Unsurprisingly within this cool environment, which encompasses a multitude of hills and valleys, are pockets of vineyards that are creating exquisite, modern styles of Australian wine. Yet, despite the obvious potential and some brilliant wines, for many the Macedon, surprisingly, remains an unknown.
The lack of any one strong brand driving the region’s fortunes certainly doesn’t help. And if the truth be told, no big company would even consider large-scale plantings here – the challenges are just too great and the yields low. But for those vignerons that identify the right site and then put their heart and soul into grafting a quality product, there are tremendous rewards. To date, the best known wines of the Macedon have been the local pinot noirs and chardonnays from the likes of Curly Flat and Bindi, with others such as Lanes End and Paramoor also showing promise. And there is still an Aladdin’s cave of potential sites yet to be explored; it seems more than likely that the quality of product in the Macedon is destined to go from strength to strength over the next decade or two.
Recently at the Macedon Show I was again reminded that, while pinot noir and chardonnay have driven the region’s fortunes to date, the region also has a knack of consistently turning out some of Australia’s greatest Sparkling wines. In the old days that may not have meant so much but from cool mainland regions, today lead by the Macedon, as well as Tasmania, more and more locally produced wines are really challenging the quality of fine French Champagne. The Macedon in particular instils in its best wines a delicacy and purity of acidity that is remarkably reminiscent of fine French bubbly. This is not completely surprising in that vineyards in both the Macedon and Champagne are some of the coolest for these varieties globally which gives the resulting wines their much-praised elegance while keeping intact a rigid core of acidity.
At the 2009 Macedon show, two sparkling wines, in particular, really impressed, and both from the same producer. The first was the Mount William Blanc de Blanc from 2001, a sparkling chardonnay that is still remarkably fresh and vibrant for its age, with bottle aged sweet brioche complexity just starting to build in the mouth while finishing fine and long. And the second is the Mount William ‘Jorja Alexis’ Pinot Noir Rosé from 2003, a very pretty and subtle wine with multiple layers of red berry fruit with subtle earthy nuances in a supremely balanced and silky package.
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