Passing Clouds

by Graeme Leith

  The year 1989 was again cool and wet, and I realised I was doing myself a disservice by maintaining a basic trellising system. I had already turned the front paddock shiraz over to a ‘T’ trellis system and this had proved successful, with better ripening of the fruit, so now it was the turn of the cabernet. I chose not to use the ‘T’ trellis but instead started using a technique known as VSP, or vertical shoot positioning: the vines are trained to two vertical wires, and extensions are added to the posts so that a pair of foliage wires can be installed above the fruiting wires. These green shoots grow into new canes that carry this year’s crop. They can then be lifted to expose the fruit to sun and air without reducing the actual number of leaves in the canopy. It was really held up in the manner of, say, a bunch of celery, if you imagine the fruit being positioned low on the stalks.

  The year before, in 1988, I had cut off leaves in the fruiting zone and had used a hired reciprocating hedge trimmer mounted on a chainsaw for the event. I was able to mount the trimmer-chainsaw on a piece of timber tied to the windscreen of the Suzuki jeep by using an octopus strap to hold the handle and cushion any kickback. All I had to do was start the chainsaw motor, slowly drive up close to the vines and let the hedge trimmer do its work. With this appropriated equipment I was able to summer-prune the whole vineyard in little more than a day. The disadvantage was that it would sometimes cut quite close to the bunch, leaving perhaps only two or three leaves on that cane to ripen a bunch or two. This was insufficient for fruit-flavour ripeness although enough for sugar ripeness, and is probably what caused the ’88 to be a bit boring.

  Angel Blend

  Thus the 1989 cabernet vines adapted to their new training, and the results in the 1990 wines were gratifying—so much so that I decided to make a straight cabernet, to be called the Angel Blend in memory of Ondine.

  The 1988 ‘sparkling Ondine’ was almost ready for release, resplendent in its smart new packaging, and I had not anticipated making another—the straightforward flavour profile of the ’88 crop seemed to lend itself to tweaking with the vintage port; it had been a success and I had no reason to experiment further.

  However, in the years following Ondine’s death we kept observing extraordinary coincidences in the winery. Often a tank containing a certain amount of wine would exactly fill the barrels allocated to it—not just fill them, fill them exactly, with not a drop too much or too little. It reached the stage where we would often wait expectantly as the last barrel was being filled, and when it filled to perfection we’d say: ‘The Angel has done it again.’

  There were other strange things going on, too. The light over the kitchen table would stop working whenever I went fishing in Tasmania—not to Daylesford to be with family, or to Melbourne for a sales trip—just fishing trips to Tasmania. It was as if the Angel didn’t like me going away fishing, for the light would mysteriously begin working normally again on my return. And once, eerily, when we were sitting around the kitchen table, Ondine’s name was mentioned and the light went out for about three seconds . . . and then came on again.

  We accepted that there was something more than coincidence going on, something wonderful and special. We accepted that we had a guardian angel—and that’s why I decided to create a wine and a label in recognition of her.

  The 2000 cabernet for the Angel Blend was put into French oak barrels made by Schahinger’s. They were mostly puncheons, the big ones of 480 litres or so, which meant the wine would mature slowly (as a rule of thumb, the smaller the barrel, the quicker the maturation). Years later I decided it was all a bit too slow, and that’s when I started adding merlot and cabernet franc to soften the wine a little, and give it a touch of perfume. An alternative would have been to use hogsheads of 300 litres or barriques of 220 litres, more expensive options costing more per litre for the oak component. In any case the winery was designed around larger barrels. It was galling at times to realise that winemakers in more fortunate circumstances could simply order whatever barrels they wanted, particularly if the vineyard owners were wealthy and ambitious to win medals and reputations. Of course, it is not unknown for red wines to be ‘double dipped’—that is, exposed to two brand new barrels in the course of their maturation; it can be advantageous for a particular class of a particular wine show. The class from which the Jimmy Watson Trophy winner is selected, for instance, is judged within the chilly confines of a concrete building in Melbourne in September, and the wine has to be very heavily oaked to show up in these circumstances. The same wine might taste drastically over-oaked at a higher temperature.

