Yangarra Estate’s chief winemaker and manager Peter Fraser. Yangarra Estate

The Australian wine industry is struggling to come to terms with the tragic sudden death of Peter Fraser, chief winemaker and manager of Yangarra Estate in McLaren Vale.

He died in a fire at his home in Clarendon on Thursday, November 27. He was just 51.

Pete was in good form when I last saw him on November 13: little did we know what would transpire two weeks later. He was in Sydney presenting a back-tasting of all 15 vintages of his flagship wine, Yangarra High Sands Grenache.

He’d been hosting the same tasting for the media in other cities as well. In hindsight, it seems like it was his final tour of duty. He was as self-effacing as ever.

“Anyone could make wine at Yangarra, it’s such great terroir,” he’d say.

And when the 2023 High Sands—from a very difficult, wet season—was discussed, he said “It’s one of the wines I’m most proud of.” That’s because it was a year the wine probably didn’t make itself, and skill and experience were needed to deal with the cold, wet conditions when fungal disease flourished in many vineyards.

“From our experience, a cold vintage in a warm region can produce some of the best wines,” he added.

Yangarra’s ‘23s are outstanding, across shiraz, grenache and blends.

“Wines produced from this vintage will be some of the prettiest and most delicate from the estate,” he said.

Under Fraser’s direction, Yangarra transitioned to biodynamic viticulture. It’s been organic since 2007 and certified biodynamic since 2012. He was also an early adopter of ceramic egg fermenters which he used, often in conjunction with older, larger oak vessels, to mature red wines without risking excessive oak pick-up. This was particularly important with grenache, which is easily marked by oak.

Experiments with ‘eggs’ culminated in the release of the Ovitelli, a grenache produced only in ceramic eggs and given extended time on skins post-ferment. This is an AUD $80 wine. Yangarra’s High Sands is the highest priced grenache in Australia at AUD $300. When the wine jumped from AUD $200 to $250 a few years ago I asked Pete why the big jump. His reply was typically candid: it was along the lines of:

“We line up the best Châteauneuf-du-Papes regularly, and taste them. Half of them are spoilt (chiefly by Brettanomyces), and of the other half, we reckon our wine is as good as the best.”

Hard to argue with that.

However, the regular Yangarra wines are very affordable and also of exceptional quality, such as the Yangarra Old Vine Grenache (AUD $50) and GSM (AUD $35).

Peter was chief winemaker and manager at Yangarra, where he’d worked for 25 years, and he was almost a fixture in the Clarendon district as his previous job was at Normans’ Clarendon winery.

During his tenure Yangarra’s owners, the US-based Jackson Family Wines, took over the established Hickinbotham Vineyard at Clarendon in 2012 and together with Jackson’s California-based specialist cabernet winemaker, Chris Carpenter, and Yangarra’s viticulturist Michael Lane, Pete developed the spectacular Hickinbotham Clarendon range of red wines.

The Pete Fraser I knew was a softly spoken and self-effacing guy, a quietly passionate wine man who went about his work with intensity, focus and devotion, seriously quality conscious but not afraid to push the boundaries of winemaking. He loved wine: his final Instagram post was a bottle of Bonneau du Martray Corton-Charlemagne 2005 with the words “Might be the best wine I’ve ever drunk.” What a pity it was probably also the last.

His loss is a tragedy, but his contribution to Australian wine will be remembered for a very long time.

John Follas at home. Lucy Follas

John Follas was literally a giant of the New Zealand wine world—with his towering stature and rugby-playing build—but he was not widely known to the general public despite all of his contributions to the industry.

Born in Wellington on 11 September 1957, John studied in Auckland before moving back to Wellington. He worked as a train driver before entering the wine business, first at Tasman Liquor, then at Bond Street Liquor. When I first arrived in Wellington in 2001, he was working for Peter Rumble at Rumbles Wine Merchants, a Wellington wine institution which ran from 1984 to 2012.

He was in charge of fine wine at the shop and had a glass-box office surrounded by stacks of wine review periodicals and overflowing shelves of burgundy. During lunch breaks from the nearby Victoria School of Law, I would descend into the basement wine shop and harangue John with wine questions, all of which he answered with incredible generosity of knowledge and time.

John introduced me to the writings of the late Clive Coates MW who would inspire me to pursue the path I now tread; for many others it was Jancis Robinson MW who sparked the flame, but for me, it was Clive’s writing on burgundy. John also patiently explained (over many months) the intricacies of Burgundy’s patchwork vineyards, its pantheon of producers and the pendulum of its vintages. He helped me start my burgundy collection with a smattering of 1996s and subsequently 1999s. John was also one of the early voices cautioning against the blind rush for Parker points which was then spreading through the Rhône, Piedmont, Tuscany and Rioja.

