Passing Clouds

by Graeme Leith

  Well, before I know it the afternoon’s gone and it’s time to pick Sebastian up. I usually like to have a stroll around Inglewood in the afternoons so I just nip out of the car for a minute or two while we’re waiting for the bus. Sue gets furious if I don’t get back on time—I often hear her and Sebastian yelling but I don’t take the slightest bit of notice. They always wait until I turn up in my own good time, they know what a lot of extra work and worry there’d be at Passing Clouds if I weren’t there! Then of course it’s almost dinnertime as soon as we get back to Kingower.

  After dinner I usually watch Graeme split the wood and light the fires. I especially watch him lighting my potbelly and make sure he does it properly. I mean, a stove is only good if it’s well stoked, I say. Would you believe that the other night he forgot to stoke it right up before he went to bed? I woke up freezing at five o’clock in the morning. Luckily, there was Graeme’s Aquascutum crombie lambswool sports coat on the back of my couch and I was able to tug it down on top of me, so between it and the feather eiderdown I survived the rest of the night somehow. But really! I mean, a girl needs all the sleep she can get with a workload like mine, wouldn’t you agree, Oni?

  Look, Oni, I must dash, I can smell peanuts; Graeme is obviously raiding my packet out there in the kitchen again, I’d better go out there and get my share; Days of Our Lives isn’t much good today anyhow. All the very best to you, my dear Ondine, look after yourself. I don’t know if I’ll see you next in Melbourne or up here at Passing Clouds. I really don’t think I can leave them to their own devices up here; I mean, without a girl to look after them, where would they be?

  All the best, dear.

  Auntie Argen.

  Bruno

  Our next winery dog, Bruno, was a golden retriever. He’d been given to Cameron for Christmas, I think in 1997. Cameron and I had returned from a hiking and fly-fishing trip to Tasmania to find a beribboned box on the floor and a card ‘To Cameron from Mum and Dad’, and inside a lovely little six-week-old pup. In fact, Dad knew nothing about it. Youngest son Jesse and their mum, Julien, had cooked it up between them.

  A few names were suggested. There was a schmaltzy film showing at the time about a golden retriever named Napoleon, and I could see that, or maybe Goldie, coming up as the name, so commented that the pup was darker in colour than many others of his kind, that indeed he had a touch of brown to him, and so he was named Bruno. He now has the perfect wheaten colour that the breed is supposed to have, and the name Bruno suits him admirably, and one doesn’t mind yelling out ‘Here, Bruno!’, whereas to yell ‘Here, Napoleon!’, or ‘Here, Goldie!’, would demand a greater resistance to embarrassment than the master could muster.

  After the Christmas holidays when the boys were back at school and the wife to work, I would be alone with Bruno. On the days we’d stay in Daylesford I’d go to the gym early and we’d then take that beautiful, magical walk down from the lake, past the waterfall beside the creek to Twin Bridges, then cross the creek redolent of mint and mineral water, where you could see the trout and eat the blackberries in season, then return along the opposite bank, surely one of the best little walks in the world. With Bruno as my companion and Greg Bennett looking after the wine at Kingower, I was a happy man, indeed.

  Sometimes we’d go to Kingower, to Passing Clouds, sometimes to Melbourne, and sometimes to Musk where I was establishing the new vineyard and where there were all manner of things to bark at. There were rabbits and birds; cows were a particular favourite for they would come up to the fence from curiosity and if the dog made a concerted rush at the fence they could actually be pressured into running a few paces away, a very satisfactory result. The jet planes overhead were always worth a bark. As was the Sunday tourist train, a diesel electric modernistic space-age ‘Buck Rogers’ machine when I was a teenager, now a reconstituted vintage curiosity—how long life really is from that point of view! But the best thing of all was the rail trolley that just revealed the upper torsos of the riders as they chugged along behind the shrubbery at the lower boundary of the vineyard—the sight of that would send Bruno into a barking fit.

