It’s a wine tasting format that I wish more Australian winemakers would embrace.
Winemaker A, usually from the New World (or a less fancied producer/appellation), puts their wines up against global icons in a taste-off. Usually, it is a tasting done blind, so you have no idea what the challenger wine is vs the icon. But other times it’s an exercise done with icon bottles on the table, loud and proud.
This sort of ‘challenger tasting’ isn’t new – back in 1976 at the Judgement of Paris, it was wine world-changing (and a great yarn too), and now it’s just good business for provocative new fancy wines. Yet, curiously, it’s a format that we don’t get to see anywhere near enough here in Australia. (except for someone like Voyager). That’s a huge miss, especially with grapes like Chardonnay, Shiraz/Syrah, Grenache, or Cabernet Sauvignon, where the best local wines are just as good as the icons (and cheaper).
More to the point, challenger tastings often remind us of three things:
a) Lots of iconic wineries trade on legacy and hype/scarcity rather than raw quality.
b) The Old World doesn’t have a monopoly on greatness.
c) The most grand wines are often on another level altogether.
That also brings us neatly to a lineup of wines from Xavier Bizot & Lucy Croser’s Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard.
Brian Croser, Xavier’s father-in-law, absolutely loves putting a few global wine benchmarks in his tastings (even if it’s just an excuse to drink something delicious), so it’s entirely unsurprising that Xavier threw a pair of curveball wines in this tasting of current and mature releases from the Crayères Vineyard.
The Crayères Vineyard deserves some spotlighting, too. A close-planted (1.5m row spacing) block situated directly across the road from Brian’s Tapanappa Whalebone Vineyard in Wrattonbully, this is every bit a challenger block, too. First established in 2004, Crayères is devoted to Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Shiraz with a very un-Australian 50cm fruiting wire that has earned the plot a nickname as the ‘low vineyard’ and plenty of pickers and pruners with sore backs (maybe).
It’s been fascinating to have seen these wines from some of the very early releases, and especially to witness the evolution from the early Wrattonbully takes on Bordeaux blanc and rouge, into what is now a range with much more of an Aussie accent.
Xavier isn’t shy about sharing different perspectives either, which makes these tastings even more fun. On this occasion, we touched on his organic wine scepticism (organic certification is apparently just for marketing purposes) to his affinity for traditional Aussie Cabernet Shiraz blends, and beliefs about cork ageing superiority (which feels a bit defunct in the modern Australian context). Loads of times during this tasting, I found myself shaking my head, but I quite like it when a winemaker lobs up some challenging opinions – much more fun than the same bullshit. Xavier is also typically honest about his own wine’s challenges, and how much the Terre à Terre reds (in particular) need years to show their best (and they really do).
Let’s look at some wines:
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