At the same time, he was running The Wine Safe (or WineSafe as it was known then), one of the earliest, if not THE earliest professional fine wine storage business in Aotearoa. John and a group of self-professed ‘wine nuts’ started it in 1990 and it continues to run today. In late 2002, John started importing wine himself under the name Truffle Imports, a business he jointly owned with his life partner of 44 years, Lucy Hill (The Wine Safe is also jointly owned by them). Truffle had a showroom, deli and wine shop on College Street before it moved to its current location with The Wine Safe on Garret Street. It is an absolute treasure trove of fine wine with beautifully aged bottles of classics in addition to the star-studded cast of producers imported by John.

He was an early champion of grower Champagne and has imported several of the great names over the years: Egly-Ouriet, Larmandier-Bernier (both now with another importer), Marie Courtin, Agrapart, Cedric Bouchard, Jérôme Prévost, Aubry, Vilmart, Marc Hebrart and more.

Fine sherry was also a passion, introducing New Zealand to the excellent Equipo Navazos wines, including bringing over Jésus Barquín to Wellington for a special sherry dinner in 2014. Aromatic whites were another speciality of his, importing Zind-Humbrecht, Markus Molitor, Eva Fricke, F.X. Pichler and Alzinger.

Although pricing of the Côte d’Or eventually led him away from importing expensive burgundy, he found fantastic wines from both the north and the south, representing Alice & Olivier de Moor and Patrick Piuze, as well as Jean Paul Thévenet, Maxime Cottenceau and Jules Desjourney.

Throughout the decades, John held masterclasses (including a few at my own venue, Wine Sentience) and dinners, generously showcasing these fine wines. He developed strong, lasting personal relationships with his clients and fellow wine lovers. The landscape of wine and hospitality in New Zealand would be rather different without all of his work and tireless passion for it. He also had a famously dry and sarcastic wit, holding no punches with his opinions and calling out bad practices when he saw them. He feared no one in the world of wine and openly said so to those who would listen (including myself).

John battled cancer for several years, having good days and bad days, before finally succumbing to the dreaded disease on Thursday night 16th October, holding Lucy’s hand. On Tuesday afternoon 21st October, friends, family and wine industry filled the room for his funeral as the unexpected soundtrack of INXS and Led Zeppelin played.

He leaves behind a world made better for his devotion and contributions, several generations of sommeliers and wine professionals who have learned from his deep insight into fine wine, critical thinkers who listened to his dissections of the wine industry and wine criticism, and a huge hole in the heart of New Zealand’s wine community. A true giant of a man, who will be deeply missed.

Thank you for all of the wit, wisdom and wine, John.

Patrick Sullivan at work in the winery. Wine Gippsland

Patrick Sullivan is puzzled that major winemakers haven’t invested in Gippsland. After all, he says, it is probably the best place in Australia to make cool-climate wine.

“There’s a lot of interest in Tasmania, but Tassie’s not the place. There are thousands of hectares that could yet be planted here. We have volcanic soil, soft light and a cool climate. Humidity is high. It is probably far cooler than Tasmania in summer and it’s on the mainland, one hour 15 minutes from Melbourne.”

He is talking specifically of the Baw Baw Shire, which is the most humid part of Gippsland and where irrigation is not necessary. He’s a firm believer in dry-grown vines, because of the intensity of fruit, retention of acidity, smaller berries and deep root systems which give consistency.

“The very high cost of growing fruit in this area probably deters some winemakers,” he acknowledges.

Patrick makes wine from small parcels of vineyard scattered around the Baw Baw Shire, which is in West Gippsland, in an area bounded by forested mountains in the north— including Mt Baw Baw—and the towns of Warragul, Drouin, Neerim South, Noojee, Erica and Trafalgar.

He makes several single vineyard wines while his blended wines are labelled Baw Baw Shire. One of those single vineyards is Bull Swamp, at Warragul, a mature vineyard planted in the 1980s which he shares with Bill Downie of William Downie Wines and Ryan Ponsford of Entropy Wines. Downie makes his wines in a winery located beside the vineyard. Part of the building is occupied by one of the region’s leading restaurants: Hogget Kitchen, helmed by distinguished chef Trevor Perkins. Having lunched at Hogget during my recent trip, I can attest to the quality of Perkins’s food.

Patrick Sullivan’s chardonnays are outstanding and have been reviewed consistently highly by The Real Review. One of the most surprising wines I tasted at Hogget was a 2024 Entropy Cabernet Sauvignon, sourced from the Warragul vineyard, a delightful medium-bodied wine filled with black and purple fruits and—surprising from such a cool site—no sign of greenness.

But there is little doubt the finest wines from the region are the chardonnays and pinot noirs. Patrick makes single-vineyard chardonnays from Bull Swamp and Ada River (at Neerim South), and until recently pinot noir from Ada River and Millstream vineyards, but he has stopped making pinot noir to focus on chardonnay. He also makes chardonnays from Henty and Yarra Valley grapes, and has an entry-level range of wines from Limestone Coast grapes which he vinifies at Di Giorgio’s in Coonawarra.

