COUNTRY wine blooms with creative ingredients SARAH HUDSON reports
Fancy a drop of raspberry, herb or rose petal wine? A small band of wine-makers are ignoring grape wines and commercial-scale productions to bottle the tastes of the country.
- WINE GROUPS
- Amateur winemaking groups include:
- Eltham and District Winemakers Guild. The guild's annual show, the largest in the state, is held each November.
www.amateurwine.org.au/ - Frankston Amateur Winemakers Guild www.fawg.org.au
- Mountain and District Amateur Winemakers Group. Phone (03) 9877 7347 or email: jdshort@netlink.com.au
- Wodonga Winemakers Guild. Phone 0400 934 334
To devoted quaffers, wine making is an amateur hobby - done purely for personal joy.
Amateur wine making groups are keeping traditional skills of country wine making alive.
It's an ancient craft that dates back centuries throughout Europe and the UK, country wines abandon the grape-only variety for fruits, vegetables, flowers, grains, herbs and even, yes, wine made from leather, fruit cake or sardines.
And it is thanks to these amateur groups that a renaissance in country wines is gaining considerable popularity around Victoria.
President of the Eltham and District Winemakers Guild Spencer Field says amateurs are pushing the concept of what exactly makes a perfect drop, with the delicious and the weird emerging from this experimentation.
"We have one member who made a wine out of an old leather belt."
"I can't make any claims about how wonderful it was to taste. It was humourous, just to demonstrate that you could make wine out of anything.
"We also had a member make a fruit cake wine, and yes, it tasted of fruit cake.
"One creative lady at a show made sardine wine but the judge refused to judge it. He said he could smell it without taking the cork off."
More seriously, guild members regularly make wine out of any number of fruit, whether it's raspberries, pears, or apples, as well as herbs.
A stinging nettle variety is not uncommon and there's also been a grass version at the Eltham and District Winemakers Guild.
Vegetable wines have even included turnips. Traditional mead, or honey wine, is popular as is flower wine.
"Rose petal wine can be one of the most strikingly beautiful wines," Spencer says.
Spencer, who lives in St Andrews and has just finished a batch of carrot wine and a grain barley variety, says the tradition of country wine dates back centuries.
"We have members who were born and raised in Europe and the UK who are very aware of country wines."
David Hart, the president of the Frankston Amateur Winemakers Guild, says he became involved in amateur wine making in the '90s when he was given excess produce from neighbouring farms.
"I was given buckets and buckets of apples and pears," says David, who lives at Bittern on the Mornington Peninsula.
"I like to make pickles, jams and relishes but the quantities were so big I went down to my local home-brew shop and got some crude recipes for country wines."
David then joined the guild and scoured the internet for recipes, even using cider recipes dating back to the 1800s cookery writer, Mrs Beeton.
He says country wines require more skill to make and a more deft palate to taste than grape wine.
"Grapes have all the ingredients in them, the acid, the sugar, the tannins. When you're making country wine they are all different and so you have to be very tuned to the taste. You can't just add sugar, water and flowers, you may need to add acids and tannins and even sultanas to bring out the flavours," David says.
"It's more of a skill, more of a craft (than grape winemaking). Those that are successful at it pick up on these things.
"We had one chap who had made geranium wine but it was over-powering and so he blended it with raspberry and then it was great and won a series of awards."
Spencer says country wines are judged and tasted the same as grape wine.
"What you are really looking for is what you'd look for in any wine. It's got to taste like the material its made from, if it's grapefruit, then it's got to have the basic characteristics of citrus," Spencer says.
"From that you look for the front, middle and end palate and the balance of acidity and then the length as it goes down the throat.
"The longer it lingers the better. If the flavour dies away it's not judged so well."
Spencer says because amateur wine making is done on a smaller scale compared to commercial wineries, there is no need for large and expensive amounts of equipment.
Firstly the product needs to be mashed, skins removed or pith grated.
Wine makers then require sterilisers, yeast, sugars and acids.
And a range of varying sized large containers, or demijohns, are required to siphon and rack the juice until it becomes clearer.
A hydrometer will ensure the right levels of sugars.
"It's quite easy. Where the skill comes in is ensuring the fruit is picked at the right time and is top quality, and then getting the right balance. You've got to have the right skill and knowledge, the right palate, to know what to add and what to adjust."
Joining a guild or amateur winemaking group is the best place to start for anyone interested in the hobby.
Guilds offer guest speakers, workshops and equipment and even have farming contacts to supply large quantities of fruit and vegetables.
Annual winetasting shows offer judging and feedback to fine-tune skills, Spencer says.
"The wine show is the only event members get competitive and it is for glory in the main. Very few members go on to turn professional. This is relatively rare," he says.
David, who has 350 grape vines on 1ha, admits commercial wine makers think amateur groups are "eccentric".
"Professional wine makers think we are mad because they use vats with thousands of litres of wine while we make five litres or up to 50 litres."
He says he has contemplated making commercial wines but says "it would be a big leap forward".
"I have toyed with the idea but you've got to produce it two to three years in advance and then you've got to market it and get liquor licences," David says.
"It just gets too complicated and making wine is not a get-rich-quick scheme.
"At my age I'm not interested in starting something so demanding.
"I'm just passionate about making wine from home."
