Bringing art to life
"Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself." Toss in a 1990s reference to wine - and a more enlightened reference to the female gender - and Samuel Butler's Victorian observations on life and art are as relevant today as they were a century ago.
If ever you needed proof of that - of the link between wine person and wine product - you need look no further than the husband-and-wife team of Richard and Dallas Richardson. They're the proprietors of Delamere Vineyard, north-east of Launceston.
The former research scientist and former professional artist 'dropped out' of Sydney life in the early 1980s, arriving in Tasmania to establish a 3ha vineyard in the rich, red soils of Pipers Brook.
Talk with them today - and seek out their distinctive handiwork - and it's clear that they came with intentions of doing much more than simply growing grapes and making wines. They came to share individual experiences and expressions of life itself.
"What I've done here is to isolate my own artistic self and just work on doing my own thing," says Dallas Richardson, a university lecturer and foundation member of the Launceston Arts Co-operative.
A renowned and successful printmaker, she draws strength and inspiration from her life on the vineyard.
"It's a wonderful place for artists," Dallas says.
"Visually, it's very beautiful. It's just wonderful having the studio here... it's so peaceful, especially in the winter time."
Dallas's interpretations of her experiences in viticulture appear - appropriately enough - as labels on the vineyard's wines. The couple's popular Chardonnay and Pinot Noir were first made under contract by Dr Andrew Pirie at nearby Pipers Brook Vineyard. Nowadays, they are handcrafted on-site and are entirely estate-grown.
The move to Tasmania saw Richard Richardson leave behind the much more analytical career he had established in Sydney after receiving his doctorate in agricultural chemistry. With eight vintages of his own under his belt, he sees winemaking as an art form, one that's far removed from the impersonal world of science and technology.
"Australian winemaking is dominated by science and technology and I think that winemakers are intimidated by it," Richardson says.
"For me, the over-riding feature of quality in a wine is one of personality and character. Science and technology in winemaking are like the foundations of a building. They have to be strong and they have to be correct. But the moment they're obvious to you - the moment you see them - then the building loses something. You build a wine on a solid technical foundation, but to me, it's an expression of personality first and foremost.
"One view of winemaking says that the grapes have everything, and all the winemaker has to do is take that and put it in the bottle, with as much care as possible.
"Another view says that it's a process of degradation. The winemaker's task is to allow a wine to evolve and then to choose the moment when to bottle it. Pinot Noir in particular strikes me as having a responsive nature. If you do something to it in the winery, it comes back and says something to you. It changes. It evolves.
"It's not merely fruit talking… it's about Pinot Noir, grown in this vineyard by Richard Richardson, harvested by Richard Richardson and shaped by Richard Richardson; with all his limitations and all his insights and gifts. Each wine is something that sums up in some way all of those things. It then goes out and touches people. It makes them feel that there's something special in behind all that.
"They know there's real personality and expression in there; that there's a human being in behind it all. Something that's not just technology."
First published 7 September 1995: The Advocate