Passing Clouds

by Graeme Leith

  With all the confusion and uncertainty it began to look as if we would be doing well to get out of everything square if we paid off our bank loans. The future was maybe rosy enough if cellar door sales were very strong. But ours, like most others, was not increasing as more wineries proliferated in the Bendigo area. Various bodies were promoting tourism in the area, which meant one and two bottle sales more often, but the days of the old Renaults or Peugeots, or the new BMWs and Mercedes, backing up to the cellar door for their dozens, had almost gone. This, perhaps, is not surprising when you can buy a new television for the cost of a case of Angel Blend, and by industry standards Passing Clouds ‘over-delivers’—that is, gives exceptional value for money.

  Wine sold through a distributor doesn’t return much, for the distributor takes 35 per cent of the price for their costs off wholesale, then sells to a shop, which then resells it at, say, 30 per cent or so mark-up—or more in the case of a restaurant. So a $100 per case wine wholesale gains the winemaker, say, $66 from the distributor and costs the consumer, say, $125. We rely on our distributor but small producers like us need a cellar door facility, too.

  After ten years of drought the cycle of dry year, wet year, and the perpetual waiting for next year to be better was not looking promising. We had sales in the United States for our Reserve Shiraz that mercifully got 92 or 93 ratings by Robert Parker and the Wine Spectator (even a 96-plus for a wine I made but didn’t particularly care for). But we were buying increasingly large parcels of fruit for that, and the supply from our near neighbours was literally drying up.

  New vineyard at Musk

  The answer, as I saw it, was to buy a property near Daylesford and plant vines there. It was close enough to be accessible to my family house at Ruthven Street, and would allow us to tap into the tourist market. Establishing a vineyard and cellar door presence there would gain us a greater percentage of the much more lucrative cellar door trade, for which we could and must charge retail price, particularly if we were to provide to a retailer of any sort.

  I believed then, and still do firmly believe, in the enthusiasm for and consequent increased market share of organically grown local produce, and I had plans for an organically grown vegetable garden and orchard, a herd of cows and a cheesery. I calculated that to produce something interesting and in demand in the food line would require a property of, say, 30 to 40 acres, with good water available.

  So in 1997 Passing Clouds bought such a property, or rather the bank did, and with extra borrowings for the purpose I started to establish another vineyard, at Musk, 6 kilometres from Daylesford, on magnificent chocolate scoria soil, with water right from the creek and the knowledge that any bore should encounter an aquifer of high-quality water. The place was at a higher altitude than I had planned on, but it faced due north and was on the northern slope of the Great Dividing Range, reaching a height of 770 metres at Wheelers Hill, to the south-west, which helped protect the site from the southerlies.

  Although I was motivated to a certain extent by sentimentality to purchase a property at Musk, having always loved that little corner of the world, the decision to set up a satellite vineyard for Passing Clouds, as opposed to anticipating and planning for retirement, was a conscious one made after much soul-searching. On the one hand I could wind down more, go fly-fishing and hiking in Tasmania (if my arthritic knees would hold out), and play golf at nearby Hepburn Springs. On the other hand, I could set up a business in which the family could share, especially if Kingower had to be sold due to continuing drought or increased financial pressure in the wine industry.

  The tantalising prospect of discovering a new, special pinot noir and chardonnay site was always there, of course. But there were many questions.

  I was hoping for an area that, like Burgundy, had a small window between adequate ripeness and the weather closing in. Tasmania was producing some of the best pinots, and Lindsay McCall on the Mornington Peninsula arguably the best in Victoria; certainly he was the winner of most trophies. But were some of the other very cool areas living up to expectations?

  I hadn’t tasted Norm Latta’s Eastern Peak for a while; his winery was 40 kilometres away from Musk and produced a cool-climate wine if ever there was one. I remembered it as having fantastic natural acidity and delicate flavours but I didn’t even know what clone the vines were. Not far down the road towards Woodend on Beacon Hill was another winery I had visited. It was a labour of love, of similar altitude to Musk, whose wines were made by Lou Knight, but where was the wine to taste?