  I fancied doing something quite different for the Angel label, and the idea of emulating those gaudy Italian religious paintings appealed to me. My theory was that, as it wasn’t going to sell on its label but its quality, I could do what I liked with the label and it would be a joke between the Angel and me. I put down a little watercolour of what I wanted and Alan Wolf Tasker from Lake House agreed to ‘professionalise’ it for me; he did a terrific job.

  The label itself continues to divide opinion. For instance, some people at the tasting room say that they like the wine but could not buy anything with such a ghastly label. Others, usually women, have been known to say they don’t drink red wine but must have a bottle for the label! There was once a plane-load of English wine sellers who were brought out here, I think by the indefatigable Hazel Murphy, and at a tasting one of them took me aside and asked me if we were going to change the Angel label. ‘More flak coming,’ I thought. I told him we were not.

  He looked relieved. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘I come into the shop in the mornings in winter and it’s freezing. I turn the lights and heating on and as I go back, rubbing my hands, I often stop and look at the Angel Blend label. It makes me feel warm.’

  The Angel always won medals, usually high bronze, once a silver, but it was not until I had refined the proportions of merlot and cab franc to 5 per cent each, and invested in a couple of French oak hogsheads, that we won a gold medal at Melbourne, again frustratingly beaten by a half-point for the trophy, again by a wine which I considered was superior to ours. It was Yarra Ridge Reserve Cabernet, I think, and I was told later that it had been put through an osmotic filter to gain extra concentration, but don’t know whether that is so or not. Our wine, the 1994, was very elegant and well structured and what remains in our museum stock is ageing beautifully. Meanwhile, the 1991 shiraz cabernets were powering along, good wines both, and the 1992s a worthy follow-up.

  Daylesford and domestic changes

  In 1989 it was time for Cameron to go to primary school, so although I’d been building rooms onto the Kingower house, including a good kitchen, another bathroom and toilet, and a large sitting-room—probably subconsciously trying to delay the inevitable—we moved to Daylesford, 100 kilometres south, in another climate, almost another world, for it had long been my plan to retire there and it was what I had previously promised Julien before Ondine’s death.

  In 1984 Julien and I had bought a double block of land there with much difficulty at a price that even then was a bargain. The house was in a state of severe disrepair but of such charm that it had to be renovated and extended, too, to accommodate a growing family, for we now had another son, Jesse Norman, born in October 1989—another important part of my life and another great mate. The house extensions were made that year on a grander and grander scale.

  Builders, bricklayers, stonemasons, electricians, plumbers and painters were employed while bank interest rates rose to an astronomic all-time high. Some years previously the government had put a 10 per cent tax on wine that had taken some swallowing, for we were reckoning on a wage of 10 per cent of our gross. Raising the price of the wine was not simple: it put it into a higher price bracket, and the multiplying effect as it passed through the hands of wholesaler and retailer led to a significant increase. So we were not rolling in money and eventually, when the money ran out, the Daylesford house works had to be halted. It was habitable but there was still much wo
rk to be done, so I was assured of projects over the ensuing twenty years in my ‘spare time’.

  But there were also other things to attend to. As I was going to Daylesford and Sue Mackinnon was coming back to live at Kingower to resume her role as working partner, a house was designed for her by an architect friend, Hugh Flockart. Being the owner-builder meant I was in charge of employing and coordinating the contractors, ordering materials and so on. It rained incessantly and the whole building site became a sea of jelly-like mud, much like the vineyard when we planted in 1974, and we couldn’t get concrete trucks in to pour the slab.