Patrick’s early wines were sometimes a bit wild for my likes—I recall some cloudy, oxidative and quite eccentric wines, but everything I’ve tasted since the 2021 vintage has been of impeccable quality. Beautiful fruit is being turned into beautiful wine.

Patrick grew up in the Heathcote area of Victoria and studied viticulture at Adelaide University and mathematics at Melbourne Uni. He worked for various wineries in the Yarra Valley before heading to Gippsland, where it seems more than likely he will stay. I hope so.

Adam ‘Skip’ Francis in the vineyard. Bass Phillip Wines

Skip Francis is settling into his new career as custodian of Australia’s most famous pinot noir.

In the five years since Bass Phillip was sold by founder Philip Jones to a group including Burgundy winemaker Jean-Marie Fourrier, Francis has pivoted from a carpenter building houses to vigneron. He has his brother-in-law Fourrier looking over his shoulder, but from a far distance. Gevrey-Chambertin to Leongatha is a long way.

In the interim, former Cape Mentelle chief winemaker John Durham looked after the winemaking. Durham has since retired to the beach. Now Skip is in charge of the vineyard and winemaking. He seems to be well across the job, judging from my visit in August.

Instead of meeting at the original Bass Phillip vineyard and winery we met at the new winery north of Leongatha. The winery is a large iron shed partly filled with barrels of maturing wine. It’s situated beside a new Bass Phillip vineyard named Clair de Lune.

“This site is cooler, higher and wetter than Leongatha and the grapes ripen four weeks later than the Leongatha vineyard, which is 15km away,” says Francis.

“We will knock down the old winery and plant vines there, because it is the Reserve site.”

This seems logical from two viewpoints: the old winery was from all reports not fit for purpose, and secondly, and most importantly, if that winery is sitting on land that would produce pinot noir of the quality needed for Bass Phillip Reserve Pinot Noir, at AUD $850 bottle, knocking it down is a no-brainer.

The Clair de Lune vineyard is already planted with chardonnay and pinot noir, and there is more of both planned, as well as gamay and cabernet franc. There are presently 14 ha under vine, and this will be increased to 18. Wine production is set to be boosted: at present Bass Phillip is crushing about 30 tonnes of grapes and the probable target is 100.

A cynic might observe that the new ownership is planning to leverage the brand to make more wine and more profit. A pragmatist might reply: that sounds like a good idea: make the brand work for you.

We tasted some impressive chardonnays from the barrels, which prompted me to ask Skip if there is a chance we will see a Bass Phillip Reserve Chardonnay in the future? There has never been one to date. “Watch this space,” was his reply.

I had been impressed that vineyards in the humid and damp, cool climate of West Gippsland don’t need to be irrigated. I asked what Jean-Marie Fourrier’s attitude was to both irrigation and acid addition.

“Jean-Marie is against irrigation but he’s not against acid addition. However, he is jealous of the pHs we’ve been getting!”

In other words, the pH of the Bass Phillip grapes is low enough that acid correction is not needed. That said, Francis said phenolic maturity was more important to him than sugar or acid, as an indication of ripeness. To establish phenolic maturity, he chews the skins and crushes the seeds. Brown seeds are what they want.

This is no fancy chateau, no Napa Valley rich man’s edifice. It’s a plain tin shed and the bottling line they will be installing presently is second-hand.

“Jean-Marie is sending his old bottling line over here. So far, we use a contract bottler who brings a truck.”

That must be expensive?

“ I’d rather pay a lot to ship it over here from France than to pay a lot more to buy a new one.”

The Sugrue South Downs winery from the Bee Tree Vineyard. Anthony Rose

I first came across Dermot Sugrue after he had turned the abandoned turkey abattoir at Wiston Estate into one of the UK’s top winemaking facilities. He had already earned his stripes after Nyetimber’s then owners Andy and Nichola Hill took him on initially as assistant winemaker and then, within a year, as head winemaker.

You don’t work for Nyetimber without knowing what you’re doing and Dermot had a pretty shrewd idea of what he was doing. Before that, he had completed two vintages at Châteaux L’Eglise-Clinet and Léoville-Barton in Bordeaux before returning to the UK to help establish a new winery in East Anglia and enrol at Plumpton College.

Dermot had long held a healthy fascination with alcohol. As an Irish teenager of 15, he had made beer, he made country wine when he was 16 and then then bought concentrated grape juice from Hungary and made wine in his bedroom. He also made a sake and a raisin wine. His first job was working in an abattoir for 14 months and seemingly improbably, he relates the experience to making wine. How?

“In the sense that everyday you make a mess and at the end of the day you have to clean it up again.”

Fast forward a couple of decades and with his experience at Wiston Estate under his belt, it was time for Dermot to set himself free in 2022 and become his own boss. Which is why, on a sunny summer’s day, I found myself face to face with Dermot, his Croatian winemaker wife Ana and their two-year-old son Ronan, aka Ronnie, at their Bee Tree Vineyard in East Sussex.

