The accidental wine importer
Our restaurant lists and bottleshop shelves are stacked with an unprecedented array of wines from every part of the world. And some of the best are being imported not by the most experienced or largest wine shipping companies but by newcomers to the trade - keen consumers who only recently have turned their passion for imported wine into their profession.
Darren Harris, Grand Millesime Wine, Burgundy specialist:
Darren Harris has been in love with the wines of Burgundy since the early 1980s, his hobby funded by a successful numismatics business - trading in rare coins and precious banknotes. But just buying burgundies for himself wasn't enough and in early 2008 he founded Grand Millesime and started shipping them, too.
"I wanted to do more than drink it and talk about it," says Harris. "But I didn't want to plant my own vineyard. I've had too many friends who have done that and it made me realise the truth of that old saying - to make a small fortune in the wine industry, you have to start with a big one."
Through the years Harris had become friendly with Australia's secret society of Burgundy freaks - people who are happy to shell out hundreds of dollars for a bottle of grand cru - so he knew there was a market for the region's best wines. He was right. Harris now brings in six shipping containers a year, mostly full of burgundy that he mainly sells to private clients. "We ship a very high proportion of top-end wine," says Harris. "One of our burgundy producers told us that we are not his biggest export market by volume, but the proportion of his grand cru we buy is the highest of anyone in the world."
Porfolio pick: Georges Lignier, Anne-Francoise Gros are Albert Bichot are names that make lovers of red and white burgundy go weak at the knees. Harris also has wines from farther afield such as Domaine Gauby from the Languedoc and vintage ports, including Cockburn's, Dow's and Graham's. grandmillesime.com.au
Darren Harris has been in love with the wines of Burgundy since the early 1980s, his hobby funded by a successful numismatics business _ trading in rare coins and precious banknotes.
Neville Yates, Eurocentric Wine, specialist in artisan producers from Germany and other parts of Europe:
"I'm just a madman spending all his money on wine," says Neville Yates. "That's what people have always said to me. All the time I was working as a journalist, someone would say: 'You love wine, why don't you do that instead?' But I always thought if you make your hobby your work, you'd grow to hate it."
In the early 2000s, when working as a sub-editor, Yates fell in love with European wines, especially from Germany. And in 2007 he travelled to Germany to visit vineyards and, on the side, to look for potential new producers for a retailer friend to import. "Amazingly, I came back with the names of four producers who said they were interested.
"But when the retailer said 'thanks, he'd take it from there', I realised I'd been bitten by the bug: I had loved meeting these growers and tasting their wines and offering to ship them to Australia. I wanted to be involved in this wine trade business. So the retailer said 'OK, you do it'. And I thought, 'stuff it, I will, I'll take the risk'."
Six years later, Yates has built up one of the most interesting and diverse imported portfolios in the country, a huge number of very small parcels of wine he calls his "Stamp Collection". "It hasn't been easy," he says. "I have learned the hard way that not everyone loves spatlese and auslese riesling as much as I do. But it's been worth it because the producers I work with have become friends: it's a journey we've gone on together."
Portfolio pick: Top producers such as David Leclapart and Vouette et Sorbee grower champagnes and Willi Schaefer and Fritz Haag Mosel rieslings. Also try the rustic wines of Olivier Lemasson in the Loire and the fantastically experimental wines of Intellego from Swartland, South Africa. eurocentricwine.com.au
Sue Dyson and Roger McShane, Living Wines, specialists in organic, biodynamic and natural wines from France:
For 30 years, Sue Dyson and Roger McShane have complemented their day jobs as IT consultants by writing about food and travel for newspapers and magazines. As a result, they have dined - and been following wine trends as consumers - in most of the world's top restaurants. "In 2008, we walked into one of the best wine bars in Paris," says McShane. "And everyone seemed to have a bottle of beaujolais made by Jean Foillard on the table (Foillard is one of the most influential figures in the natural wine movement, making his wine with little or no additions). So we thought we'd better try one. And we were hooked."
Through their restaurant contacts they discovered a treasure trove of organic, biodynamic and natural wines in France (where they also co-own a holiday house) and started importing. "It was a shortcut to accessing the wines we love to drink," says Dyson. This coincided with an explosion of interest in natural wines among sommeliers and drinkers in Australia: their producers are now listed in almost all our top restaurants.
"The irony is," says Dyson, "we hardly ever stay in our house in France now. What started as a little side project importing six or seven producers has grown to 35 producers: we now travel 7000km visiting them when we go to Europe."
Portfolio pick: Their strength lies in the Loire: vivid reds and whites made using grapes such as chenin blanc and gamay from artisan producers such as Causse Marines and Domaine de la Garreliere. livingwines.com.au
David and Amy Gilmour, Untapped Fine Wines, specialists in wines from South America:
There must be something about being in the aviation industry that attracts people to South American wines. Sydney pilot Juan Cameron established Argentine specialist Departure Lounge Wines a decade ago, and in 2011 David Gilmour - then part-owner of the Ansett Aviation Training Centre at Tullamarine - established Untapped Fine Wines with his arts graduate daughter, Amy, to import wines from Argentina, Chile and - recently - Uruguay.
"With the Ansett business, Dad travelled to South America every few months to visit customers," says Amy. "He would drink amazing wine there but when he came home to Australia he struggled to find any of them here. Both of us were looking for something new to do, so we started an import business together. The challenge for us is to make wine approachable, especially when it is unfamiliar or different from what people are used to. People will say: 'Tannat? From Uruguay? What the ... ?' But tasting the wine goes a long way in convincing people: usually once they taste it they love it and understand our passion for it, too."
Portfolio pick: Carmenere from Chile, malbec from Argentina and tempranillo (and other wines) from Spain. Most intriguing are those from Uruguay, particularly the white blends and solid reds made from the tannat grape by Vinedos de los Vientos. untappedwines.com.au
Source: The Australian, 23 July 2013