  If the Musk fruit failed to ripen, it could be made into sparkling the following year, of course, but that costs money and to sell at what price? And how much sparkling wine at $40 per bottle can the market bear? Hanging Rock is asking a good price for its Macedon, but how much are they selling? How much is it costing to wait all those years of maturation to achieve the desired result?

  Then there were questions I asked of myself. Are my skills sufficient? Will we get enough money from the development and sale of the extra block of land in Daylesford to cover the cost of further development after the venue is established? Do I have enough determination, enough youthful enthusiasm, to establish another vineyard in a climate that is inhospitable for at least several months of the year? Will I have the support of my family?

  Many of these questions were hypothetical, and many subsequently became irrelevant, as Julien, my wife, had apparently already decided to walk out on our marriage—or, more accurately, make me walk. She was legally able to do this, as we had a son at home, Jesse, who was fourteen and a half years old and for whom she could claim carer status, because I had another place to live—the house at Kingower. So it looked as if I was headed the same way as the old man kangaroo, forced away when he was no longer required for protection or propagation. I didn’t think I was a bad husband, but I guess I must have been, in her eyes at least, and that is what mattered. I can’t have been a bad father, though, as I still seem to have the respect of my sons and, when I come to think of it, to my mind there is no reason why I shouldn’t have the respect of my now ex-wife as well.

  For Kingower the timing was good as Greg and Paige had recently departed, me having decided that as I’d completed the planting and trellising at Musk I must now let them go and return to winemaking at Kingower. The realisation that I would not be living in ‘my’ house at Daylesford again unless I had a personality transplant was devastating. It was, of course, not as obscene as losing Ondine, but there were similar elements; they had both been twenty-year projects, working with and for a thing I loved, now taken away.

  Thus there were plenty of questions and precious few answers at the time.

  In discussing the Musk project with Sue in 1996 she asked if I wasn’t perhaps spreading myself a bit thin. ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘Greg and Paige can continue handling things at Kingower with you for most of the time, and I’ll continue covering the cellar door during their holidays. Greg and I will share the eight weeks or so of vintage, and we’ll handle cellar door between us. And I can work Musk from my base at Daylesford, it’s only 6 kilometres away!’

  When it became apparent that I’d made a gigantic rod for my own back with the marriage break-up, to my relief and to her credit, Sue never said, ‘I told you so!’

  Meanwhile, Julien was occupied with her career as a social worker and associated projects—the skate park (behind which I had thrown my weight and that of a couple of friends I’d made over the years, friends who were keen to help their community; we made it work); the swimming pool sports complex; and the various intricacies of social life among the dysfunctional families with whom she was concerned in her work. Cam was studying in Melbourne, so it was possible to see him, but to see Jesse by appointment on access visits when I had spent father and son time with him on more than 300 days a year was not going to be easy for either of us.

  In planting Musk I was allowed the luxury of paying a contractor to drive in the posts, for Passing Clouds had borrowed money f
or establishment costs. I’d marked it all out and ripped it along the vine rows and put some lime/super mix into the rip lines. The posts were duly ordered and thumped in, not a demanding job as the soil was so friable and free of rock. The actual spacings gave me some grief. Conventional wisdom would have it that close planting in the French manner would be appropriate, but I was still convinced that the important thing was buds per acre rather than vines per acre. Anecdotal wisdom had it that there were usually heavy rains from thunderstorms around Christmas and it seemed to me that, given the quality and nature of the soil, my problem could be excessive vigour, so I decided on a wide spacing. This also meant that we would have a greater degree of ground cover and therefore less compaction by tractor work and fewer erosion problems on the steep slope.