Dermot was buzzing (pardon the pun) because an April report from Wine Lister, the fine wine consultancy agency, had listed Sugrue’s The Trouble With Dreams as England’s highest-rated sparkling wine, ahead of, among others, Hambledon, Hattingley Valley, Nyetimber and Gusbourne. He also shared the news that his export and on-trade label, Bee Tree itself, had done well in a Decanter tasting.

Sugrue South Downs had purchased its first vineyard – Bee Tree near Wivelsfield Green in East Sussex – in May 2023. “Only lunatics and hedge fund managers buy vineyards,” says Dermot, but this one was too good to resist. A 1.35 ha vineyard planted on clay and lower greensand soils in 2015, Bee Tree, which does actually have bees buzzing around hives along the perimeter fence, is a warm, protected site, comprising mainly pinot noir.

Owning Bee Tree Vineyard is a dream come true for Dermot after two decades of developing vineyards and making wines for others. It’s a process that has stood him in good stead because he knows where the bodies are buried, or at least where the grapes that he wants to make his wines are grown. The story began in 2005 when he met Harry and Pip Goring whose aim of planting a vineyard on Wiston Estate’s south-facing chalk soils coincided with his vision of making a sparkling wine in the mould of the champagnes of the Côte des Blancs he’d fallen in love with.

In the early years at Nyetimber he had spent time visiting Champagne and gravitated to chardonnay grown on chalk. In that year he did his first vintage with Jacquinot & Fils, the family domaine of his friend Jean-Manuel Jacquinot, who had been his winemaking mentor at Nyetimber. Oddly, he found himself more accepted in Champagne and when one day one of his friends said to him ‘you know why you are accepted in Champagne; it’s because you’re not English, but Irish’.

“I decided then that Sugrue would be a predominantly chardonnay wine, because I believe in a freshness, minerality, longevity and a saline, savoury nature you can get in the wines.”

Then came divine intervention in the form of Father Paul McMahon, the head monk in the monastic order of Catholic priests at Our Lady of England Priory in Storrington. Father Paul had had the idea of planting a vineyard where children could be invited to come and see what agriculture was about. On this site where chalk meets greensand on the edge of the South Downs National Park, Dermot planted two fields to one hectare of 60% chardonnay and 40% pinot noir.

Dermot Sugrue. Anthony Rose

In return for planting the vines and making wines for the priests, he was granted the right to take a percentage of the grapes to make his own wine. When the grapes were so good in 2008 that the birds scoffed the lot, Father Paul muttered stoically: ‘that’s the trouble with dreams’. It stayed with Dermot who decided to call his brand The Trouble With Dreams. When it was awarded top spot at the Decanter World Wine Awards, he realised he had something special on his hands.

As good as this vineyard was, the worst ever summer of 2012—officially the coldest, wettest and darkest since 1912—spurred Dermot on to find a new source of fruit to complement the vineyard at Storrington Priory. In 2013, Dermot met Alice Renton, who, with her late husband, had planted 2.2 ha in Offham, between Plumpton and Lewes in the South Downs of East Sussex. The Mount Harry vineyard is planted on pure chalk with a shallow clay topsoil and no flints, running almost directly south-east on a significant slope.

The two agreed to work together and Dermot took over the management of Mount Harry, where, in 2013, he made the first release of Cuvée Dr Brendan O’Regan, a multi-vintage cuvée only made in exceptional years, later described by Hugh Johnson as ‘Honestly, England’s best’. A zero-dosage cuvée named ZODO followed in 2014, described by Neal Martin as ‘a killer English sparkling wine’.

In 2022 Dermot left Wiston Estate and the opportunity came up to lease the 7.35 ha Coldharbour vineyard in East Sussex from which he had already been making wine since 2011. Planted on chalk and owned by the Hunt family, the vines run north-south in a bowl-like amphitheatre. Having won a number of awards at the Wine GB Awards with it, Dermot calls it his second ‘grand cru’. The year before that he was joined by his wife Ana, herself an accomplished winemaker in her own right, having worked in such diverse countries as Peru, New Zealand, Germany, Austria and in the USA’s Napa Valley before lecturing in winemaking at Plumpton College.

Sugrue South Downs turned a corner after Dermot met Robin Hutson OBE, one of the UK’s leading hoteliers and the man behind Hotel du Vin and The PIG Hotel, who had noticed that many of the English bottles appearing on his wine lists were made by Dermot. Dermot helped Robin plant the 0.75 ha Alpaca Block for Robin, completing the complicated web of vineyards that now sees him drawing his source material from two vineyards in East Sussex, two vineyards in West Sussex as well as Bee Tree Vineyard.

