit of that going on (pre and between lockdowns!). Realistically, we observe and accept that there have been many compromises along the way and that the endeavour cannot be one of perfection; our vineyards are a pragmatic pursuit of passion. Installing irrigation is (of course) a compromise, one we comfortably made and sometimes use (though, interestingly and encouragingly, less frequent in the closer plantings). Tilling under-vine is a compromise and is abhorred by some (but we quite like it and, well, it’s softer than herbicide). Sometimes we choose to crop thin, though not in the last three years (to ensure yields of less than 500 grams per vine), we trim extra long shoots and we spray the canopy with sulphur and (heavy metal (toxic?)) copper (which are permissible organic inputs). We have (now three times in 17 seasons) used the systemic foliar spray Ridomil to reduce copper use in order to prevent devastating pre fruit set crop loss in the face of severe downy mildew pressure. We are striving in our own ways for soil and vine health. Opening the soil, composting, manure preparations, seaweed emulsions, 17 seasons of no herbicide and no systemic pesticide, observing increased life in, and friability of, the soils, shoot thinning and more are all leading to healthy vines and wines. The compromises are honest but fewer, some are comfortable, some uncomfortable.
Now we get to line up six individual Bindi Pinots which tell personal stories. In the higher density vineyards we are seeing balanced vines growing very closely, impressive root depth and spread, early and deep lignification of canes and stems, smaller bunches and berries and less moisture stress. In the wines we are witnessing increasing complexity and mouthfeel with strong site expression. This is all very exciting and rewarding. It’s still early days but we are now within two years for the release of the Darshan and Block 8 wines, having made vintages 2017 to 2021. Satisfyingly, there really is now something meaningful to taste and discuss. There’s a decade of treading the sentimental path, from the days we walked and imagined these new sites when kicking the Bindi stones in 2010 and surveying the soils in the winter of 2011 which confirmed their strong connections to the adjacent Block 5 and Quartz vineyards.
Here’s to the varied vine growers of many places being determined enough to give it a go and who graciously contribute to that rising tide that is lifting all boats. Each will imaginatively make their own interpretations of row width, trellis height and vine structure, irrigation, soil management, crop loads and winemaking. When all that is said and done, as the notion of terroir (of somewhereness) dictates, it will be the quality of each site and the year on year consistency of its delicious wines that provides the pleasure in the glass.
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by admin | May 28, 2021 | Bindi News
We were very keen for rebounds of many kinds. The angst and grind of 2020 surely couldn’t remain shackled to us so far into 2021? Despite the wet spring and summer, the 2021 viticultural season ended incredibly kindly; amazing finishing warmth that concentrated the flavours and sugars while preserving the acidities. The amazing finish, the equal of any wonderful weather experienced over our preceding 30 vintages, capitalized on all the work done to keep the canopy open and the crop clean and the fabulously intense and ripe fruit was harvested in perfect weather conditions. The ferments have gone cleanly and smoothly and the wines are ticking along doing some malo-lactic in barrel. The push and pull, the rush and drive from September to April has its reward and the line up of barrels in the cellar is the equal or better of any season gone before. Who’d have thought this in mid March?!! A simple summary; we worked hard through spring and summer for two fine and final brilliant weeks to make the vintage. This remarkable 2021 vintage reminds us to stay patient and hopeful ‘cos it’s not over until it’s over!