  At one point it became apparent to me that some rabbits would have to be eliminated from the Musk vineyard, for they were damaging the young vines—the Lagrein (which in retrospect I wish they had, indeed, eaten for they never performed well at Musk). But lacking the wisdom of hindsight, I put the rifle into the ute with Bruno in his customary place on the back seat and we headed off to Musk in the gloaming. I shot a ‘sitter’ right away and in a flash Bruno was out of the ute window and with a quick snap of his teeth delivered the coup de grâce to the doomed creature. He then sat there with the rabbit in his jaws, looking slightly surprised at this sudden turn of events, having conformed to his destiny and connected with the purpose for which he was bred, instinctively and unknowingly.

  From that moment on, it was not possible to touch a gun or rifle without sending him into a frenzy of excitement. He could be asleep two rooms away yet the tiny click of a safety catch going off would have him at your feet in an instant, panting and barking with anticipation. He once destroyed a door that was in his way when he realised that I was out shooting kangaroos, leaving him imprisoned—but not for long! To the surprise of people taking photographs at the cellar door, the telephoto lens on their cameras would elicit the same response from Bruno, and I never managed to train it out of him—but then, I didn’t try too hard, either.

  At Daylesford he was never chained, and it was a joy to see him spot a rabbit or fox from our balcony above the lake, to see him cover that 200 metres or so of rough country to the shore of the lake within seconds. But as a young dog he was constantly escaping, on weekdays over the road and up the hill from the house to the school, where his presence would be indicated by a rising swell of shrieks and screams from the children at play as Bruno joined in the game, offering his own variations to the activity—quite embarrassingly at times.

  On weekends he’d scent the food being cooked along the main street of Daylesford and if any gate or garage door was open he’d be off. When we noticed he was missing, it was a race to retrieve him before some smarty with a mobile phone rang the shire council and the dogcatcher was alerted. There were some close calls, and once the dogcatcher beat me to the criminal. But usually a short drive up the main street would reveal Bruno’s presence by that magnificent tail waving above the lattes as he was petted and fed by adoring ladies. Sometimes when people at the tasting room say, ‘Hasn’t he got a wonderful nature?’ the response from me is, ‘Well, if every second person you met in life said you were beautiful you’d probably find it not too hard to have a good nature.’

  Once on a beach holiday I was surprised that Jesse and his mate were always wanting to take Bruno for a walk; being teenagers, they were generally disinclined to show much consideration for other humans or animals. But when they’d return Bruno and head off with pretty girls, it was obvious—retrievers are the best chick magnets ever! I recalled the time I’d taken Bruno as a pup to the beach and was mobbed by nubile surfie chicks desperate to touch him. When he heard children at the cellar door he’d be over as quick as he could, although in the last few years it was women’s voices that attracted him most and he unashamedly lay on his back with his legs in the air, hoping for a tickle, which he usually got, for he was as much a chick magnet as ever. And this despite his arthritis, which we kept at bay by adding to his food a magical preparation made from shark cartilage and green-lipped mussel.

  Postscript: Bruno went the way of all flesh in 2012, at the grand age of fifteen years. As I write this I’m still grappling with how much it hurts.

  Nillo

  Cameron has recently become the master of a kelpie pup, so it appears that Nillo will become the next Passing Clouds dog. He is a lot like Susie’s dog, Bob the kelpie, who used to come to work with her at Kingower. Nillo and Bruno became great mates but caused us much consternation, for at one stage they were disappearing for four or five hours at a
time. There were no sheep nearby so we had no worries on that score but we never found out where they went—secret dog’s business, we can only assume! Nillo doesn’t seem to be a wanderer; he doesn’t stray far from his tennis balls for which he has a passion bordering on the obsessive. The young Nillo and the ageing Bruno became good friends at Musk when I would go there to work, Nillo very keen to play but Bruno increasingly more inclined to rest.

  Recently Nillo had a near-death experience after eating some fermented grape pressings that were toxic to him, causing him kidney failure. The agonising wait for the outcome reinforced for all of us how much human beings can love dogs.

  Resting in Perugia, 1961.

  Vosje.

  My mother, Mavis Jessie Leith, with Sebastian, c. 1965.