Robin’s subsequent investment and support enabled Dermot and Ana to make Sugrue South Downs a full time pursuit and to purchase a small vineyard, lease another, build a winery, have a baby, and nearly break themselves during the 2023 vintage.

Next door to the Bee Tree vineyard, the new winery is kitted out with equipment almost all of which Dermot proudly tells you was bought, lock, stock, and literally, barrel, second hand via various purchases made from his deep knowledge of the wine industry.

Previously a tractor barn, with a terrace that opens on to the vineyard, it sits on the site of the original workshop of celebrated British railways engineer John Saxby, the father of modern points and signal systems used on train lines today. There are also a couple of fancy iron barbecue installations ready for Sugrue Sundays. The aim is to bring The Pig Hotel chefs and celebrities such as Mark Hix and Angela Hartnett to cook up a storm for groups of customers.

After picking into small baskets, the grapes are pressed in a 4-tonne Vaslin pneumatic press. He likes to ferment in older demi-muids of 600 litres and barriques as well as stainless steel, avoiding malolactic fermentation where possible in order to retain freshness. A mobile bottler comes from Champagne for the second fermentation bottling and disgorgement.

His main brand, The Trouble With Dreams, is fermented half in larger oak barrels, spends nine months in barrel before blending and tirage, and spends four to five years on the lees. It’s marginally chardonnay dominated. His approach to reserve wines is to build up a stock of reserves, whether as a perpetual reserve or different years kept separately.

“The addition of reserve makes a massive difference. I store the wine knowing when to deploy it if necessary, so, for instance, The Trouble With Dreams was bolstered with a proportion of 2022 and 2023.”

Now that his vineyard sources have grown from 3.5 ha to 11 ha, Dermot is looking to make some 50-60,000 bottles a year in the Sugrue South Downs range. No longer an outsider, he says ‘I’m now reminded that I’m a fundamental part of the English wine industry’.

The growth in size has meant bringing in a new marketing director, Callum Edge, whose job is to try to increase direct-to-consumer sales—currently at 20%—to 50%. With his array of top quality vineyard sources, a new vineyard and winery he can call his own and his talented winemaking wife as his partner in wine and crime, Dermot Sugrue is set fair for achieving his ultimate goal in which there should be no trouble with dreams whatsoever.

Jeffrey Grosset of Grosset Wines. Grosset Wines

Jeffrey Grosset and Stephanie Toole’s Grosset and Mount Horrocks back-labels have no mention of added fining agents like eggs, milk or nuts. They’re vegan-friendly “but that’s not why we do it”, says Grosset.

“People fine their wine to remove unwanted or undesirable tannins, but we think it’s best to avoid them in the first place. If you avoid the negative characteristics you don’t need to remove them.”

It makes sense. Fining is one of the winemaking options that were referred to as ‘remedial winemaking’ when I was at winemaking school.

Grosset and Mount Horrocks wines are all grown on their own biodynamically farmed and certified vineyards. Over many years of farming the same land they have worked out how to produce grapes with all the qualities they want, and none of those they don’t want.

“No residues” could be another selling point, as the chemicals they spray are only those permitted by the biodynamic protocol.

It was obvious at a sometimes-hilarious joint trade presentation they did in Sydney recently that the couple have become proselytes for biodynamic viticulture.

Says Grosset:

“Biodynamics has been a revelation. The results are extraordinary. It’s taken it to whole new level.”

Both had their vineyards certified in 2018.

Jeffrey concedes it was his wife’s idea.

“Like a lot of my good ideas, Stephanie had it first,” he jests. “I tend to be conservative, to hang back and observe before committing, but Steph just jumps in straight away.”

Steph adds:

“Our vineyard guys love biodynamics. They don’t have to spray herbicides, and they work in a clean, chemical-free environment.”

Stephanie Toole of Mount Horrocks Wines. Mount Horrocks Wines

Instead of burying cow horns stuffed with cow pooh to make their own Preparation 500, they use a ‘shit pit’. Cow horns are scarce these days as modern cattle are mostly bred to have no horns.

“You can buy the preparations ready-made but we prefer to do it ourselves,” Stephanie adds.

They collect the fresh dung from lactating cows and bury it in a pit in the vineyard for nine months. The result is then diluted with water, dynamised, and applied as a foliage spray.

Says Steph:

“The soil smells sweet, and I’ve smelled some soils which smell sour. The soil is very friable: the rain penetrates it easily. If you have hard soils, the rain just runs off.”

And in a mostly dry environment like the Clare Valley, this is important.

The couple share a winery, but their vineyards are separate and both grow all of their own grapes. “The vineyards face each other but are very different,” says Steph.

They share a lot of things, but they don’t share shit pits!

Jeffrey continues the theme:

“Steph was first with indigenous yeasts too. I was a bit nervous about it but she just jumped in and it was marvellous.”

All of their red ferments are ‘wild’, and the whites are seeded with neutral yeasts.