  The plan had evolved, as a compromise, that I would bring the original Kingower house up to an acceptable standard for it to be run as a bed-and-breakfast (B&B), catering for two couples. Cliff and Marg Stubbs were coming up from Melbourne to live there and run the accommodation facilities I had built into the place—two new rooms for guests and another ensuite incorporated. Cliff had always wanted to be involved in winemaking and Marg was keen to do the B&B, so they were an ideal couple to work with us and also to live at the house. If they could run the cellar door and Cliff could perform some winemaking duties, then I would have some time with my young family and also do some recently neglected sales trips to Melbourne and interstate. Importantly, I also needed to be able to spend some time with Sebastian, still jackarooing, and shamefully neglected by me, as I had hardly been able to see him since Ondine’s death.

  Eventually the rain stopped long enough for us to pour the slab at Sue’s Kingower house, having first put down 30 cubic metres of gravel to give the concrete trucks access. I remember saying to myself at the time, ‘I don’t know what a nervous breakdown is, but I think I’m having one.’ By 1991 Sue’s house was finally finished. My and Julien’s house at 2 Ruthven Street in Daylesford was as finished as it was going to be for quite some time, and Cliff and Marg moved in at Kingower. It had been a busy two years.

  So the children grew—Cameron at school virtually over the road from our house, Jesse at a nearby crèche. Julien was working in Daylesford with her network of social worker mates, Sue had settled in at Kingower managing the administration and sales, and Cliff and Marg were handling their side of things.

  Somehow it worked, although for me it meant the drive to Kingower and back every day, 100 kilometres each way, or on the days I was going to Melbourne, 100 kilometres each way the other way. We bought a little Alfasud second-hand from our friend Bill Purton, who still clearly remembers the test drive around Melbourne’s Yarra Boulevard at night. That little red machine became a familiar sight to many people along the route. After Maldon the roads were wide and deserted and while it might be economical to drive at 100–110 kilometres per hour, if called upon it could easily top 170 and often had to do so to meet a deadline—usually to be back at Daylesford before 6 p.m. when Cameron was put to bed. It often carried sixteen cases of wine, too, as I’d use it for deliveries on the way down to Melbourne and at towns on the way home to Daylesford.

  9

  Musk and more

  A sprig of cherry blossom

  But for her persistence, Miwako would never have worked with us at all. In 2002 she came to us via a circuitous route. She first made a phone enquiry, and Sue told me that a Japanese girl wanted to work in the winery for vintage; the concept of a non-English-speaking Japanese girl working in the winery sounded bizarre to me, and rudely I let it go. But after Sue reminded me another two or three times over the next few weeks—‘Your Japanese girlfriend rang again’—I decided at least to contact her. With limited English she convinced me of her enthusiasm; but it was her competence I was concerned about.

  It transpired that she was learning English from Cecilia, a friend of Richard Thomas, an old mate and maker of some exquisite commercial and some feral experimental cheeses, so I had to do my best for her. It’s a long way to come for a job interview so I suggested she pack some clothes and come up prepared to stay a week, and if things worked out well she could complete the vintage.

  I’ve always appreciated having a female working in the winery. For more than a decade, Vanessa Buck has worked every vintage for a weekend or two, and other women have come and gone for short spells, though unfortunately none of them have been there long enough to learn what happens on a daily basis and be ahead of the job. I have found women to be generally neater, tidier, better organised, and often with more staying power, than men.

  Lacking a woman’s natural caution in the face of large inanimate and barely understood objects, men can get themselves into all sorts of trouble in the winery. They want to take over, they want to push that button, or roll that barrel out of the way, or take on any masculine challenge, but they do not always want to coil that hose neatly when they’ve finished. Men, sometimes desperately, want to do what the winemaker is doing and as soon as the winemaker goes to answer the phone they jump to it without realising that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

  Of course, there are exceptions to this perception of men. If you watch a group of Balinese men harvesting coconuts, you see them all working as a harmonious unit. One man goes up a tree and cuts the branches that have to be removed, then begins to drop the fruit in earnest. The men on the ground keep clear and work a few trees behind him, cutting the slots in the coconut so that they can be strapped into bundles, carrying the bundles, and generally doing less dramatic jobs. When the climber stops to have a drink of coconut milk, or to eat some of the flesh, none of the others try to scamper up the tree and take his job. In Australia, they couldn’t wait to get up there and make fools of themselves and possibly break something—their necks, for instance. Women tend to work in the same way as those Balinese coconut harvesters, so there is often less tension when they are working in the winery.