  Ondine and Sebastian, MacKenzie Falls, Grampians, Victoria.

  Ondine and Sebastian, 1970.

  Ondine and I planting vegetables at Kingower, 1975.

  Sebastian and I with organically grown vegetables, 1978.

  Sue with Protos and Amy.

  Ondine, Protos and friends.

  The original Kingower winery in 1982.

  The exterior rear wall of the kitchen, Kingower, 1980s.

  The original laboratory, Kingower, 1984.

  Ondine at Nancy Sawyer’s house. Nancy was Rod Parker’s mother.

  Sue and Ondine in the Kingower kitchen, 1983.

  Winery assistant, Stefano De Pieri, now a celebrity chef, in 1984.

  Ondine and Sebastian at the Kingower tasting room on Boxing Day, 1984—the day before Ondine was killed.

  Winemaking in Burgundy, 1985.

  Catching up on paperwork, with Bridgewater, 1987.

  Sue with François and Anne Marie, France, 1985.

  Sue and friends on her electric tricycle, 1990s.

  Picking the grapes at Kingower, 1990.

  The nearly ‘All-girl Foot-stomping Team’ with Mark Gilmore, the proud father of two of the girls, 2004.

  Jill McFarlane, Sue’s sister, and Virginia Trioli (right) cooling down.

  Susie McDonald and I finishing netting the vineyard at Musk with Bob the kelpie and Bruno.

  Miwako Mizukami at Kingower.

  The Passing Clouds tasting room.

  My eldest son, Sebastian, with his daughter Ella. The clay bust on the right is one I sculpted in 1961 and gave to Vosje’s mother, who then gave it to her grandson before she died in 2010.

  With my two younger sons, Cameron (left) and Jesse. ANTHONY WEBSTER, IMAGINE PICTURES

  Glossary of terms

  Acetification The production of acetic acid in a wine that is caused by acetobacter. It can be prevented by good cellar hygiene and the use of inert gas and sulphur dioxide.

  Acetobacter Basically, the bacteria that turn sound wine into vinegar.

  Acid An essential component of wine. The main naturally occurring acids in grapes are tartaric and malic but there are many more, from caffeic and chlorogenic to shikimic and succinic—if one wants to get pedantic. Generally, if the must is found to be deficient in acid, it is added as tartaric, the principal acid of ripe grapes and no other fruit. Acidity (fixed) is the acidity of the combined acids—that is, malic, tartaric, citric, etc. which is measured by titration. Acidity (real) is the degree or intensity of a must’s or a wine’s acidity which is measured as pH. Acidity (total) is the overall acidity of a wine from combined and volatile acids.

  Acidification The increase of acidity in a must or wine either by the addition of acids, or by infection from spoilage micro-organisms.

  Aldehydic Wine that has succumbed to the influence of a group of chemical compounds, products of the partial oxidation of alcohol. There are various forms, many of which have their own odour, ranging from the pleasant to the very unpleasant.

  (In) Balance In must, where all the components—acid, sugar and tannin—are in the right proportions to produce a harmonious wine; in a finished wine, where the alcohol, tannins, acids and flavours combine harmoniously.

  Barrels Wooden casks for the maturation of wine. They come in an almost bewildering range of timbers from different forests from different parts of the world. The sizes are traditional, the most common being barriques of 220 litres, hogsheads of 300 litres and puncheons of almost 500 litres. They can be ‘toasted’ to various degrees by the application of flame to the interior. Thus the permutations are many and varied, and the winemaker chooses the type they consider appropriate for the wine being made.

  Baumé It was French pharmacist Antoine Baumé who in 1768 gave his name to the scale that measures the total dissolved solids in grape juice, which gives an approximate concentration of grape sugar content, which in turn gives an indication of the end alcohol level of a wine if it is fermented to dryness. Thus, for example, 12 degrees baumé in a must fermented to complete dryness would produce 12 per cent alcohol by volume.

  Bentonite A clay consisting mainly of montmorillonite (hydrated silicate of magnesium). It has an unusual ability to combine with unstable proteins and precipitate them from the wine, as well as tremendous swelling properties that serves it well in its role of fining and protein-stabilising wines.