Biodynamics is another example: “I get some of my best ideas when Steph is talking,” says a deadpan Grosset.

“With biodynamics, the wines are more expressive when they’re young. They look more settled and expressive. We have had several extraordinary years, though. In these dry years, some vineyards in Clare struggled but ours were green, bright and healthy.”

“The 2025 harvest was the earliest year I’ve experienced in 25 years,” says Jeff, “but the fruit looked fresh, and the wines are not necessarily the fuller, rounder wines that you might expect in an earlier year.”

Picking the grapes earlier was a positive factor, which possibly preserved more acidity, freshness and delicacy.

Steph and Jeff are a model example of a couple who each make great wine, but in their own way and their own style. Like all the best couples, they complement each other, and their wines do likewise.

Steph makes straight cabernet sauvignon, straight nero d’avola and straight shiraz; Jeff makes a cabernet blend and a shiraz/nero d’avola blend. She makes a barrel fermented semillon; he makes a fiano. She makes a sweet wine (Cordon Cut Riesling); he doesn’t. He makes chardonnay and pinot noir; she doesn’t. Nice demarcation there!

Steph makes the occasional remark that brings the house down, such as “I fell in love with Polish Hill before the man!”

Amen to that.

Dr Richard Smart. International Wine Challenge YouTube

Ring the bells out loud, for the king is dead. The king of viticulture, that is. Dr Richard Smart, globally influential viticultural consultant, educator, writer and sage, passed away on July 2 after a long battle with cancer. He was 80.

Dick Smart, as he’ll forever be known to his students at Roseworthy Agricultural College, made an enormous contribution to the wine industry worldwide and managed to keep working well into this, his final year, in spite of the difficulties inflicted by five bouts of cancer of the mouth, the first episode being nearly 40 years ago.

Smart’s greatest contribution was his work on canopy management, which helped many winegrowers produce better wine. Perhaps nowhere did this have a more graphic impact than in New Zealand, where he went after his stint teaching at Roseworthy.

My classmates and I were fortunate to have Smart as our viticultural lecturer immediately before his departure for Kiwi-land. (Peter Dry was equally important lecturing in viticulture at Roseworthy, concurrent with Smart). Smart stressed the fundamental importance of sunlight in the vine canopy, dappled sunlight on the grape bunches themselves and shallow leaf depth within the canopy. He measured the number of leaves in the canopy and showed how this influenced grape quality: too many leaves and the shaded leaves yellowed and withered, and far from contributing anything to the system, were ‘passengers’. Therefore winegrowers should limit the depth of leaves in the canopy to three or four.

An efficient vine canopy with sunlight penetration resulted in enormous improvements in wine, especially in New Zealand where most red wines up to the 1980s were vegetal, thin and poor, with a lot of pyrazine character. Suddenly, New Zealand began producing far better reds with good colour, body and ripe flavours.

Smart’s seminal book Sunlight into Wine: A handbook of winegrape canopy management, co-authored by Mike Robinson and published in 1991, was a game-changer. He also developed trellising systems with good canopy management in mind.

He also showed how canopy management could improve yields to more sustainable levels without loss of quality.

Smart always challenged people, including we wine writers. He chided us for giving too much recognition to winemakers, too many awards and too many column centimetres, asserting that viticulturists were the real kingpins of wine quality. I hope he would have approved of The Real Review’s decision to award a Vigneron of the Year—which we inaugurated this year—and not another ‘winemaker of the year’ award.

Ever concerned about climate change, he chided winemakers for allowing fermentation CO2 to escape into the atmosphere, instead of capturing it for re-use.

He challenged the wine industry to slash its carbon footprint in other ways, such as using lighter bottles or alternatives to glass.

No doubt spurred by his own experience with cancer of the mouth*, he warned of the cancer risks of intensive wine-tasting, and attempted to interest pharmaceutical companies in developing a mouth-wash for nullifying cancer-causing acetaldehyde.

Earlier on, Smart encouraged double-pruning which delayed the vine’s growth cycle enabling warm-climate growers to harvest their grapes later in the autumn thus benefitting from cooler ripening weather, giving wines ‘cooler climate’ characteristics.

For a more comprehensive review of Dick Smart’s life, works and achievements, I recommend Jancis Robinson and Julia Harding’s article.

*NB: Dr Smart had also been a smoker for much of his early life.

Harrop is working with Matt Fowles in the Strathbogie Ranges. National Wine Show

Matt Harrop, one of Victoria’s leading winemakers, is back on his feet after his shock exit from Curly Flat 18 months ago.

Harrop is working with Matt Fowles in the Strathbogie Ranges, a distinguished but less well known cool-climate Victorian wine region.

New Zealand-born Harrop achieved great things while he was the winemaker at Curly Flat in the Macedon Ranges, most notably with his pinot noirs. Before Curly Flat, he established the Shadowfax winery at Werribee and helped put that brand on the map.