  I had seen in Richard Smart and Mike Robinson’s Sunlight into Wine a photograph of a trellis system in New Zealand that controlled excess vigour. This was a two-tier system, virtually turning one row of vines into two or, if vigorous enough, four, and incidentally (although importantly to me) leaving a 2-metre wide strip under the vines, which would receive no traffic and thus resist compaction. Richard Smart came out and had a look, suggesting that if I adopted that system I should initially use one tier, then add a cane to make another arm for another tier if the excess vigour required it.

  I needn’t have bothered. It was still a local joke eight years later that they hadn’t had a proper summer rain since Graeme Leith planted his grapes on the hill. I thought I could get away without irrigation if I used ‘grow tubes’—triangular plastic tubes that fit around the young vines like miniature hothouses—in the first year, and with installation of these over the vines they fairly rocketed up, until those tender shoots poked out the top of the grow tubes—and the wind hit them and their tips shrivelled. After their cosseting in the warm and damp microclimate of the grow tubes, they did not like the real world at Musk! I’d planted a row of shelter trees on the southern boundary, but they wouldn’t become effective for at least five years.

  I gave the vines another year but the rate of growth was still poor, so I then decided to put in a trickle irrigation system. I’d had a bore put down by then and it had been successful, with superb water in an aquifer. The drill had gone through about 90 feet of topsoil then struck some scoria rock and finally at about 100 feet, a quartz plate or reef, and through that lay the aquifer of crystal clear pure water. I installed a small Honda motor and pump on that, so now I had water available, and it remained only to hook up to 6 kilometres of dripper tube into mains and sub-mains, sectioned off so 25 per cent of the vineyard could be watered at any one time by manipulating the taps. But the vines didn’t respond satisfactorily, so the next year I put an extra dripper on every vine, as it seemed that due to the porosity of the soil the water was going straight down, not spreading out to cover enough of the root system.

  Years later, in 2009, I put 1000 litres per vine on a section of the vineyard twice, a month apart in the growing season, and was barely able to detect any difference. But that was more than ten years on and several crops had been picked by then, so I’m getting ahead of myself . . .

  Bed and breakfast

  As mentioned, back in 1989 at Passing Clouds we started the B&B run by Cliff and Marg, the idea being to bring in some extra money selling more wine at the cellar door and generally amplifying the awareness and reputation of the label. It all seemed to work. But Cliff told me later, after their retirement from Passing Clouds, that although initially keen on the B&B idea, he would never run another one. He later bought Duncan McKenzie’s vineyard, one we had previously bought grapes from, and he still runs it now with Maureen, his current partner, as Burnt Acre vineyard in recognition of a fire they had there once.

  After Cliff and Marg left, Fay Roberts, a great cook and hostess, moved into the house and ran the B&B. Her daughter was the partner of a hiking and fishing mate of mine and when they brought Fay up to visit and she found there was a job going, running the B&B, she was very interested. She’d been raising children in the suburbs and reckoned she needed a change. She’d been brought up with some back-to-nature people in Nimbin and relished the idea of living close to the bush, growing some veggies and being hostess to paying guests interested in wine and food.

  Her husband was supposed to live at Passing Clouds with her, but he was more wedded to his suburban lifestyle, so she left him to it. I’d often see her in the mornings and ask her how things were going. She’d often reply, ‘Oh, just another day in paradise, really, Graeme.’

  The population of Kingower increased by one when a chap named Clark came to live at Fishlock’s, a pretty much ruined cottage over the road from the Gilmores’ hotel. Clark had been a jockey but his inability or reluctance to endure the constant rigours of weight loss before races entitled him to the epithet of ‘the fat jockey’. He had obviously done some other things before coming to a life of anonymity at Kingower. As he needed work, and I needed a lot of holes dug for the footings of a new shed to cater for our increasing stocks of wine, I employed him part-time as a labourer, and he helped me in the winery as well. One morning I was working in the winery, waiting for Clark to come to work, but he didn’t show up. From the winery I thought I could see his dog over at Faye’s place, so I went over and knocked on her door. She answered and I asked if she knew where Clark was and she professed not to know. I looked pointedly at the pair of boots on the ground outside the door. ‘Well, his dog’s here and his boots are here, would you mind going inside and looking under the dining room table and if you find him tell him to come to bloody work!’ He turned up a little bedraggled, about ten minutes later.

