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Unique Aussie wine varieties winning favour
Some alternative Australian-developed wine varieties are finding their way into the glasses of local drinkers, but the biggest test for winemakers has been getting consumers to try them.
The CSIRO has long been involved in cross-breeding many varieties from all corners of the globe.
Peter Clingeleffer has been at the helm of the breeding program.
"The CSIRO made a decision back in the early 1960s to import key varieties from all around the world and to begin a breeding program for wine grape production," he explained.
"Over the years we've probably looked at 20,000 or maybe more breeding lines."
Among the unusual ones to have proved themselves on a commercial scale is tyrian, which is a cross between cabernet sauvignon and the lesser-known Spanish grape sumoll.
The family-owned McWilliam's wine company first planted tyrian near Griffith in New South Wales about 15 years ago.
As well as its toughness, the grape comes up trumps on timing by maturing later than other reds, reducing traffic jams at vintage time.
It also ticks the right box on tonnage.
Tyrian is to be the star of the family's next fortified wine, a special release to celebrate a century of growing grapes at Hanwood.
Tyrian is a variety first planted commercially at the McWilliam's vineyard near Griffith about 15 years ago
Unexpected success
Another winemaker, Brown Brothers, had its first big hit with CSIRO grapes more than three decades ago with tarrango, a cross between a Portuguese variety and sultana.
Brown Brothers head winemaker Wendy Cameron said it found unexpected markets.
"We made a light, zesty, fresh style of red, something you could chill before consumption and we thought that was just perfect for the Australian market," she said.
"But interestingly where we got so much growth with it was in the UK market.
"It went nuts over there and it became our biggest export wine to the UK."
In South Australia, winemaker Scott Curtis runs Riverland-based company Ramco, which has been producing wine for seven years.
He has virtually the only vines of rubienne, another variety released by the CSIRO.
Mr Curtis took a novel approach to getting the variety noticed.
"To ensure that we actually let the variety speak for itself, I didn't tell anybody and the winemaker that I'd put some rubienne in with some shiraz," he said.
"Three months later when we were assessing the wines, the winemaker is pointing out that this particular parcel has some really good qualities about it and [asked] what patches did we get those grapes from?"
More recently, the variety got its own bottle and picked up several awards at wine shows.
But like tyrian it has had more commercial success as a blender, rather than as a stand-alone act.
Source: ABC News, 20 May 2013