As he puts it, Fowles and the Strathbogie Ranges were not on his radar after leaving Curly Flat, but after meeting Matt Fowles he knew he was onto something interesting. Fowles, which has a winery, restaurant and cellar door in Avenel, owns about 65 ha of vineyards in the region and its brands, Stone Dwellers, Ladies Who Shoot Their Lunch, Are You Game? and Farm To Table, are competitively priced and growing.

Harrop estimates half the winery’s crush is for contract winemaking, and this is also half the fun for him: he gets to see the fruit from ‘all over the place’ and turn it into wine.

“We have decent sized plantings—of pinot noir, shiraz, cabernet, sangiovese, and in whites riesling, sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, vermentino, arneis, and we also make sparkling wine. “We have our own bottling line and do a lot of contract bottling. So it’s a very interesting job.”

The Strathbogie Ranges is a cool, high-altitude region that is not very well known, probably because there is only one winery: Fowles. But “there are a lot of vineyards up here”, says Harrop. “A lot of the fruit goes out to other people.” Domaine Chandon has substantial vineyards there for its various sparkling wines, while boutique producers such as Yarra Valley-based Mac Forbes and Beechworth-based Schmölzer & Brown take riesling grapes from the region.

“We have stopped selling fruit, and we have new plantings coming on,” says Harrop.

“We picked our first gamay this year and I’m excited about that. This is a phylloxera quarantine zone so we are replanting vines onto phylloxera-resistant rootstocks.”

Fowles has just released a new AUD $16 wine through supermarket chain Aldi, a 2023 chardonnay branded Vinarium. Harrop is full of respect for the value for money that Aldi wines—both local and imported—offer.

He also continues with Silent Way, which is a brand of pinot noir and chardonnay he produces with his family from their own vineyard high in the Macedon Ranges. Family being his wife Tamara Grischy, general manager of Langton’s, the wine auctioneers, and three children.

Between Curly Flat and Fowles, Harrop had a hand in the first vintages of the former Virgin Hills vineyard, also in the Macedon Ranges, since it was sold by Michael Hope of Hope Estate. Evidently, Hope kept the Virgin Hills name so the new wine will be marketed as Domaine Razal (the name of founder Tom Lazar spelt backwards), and Harrop is very excited about the 2024 and ‘25 vintages, “warmer years that suited the vineyard better than the cold and wet ’22 and ’23.”

He is also a top-level wine show judge, and is currently chair of the National Wine Show, Canberra, with one more year of his three-year term to run. There is a lot happening for Matt Harrop.

I recently tasted the 2024 Stone Dwellers Arneis (AUD $35) and was impressed by its refreshing mineral, gooseberry intensity. The ’23 Stone Dwellers Chardonnay likewise impressed my fellow taster Stuart Knox while the ’24 Stone Dwellers Riesling and ’23 Are You Game? Pinot Grigio were deemed good value in their price ranges.

Miladiou! It’s an apt exclamation for just how profoundly Lauren Keenan and Simon Sharpe have impacted natural wine in New Zealand since relocating there in 2020. This ancient colloquialism, hailing from their former winemaking base in South Western France, literally translates as ‘A Thousand Gods’ – the name they’ve given their impressive joint venture. Their wines themselves are revelations, challenging conventions, while achieving remarkable interest and finesse.

Lauren Keenan, originally from Australia’s Hunter Valley with an Adelaide University winemaking degree, and Simon Sharpe, UK-born but Auckland-raised with a Masters in Wine Science, found their calling in the vineyards of Europe. This involved formative stints at leading environmentally-focused estates: Lauren at Wittmann in Germany, Simon immersing himself in organic and biodynamic viticulture over 18 months at Burgundy’s Domaine Leflaive. It was here Simon became interested in organics and biodynamics and recognised vineyards were paramount to producing great wines. In Europe, Lauren embraced a more intuitive approach, while valuing her technical education, as “when you go back to basics, you can understand what can go wrong”.

A subsequent decade based in Cahors saw them further refine their craft. Simon worked alongside the adventurous Fabien Jouves at Mas del Périé, while Lauren contributed her expertise to the biodynamic Château de Chambert. It was a dynamic time for the region as it increasingly embraced organic and natural practices.

“There was a real resurgence of fresh young blood,” Simon recalls.

“We learned a lot from the experimentation happening, as well as from others’ mistakes.”

This period cemented their commitment to minimal intervention winemaking, and equipped them with the skills to pursue their own adventurous path.

From France, they brought back the ‘Zero-Zero’ philosophy of winemaking with no additions or filtration. Setting out to produce high-quality natural wines, they wanted to prove that these could also be fine wines.

“Our aim is to make clean, ageworthy wines without sulphur, that are not just for early consumption,” Simon explains.

“However, this does take lots of time and good fruit.”