  Blister mite Otherwise known as erinose mite, it lives in colonies in the grape vine leaf, causing lumps or blisters on its surface. These are unsightly and if unchecked can debilitate the vine. The normal sulphur sprays used to combat powdery mildew are usually sufficient to control it, but if systemic sprays are used rather than the traditional sulphur the colonies can become invasive and require the use of miticides, an unpleasant option.

  Brettanomyces One of the yeast genera sometimes found on grapes and in wines. It is usually seen as a spoilage product as it produces off flavours in wines, but at low levels it can sometimes be seen to enhance the flavours of red wine. It is considered an undesirable resident in the cellar and scrupulous hygiene seems to be its enemy. When it inhabits the barrels in a winery the only cure might be to replace the entire barrel storage with new wood.

  Budburst That time of the year in spring when the overwintered buds burst forth into leaf, heralding the new vintage.

  Burgundy (red) A dry, full-bodied table wine of superb colour, with an alcohol content usually around 12–13 per cent. The grape variety is almost invariably pinot noir. The tannins are not harsh and the wines are usually ready to drink in about five years, but in many cases will last much longer than this. As with the chardonnays, they seem to mature better if the grapes have sufficient natural acid, so that no additions have to be made. This is largely the reason for the Passing Clouds Musk vineyard being located where it is. In France, quite often the grapes don’t ripen enough for them to ferment to an acceptable level of alcohol, so sugar is progressively added to the ferments.

  Burgundy (white) A dry, full-bodied, firm, even flinty table wine that is a pale to medium straw colour, in which there is often a touch of green. It is usually ready for drinking after two or three years in cask and bottle. The finest wines are of superb character and individuality and easily earn their title as the best white wines in the world. They are made only from chardonnay grapes and seem to benefit from a climate that is only just warm enough to ripen them fully.

  Cap When pulp is present in a must that is fermenting, the gas forms in bubbles around the solid matter and lifts it to the top of the fermentation. There it forms into a solid layer that floats on the top of the liquid with a large proportion above the surface. This layer of pulp is known as the ‘cap’. It is essential that this cap be frequently plunged and broken up so that the pulp is submerged in order to (among other things) obtain the maximum extraction and to prevent the growth of contaminants. Of those few wineries that do hand-plunge, most do it at least twice daily, and that is what we consider appropriate at Passing Clouds with our shiraz and cabernets.

  Carbon dioxide (CO2) The gas given off during fermentation is carbon dioxide or CO2. Of any given quantity of sugar, approximately 47 per cent is converted into CO2 during fermentation and 48 per cent into a
lcohol. Although CO2 promotes plant growth, it is now generally held to be an evil and villainous thing, and it is quite possible that one day soon people will come to our vineyards with CO2 meters and calculators to establish how much tax we will have to pay for our CO2 emissions! Then, logically, they’d have to be followed by yet more officials wielding oxygen meters and calculators to establish how much oxygen was being returned to the atmosphere from our growing vines . . .

  Clone Vegetatively reproduced plants from one superior parent plant, selected to grow fruit with better flavours, larger crops, greater resistance to disease, etc.

  Cork taint An unfortunate odour derived from cork 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole, which taints wine that has been bottled with it.

  Destemmed The stems removed from a bunch of grapes, almost invariably with the use of a machine that employs an Archimedean screw to fling the stems out the end, leaving behind the (usually) crushed grapes.

  Diam A manufactured cork product, cleansed of 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole, a substitute for natural cork.

  Diammonium phosphate Common nitrogen-rich yeast nutrient that is often added to must during fermentation to avoid the production of hydrogen sulphide.

  Downy mildew Debilitating mildew is always associated with tropical-type weather. A rough rule of thumb is 10 millilitres rain, a minimum of 10 degrees Celsius, with wet leaves for 24 hours, all of which provide ideal conditions for primary infection. Downy mildew can virtually destroy a crop in 24 hours. A preventative spray is copper or one of many systemics.