THERE’S a bloke in South Australia’s Clare Valley, a grape grower, his name is Martin Smith; apparently he’s over 65 but to talk to him you wouldn’t know it.
He’s a giant of a man; come to think of it, it’s not that he’s overly tall, it’s more of a presence thing. He has this languid rolling gait as he comes to meet me, gaze piercing from under his dust-laden Akubra, big hoary old mitt thrust out to shake my hand.
He seems to have grown out of the ground – part man, part tree root, like something conjured from the mind of Banjo Patterson. I could tell straight away he’d been working this land all his life.
Martin’s 25-hectare vineyard is in the heart of the Polish Hill sub-region of the Clare Valley.
He’s a curmudgeonly old bloke, greeting me curtly as I rolled on to his patch of dirt. It’s not that Martin is a disagreeable fellow, he just isn’t one to waste time on unnecessary things like exuberant greetings, smiling, or anything that might get in the way of him getting back to work. He grows riesling for David O’Leary and his partner Nick Walker to put under their O’Leary Walker label.
In January 2009 the Clare Valley experienced the heatwave to end all heatwaves – it was 10 days of 40 degree-plus temperatures that usually bodes ill for the wilting vines in the firing line. Martin, of course, had a very strong opinion about the effect of that heat. He spoke about the considerable amount of rain they saw in December ’08, how it soaked in to the ground and gave the vines a weapon to combat the baking sun.
He spoke about how this timely rainfall held off veraison – a term used for the beginning of the fruit ripening process on the vine – which meant that when the heat hit, the vines simply shut down and didn’t adversely affect the vintage.
It was pretty interesting to watch this taciturn trunk of a man transform as he talked about his land, bending down, running soil through his hands to illustrate his point, enthusing in a proud, fatherly sort of way about the resilience of his beloved vines. I felt like I was intruding a bit in to his private and intimate world, privileged to experience this connection.
Later in the day as we stood at the O’Leary Walker winery tasting its ’09 Polish Hill Riesling, I felt much more connected to the this clear, bright and heady brew, I had shared the difficult journey of getting grape juice in to bottle and so it was more than simply drinking a glass of wine – I had become part of the story.
Ask any wine retailer and they’ll tell you that people don’t buy wine for wine’s sake; they buy the idea of wine, the story behind it. There’s a romance surrounding a good bottle, the idea of working the land, manipulating the vagaries of season to capture and bottle.
Growers like David O’Leary and Nick Walker single-mindedly pursue excellence, avidly chasing one particular smell or texture that might enhance their product. These wine enhancements are usually at great expense and probably only really discernable to the people who make the product and a few wine professionals, not necessarily those of us who buy it.
We know they love their wine, so that’s enough for us.
You can’t get to know these people, hear these stories, from the back of a label in a wine store. Your retailer might tell you about a trip they had but it’s not the same. Go to as many wine tastings as you like but the best way to live this adventure that is the Australian wine industry is to get down to a vineyard or winery, anywhere that produces wine and meet the people. Their passion and energy will seep in to you, you will learn more about wine in half a day surrounded by these energetic characters than a month of tastings in the city.
I only spent half a day with Martin and the O’Leary Walker boys but my connection to what they are doing will last; it opened my eyes to the lengths they go to bring this essence of the Clare Valley to our wine glasses. From meeting these blokes for a few short hours I feel like I am part of their story.