  I won’t forget the day, in 1982 in the early years of the winery, when we finished picking grenache grapes, of which we had only a tiny patch of 250 vines. I was wishing aloud that there had been a bit more fruit, worrying there wouldn’t be enough to make up the amount for a full barrel. Ondine had been picking with the others and it had been hot work in the sun—in fact, I was leaving the grapes to cool for a bit before crushing them. I noticed that she was not there with the others and felt a twinge of annoyance that she hadn’t told me she was going (for a wash or swim or whatever). The others were having after-work drinks and chats when Ondine reappeared, saying, ‘I’ve got some more grapes for you, Poon.’ We took the ute to collect them. By going over the last rows and gleaning bunches the pickers had missed, she had filled three more 10-litre buckets. Staying power!

  Anyway, Miwako, aged about twenty-six, joined us in 2002. But we immediately hit a hurdle. After collecting her from the bus at Inglewood we had returned to Kingower—and to Bruno doing his golden retriever welcome. He was little more than a pup then and frolicked up to us, wagging his tail. Miwako shrieked and jumped back into the ute. This, I thought, is all I need, a woman who is terrified of dogs. At Passing Clouds—dog heaven—sometimes as many as seven canines appear on the weekend. It transpired that she had been bitten by a dog as a child and had been scared of them ever since. She had to be mollified and I had to show her how harmless Bruno was, until finally she timorously touched him. Twenty hours later he was sleeping in her bedroom, and later when she would practise driving after work in the old Telecom utility, she would take him with her in the passenger seat where he would sit up, tongue lolling happily, for all the world as if he was being taken for a joyride by his girlfriend. They had become the best mates imaginable.

  We gave Miwako the ‘Sebastian Suite’, a bedroom with ensuite originally built as Sebastian’s room, and she quickly settled into the lifestyle. This was basically have breakfast and start work at 7.30 or 8 a.m., then until about coffee time plunge vats (as they are twice daily to force the hard cap of pips and skins down, to mix with the liquid wine beneath), take readings for temperature, baumé and pH, and adjust the cooling as required. This is ideally a two-person job, for the cooling coil an
d its associated hoses are heavy with liquid.

  Miwako proved quite capable of all that. She was meticulous at taking readings and recording them on the whiteboard, which was soon set up with absolute symmetry; for instance, where I had ruled lines she now had carefully cut tapes to divide the various columns. She was quite a solid girl, not the sylphlike creature that Sue had possibly imagined, but she was agile enough to get up on top of the vats, so I was able to leave the plunging to her and ready ourselves for pressing, or whatever else was on the agenda for the day. She became an extremely dependable assistant.

  She and Sue got on increasingly well, too, and I had to be careful about sending her to Sue’s house for anything as Sue would keep her talking for as long as possible. By this time Sue’s sister Jill had moved from Coff’s Harbour into an extension she’d had built onto Sue’s house. It suited Jill well, for she could not only help her sister but also be geographically closer to her daughter in Melbourne and her friends in South Australia and Victoria.

  Miwako was loyal and cooperative, but she slowly and insidiously began to change my living pattern. It started with breakfast. Sue and Jill, or ‘the sisters’, as they were known, always kept hens so we had sufficient fresh eggs for breakfast daily. I would get up around 7.20 a.m. (at that time we were starting work at eight), and make breakfast for us both. Miwako began coming to the kitchen earlier and earlier until one morning I came out and she had already cooked breakfast. The eggs were poached to perfection, but the plate had the addition of very finely chopped straws of carrot and radish, a touch of green wasabi and a dab of chilli sauce, so the plate was beautifully presented, like a painting. Every day from then on there were slight variations, each worthy of a photograph.