Simon Sharpe and Lauren Keenan of A Thousand Gods. A Thousand Gods

Thankfully, they found an ideal fruit source in the organic and biodynamic Churton Vineyard in Marlborough, working closely with its owners Ben and Sam Weaver. While the costs of buying their own vineyard are currently prohibitive, they do have their own tiny winery underneath their Christchurch home. Here they embrace an attentive but hands-off approach to making their wines from multiple small parcels.

Serendipitously, Marlborough sauvignon blanc became an early focus. Its aromatic profile was the subject of Simon’s Masters research. But while he’d travelled to Europe to take a break from the variety, New Zealand’s flagship grape has proved a fascinating medium to demonstrate his and Lauren’s non-mainstream vineyard-focused winemaking approach. Eschewing the overtly fruity style, they have been coaxing untapped potential for texture and complexity.

“We wanted to make something that would stand up with French examples,” Simon states.

Their sauvignons have certainly achieved this. A Thousand Gods’ Blanc offers a pure, taut and mineral-driven expression with refined botanical nuances that’s recognisably sauvignon, but nevertheless distinct. In contrast, Giara, made from the same fruit, emphasises texture. Described by Simon as “Marlborough sauvignon blanc through the lens of ancient winemaking practices,” it spends an extended period on skins in terracotta amphorae. That’s more “for infusion than extraction” he explains, to achieve a subtle, “chalky tannin line”.

“We think sauvignon is one of the best white varieties in the world,” Lauren asserts.

“New Zealand may have backed one style, but we can have a vast range.”

Their work illustrates the variety’s diversity in New Zealand.

Innovation characterises everything they make. The La Java Pétillant Naturel, is a blend of sauvignon blanc and viognier that sits between Champagne and Prosecco, while perhaps their most boundary-pushing release is their newest No Devices. This bone-dry petit manseng, a rarity from the mere hectare planted in New Zealand, is fermented and aged in glass demijohns. Some of these vessels were left un-topped, imbuing a subtle umami-rich ‘rancio’ character to this immensely characterful amber wine.

With experimental spirit and skill, Simon Sharpe and Lauren Keenan are guiding exceptional fruit towards new expressions, reimagining familiar varieties and championing the less common. The result is wines marked by personality, precision, and intrigue that have established the pair not only as rising stars, but also beacons illuminating a bright path ahead for New Zealand fine wine.

Anna and Jason Flowerday are our inaugural Vignerons of the Year New Zealand 2025. The perfect example of a Trans-Tasman partnership which works; mainly involving the bringing of Australian talent to New Zealand.

Anna and Jason met in Anna’s home state of South Australia when they were just starting out their wine production careers after finishing their studies. Winegrowing runs in their blood, as they say: Anna is the sixth generation of a winegrowing family in McLaren Vale (they started early) and Jason is the third generation of grape growers in Marlborough (his father still grows grapes).

New Zealand’s irresistibility—in this case, tall and handsome—drew Anna back to Jason’s home region of Marlborough after the pair had their first taste of working together in the Clare Valley. In 2003, they had the opportunity to purchase the 11-ha estate Te Whare Ra on the outskirts of Renwick. This vineyard is of historical importance to the region, having been planted in 1979 and containing old vine aromatic whites in the form of riesling and gewürztraminer. The couple moved to Marlborough, converted the vineyard to organics, planted a wider set of varieties including sauvignon blanc, syrah, chardonnay and pinots, as well as having two pairs of twins.

Vignerons of the Year NZ Jason and Anna Flowerday. Te Whare Ra Wines

Over the years, they have expanded and subsequently consolidated, adapting to market conditions and demand for sauvignon blanc and pinot noir, and currently pick fruit from their own vineyard, Jason’s father’s vineyard, and the Clayvin vineyard. The single vineyard wines bear a series of numbers which relate to their BioGro organic certification, so the home vineyard wines are all 5182. Although they are not certified biodynamic, Jason and Anna incorporate several biodynamic practices into their viticulture on a sensible basis.

On a corner right by the highway leading deeper into the Wairau Valley, Te Whare Ra’s home vineyard seems incongruously biodiverse, rudely healthy and full of life. Jason sometimes grows crops in between the rows for eating and their cows wander contentedly around the paddock next to their house (oh, did I mention that they live on the vineyard?)

One of the things which often gets overlooked is the importance of the winery: not so much that there is one, but that it is set up specifically to allow for small-batch winemaking. For Anna, having a small winery—configured to allow for small-scale projects, adaptable and adjustable areas for different winemaking techniques and open to try things out (and discard them if needed)—is key to truly understanding the land they farm.

They have participated in Auckland University trials involving native yeast populations and are not bound by dogma to either intervene or leave things alone as the wines dictate. The result of all this is the set of wines released bearing the Te Whare Ra name. They are not cult wines, they are not wildly expensive, nor are they traded on the secondary market. But they are consistently and uniformly fantastic wines with soul, finesse, ageworthiness, elegance and a sense of place. Vignerons of the Year, and very well deserved.