  One week he became quite agitated. He kept looking from the winery up the road to over at his shack, and I asked him what was up. It transpired that an old acquaintance of his, who had just been released from jail, was under the impression that Clark owed him something and might come looking for it.

  A couple of days later, returning from town in the orange ute, I observed a car outside Clark’s place and a physical altercation being conducted under the verandah. I diverted and pulled up at Clark’s. Coincidentally I had just bought a new pick-handle, among other things, and thought I might take it with me and join the discussion. Clark was being shoved around pretty seriously by the big guy who, when I approached, pick-handle at my side, decided that the odds had turned against him and retreated to his car, yelling threats at Clark, including that he’d be back to get him. Clark told me later that police in Melbourne had apprehended the man with a rifle in a sugar bag, but he had managed to get himself into a psychiatric institution and, when the heat was off, discharged himself.

  In any case he reappeared in Kingower, but by then his target had gone to live at a mate’s place elsewhere in the district. I saw the grey Valiant cruising around and made sure my rifle had bullets in it. That night Geoffrey Graham and his family were disturbed by what sounded like gunfire between their place and ours, and rather than investigate they sensibly rang the police, who found the burned-out Valiant crashed into a tree. It had caught fire and those ‘gunshots’ had been its tyres exploding! The man, fortunately, was never seen again by any of us at Kingower.

  However, Clark and his mate used to reappear, sometimes after having taken something recreational, and they’d terrorise Faye to the extent that she rang me at Daylesford very early one morning to say they were at her house and wouldn’t leave. I drove up there as quickly as I could and dealt with it. But Faye was spooked and soon relinquished the B&B, moving to a little cottage at nearby Rheola that was quieter (at least until Faye got there).

  Jill Bartlett was the next to run the B&B. She had wanted a break from the city where she had a house. She also had a block of land at Euroa, where she was planning to build a house later on, so she was getting a taste of country life in a similar geophysical area. Again we all became good friends, and again, because the house was dedicated to the B&B, when I overnighted there I slept in a caravan behind the tasting r
oom so I had access to toilets and hot water.

  I was sometimes joined by the family during vintage. One night as we sat around the campfire by the caravan, we saw a car entering the driveway. The driver, having seen our fire, had come to us distraught, for a ute had run off the road and hit a tree in the bush; the engine was roaring and the lights were still on but he could not see the driver. I drove up to the crash site and stalled the motor of the wrecked ute and looked around, finally finding the body of our neighbour and good friend Merv Gilmore, husband of Bev and father of Mark, Karen and Narelle. It was an awful tragedy; he must have swerved to avoid a kangaroo and lost control on a bend there. It was a sad funeral, indeed.

  Merv had been a friend for a long time and, as an accomplished storyteller, he had often regaled us with humorous anecdotes of the old days of Kingower. Once when I was pruning and miles from reality in my mind, I was startled to see a movement beside me in the vines. It was Mervyn. He looked at me seriously then said, ‘I want to shake your hand.’ Perplexed, I held out my hand. ‘All these years we’ve been laughing at you—we didn’t think you could do it. But you’ve proved us wrong.’ He tilted his head towards me and walked away.

  Expanding production

  It was about that time in 1996 that I decided we had better expand production, finish with the B&B and concentrate on winemaking. So that was where Greg and Paige came in. During 1998, after their year in barrel and year in bottle, we sold the ’96 wines but still only got wages out of it, so that was when I let Greg and Paige go and returned to Kingower to take over the winemaking again, spent some borrowed money on better equipment to reduce the labour input, and tried to upgrade the quality to the point where we could raise prices and make the place produce more than wages.