Dombeya Scholarship 2009- Ntando in Australia, Part 6

My week here at Adelaide University, Australia, has been seriously informative and eye opening. The best part has been the numerous tastings of wine I have been a part of. This of course was not just for enjoyment purposes but for palate training also. It all sounds simple in the beginning, you look, you swirl you smell, you drink. But not that simple when the wine is faulty!

The most common faults we tasted this week were smoke taint (which gives an ash tray flavour), salty wines due to salinity and hazy wines leading to strange smells and things floating in the wines.

Smoke taint research became more serious when the first fires occurred around 2003 in Victoria. The problem with smoke taint is that you will not pick it in the grape juice, nor by taste or smell. You only pick up smoke taint after fermentation. In the wine it can be picked up in the early stages of fermentation (after primary fermentation) and before malolactic fermentation. At this stage you will get the ash tray flavour if smoke taint is an issue, it just gets more intense in the final product. Current research has been designed to determine which are the precursors other than the known ones (such as guaiacol and 4 methyl guaiacol) and how to quantify them and get rid of them.

Salty wines are mostly due to salinity in the soil because of drought and bad irrigation water. It is difficult to pick up the taste in small concentrations. Most people don't pick it up because either they're not sensitive towards it or don't know its salt at the time.

I wish I could explain in detail on how about they do these trials but I can't reveal anything as some of the projects have just started or are still going on, but some papers have been published. If you want to know more get into the AWRI website, it's really useful from a wine making point of view rather than just research. More information is available here on yeast as well, revealing new discoveries on how to enhance aroma profile of your wine.

I did manage to go on a small tour of Langhorne Creek for a few tastings thanks to the university contacts and technical manager of Laffort in Australia. I discovered a very strange white wine and rose made from cabernet sauvignon (yes true). It's basically a mutation of Cab where the clone turned completely into white grapes (or pink), hence from white grapes, white table wine is produced and from the pink grapes a rosé is produced. I thought that was so cool but sadly they are not allowed to call these wine's Cab's.

Since I come from South Africa I have made a point of letting people here know about our wine making history. They made sure I had to see a 90 year old vine so I can come back home and show off that Australia too has old vines, and history. The picture above shows a Verdelho white cultivar. Amazingly, this block of vines is only used for 16 year old port. Imagine this really old cellar with 6000 L barrels and underground tanks – that's how they manage to mature the port for that long in terms of space.

The best thing about the wine industry is that it's so competitive, so in a way it keeps you on your toes. Sometimes you don't realise just how much is going on in other countries as well. Being South African, it was cool to run into a student from Slovenia who made me try two white varieties. In his words, 'these are the best white wines you will ever taste, Rebula and Malvazija'. I must say they were absolutely delicious! If ever you get your hands on them, try them; maybe you will have a different perspective.

But I must say I have never been more proud to be South African. We are really doing well of late, to the extent that other countries are actually starting to sit up and take notice of us for wine styles, building architecture and marketing. And the good thing is that the best is yet to come.

Off to the Barossa this week to spend some time at Kaesler Wines. My last week in Australia.


Click here to go to Dombeya Wines website.