Rolling Jones

With countless bare vines across the State now enjoying their winter dormancy, July is normally a fairly quiet time in the vineyard. But not this month. If you'd been a fly on the wall at Bay of Fires winery on Friday, you would have probably heard a whole lot of whooping and a-hollering going on.

Winemaker/manager Penny Jones and her team had plenty of good reason to start the weekend in party mode. Their brand spanking new 2014 Eddystone Point Pinot Noir won a gold medal at the 2015 Royal Queensland Wine Awards held in Brisbane. 

A silver gong went to the 2014 Bay of Fires Chardonnay, the flagship white of Accolade Wines' Tasmanian wine portfolio.

It seems Jones is really on a roll at the moment. She started her award-winning year back at January's 2015 Tasmanian Wine Show. That resulted in a gold medal for the 2014 Bay of Fires Riesling and a silver medal for the 2014 Bay of Fires Sauvignon Blanc.

But was that latter wine only half-baked at the time?

Maybe. Because mid-year brought even better news. On 14 June, the 2014 Bay of Fires Sauvignon Blanc was named winner of the International Trophy for Sauvignon Blanc over £15 at the 2015 Decanter World Wine Awards. 

Former Bay of Fires winemaker Fran Austin - now at Delamere Wines -  also had a hand in the making of the Regional Trophy winner in the Australian Sparkling over £15 category. The award went to the 2002 Arras EJ Carr Late Disgorged Tasmania.

Decanter's 35 International Trophy winners were announced in London amid a blaze of media publicity.

If you think 35 winners makes this wine competition sound like a child's birthday party - where everyone wins a prize - think again. Decanter magazine is perhaps the world's most widely respected wine publication. 

International Trophy winners accounted for the top 0.22% of competition entries. More than 15,900 wines were tasted and assessed during the course of this marathon event. 

There were 114 Regional Trophies and 305 gold medal-winning wines in total. 

International Trophy winners are essentially 'the best of the best.' They're chosen from the ranks of the regional winners.

Australian producers collectively won five International Trophies and nine Regional Trophies (with Bay of Fires accounting for one of each) as a result of their large-scale participation in the event.

Judging began back on 26 April. 

The record number of entries were judged in flights of up to 12 wines, grouped by region, colour, grape variety, style, vintage and price bracket. Organisers believe that offered the best chance of similar wines each having an equal chance of putting on their best face for the judging panel. 

Judges at this annual event taste and assess each wine individually, then compare notes to reach a consensus.

A total of 342 industry professionals were involved in this year's decision-making. Almost a quarter of all those qualified to call themselves Masters of Wine were empanelled for the World Wine Awards. 

The Australian regional panel saw eight MWs take part, including Irish-born Master of Wine Carmel Kilcline, pictured above.

"We have commended Tasmania before and this year it surprised us with two Trophies," observed Regional Co-Chair Anthony Rose. 

"The consolidation of regional focus is one of the most heartening, continuing stories of Australian wine as individual regions become better defined for wine styles based on a growing understanding of their potential."

Co-Chair Michael Hill-Smith MW added: "...modern evolutionary wines are truly exciting.. a small but vocal group of revolutionaries are pushing the boundaries of conventional winemaking and creating new styles along the way. In all, an exciting winescape to explore."

Class comments state that one of the keys to Bay of Fires' success was the mix of Old and New World techniques used during winemaking.

Jones says two vineyards in the south of the State contributed to the blend that provided the finished wine. 

"These sites in the Coal River Valley and the Derwent Valley are only about 60km apart from each other but they have all kinds of differences in weather patterns, soil types and temperature variations," she explains.

"Two different clones of Sauvignon Blanc clones were also involved, so we had a variety of aroma and flavours to begin with."

One part of the final blend was created by cool-fermenting parcels of fruit in stainless steel tanks using a mixture of yeasts to lock in freshness and aromatics. The other comprised a small proportion of wine fermented with wild yeasts in new French oak, adding richness, texture and a hint of new oak sweetness.

The International Trophy taste-off saw Jones's handiwork being assessed alongside finalists from France (2014 Domaine Jean-Paul Balland Sancerre), Canada (2013 Ravine Sauvignon Blanc, Niagara Peninsula) and New Zealand (2014 Saint Clair Reserve Sauvignon Blanc, Wairau Valley Marlborough).

The award was well received throughout the Tasmanian wine industry. 

Born and raised in Hobart, Jones is a talented local player. She graduated from the University of Adelaide in 2004 and was named Dux of Oenology at the end of her course work. She worked 10 vintages at Petaluma Wines in the Adelaide Hills before taking up her current appointment in Tasmania's North East in 2013,

It's little wonder Jones is a highly-skilled practitioner. Her time in the Hills saw her walking in the footsteps of Petaluma's inspirational founder, Brian Croser. In the late 1970s, Croser pioneered the planting of cool climate Chardonnay at Piccadilly in the Adelaide Hills, and was among few Australian winemakers of his day that promoted notions of terroir-driven wine.

He was named 2014 Man of the Year by Decanter, no small feat in today's burgeoning wine world.

Jones is an inveterate traveller. In addition to visiting hallowed sites in France and Germany, for example, she has made wine in the US (Oregon) and in China. Three years ago, Jones was part of a small, select group of international winemakers that took part in the inaugural Ningxia Wine Challenge. 

Fifty winemakers submitted applications, and a panel of international wine experts chose 10 candidates. Challenge organisers offered a competition prize of 180,000 RMB - around $A28,000 - for the maker of the best 2012 vintage wine grown and made in China's mountainous winemaking province Ningxia.

Aside from being professionally enriching, Jones's exploits earned her second prize - and 30,000 RMB - in the event's red wine category.

As unconventional as the Ningxia Wine Challenge might seem, Jones is by nature a winemaker who is always up for a challenge. Well-grounded professionally, she's not afraid to toss out the rule book and adopt creative approaches to problem-solving.

"We have a house style here, but we're often trying new things behind the scenes. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don't."

As a native Tasmanian who knows the State's major wine-growing areas through personal experience, Jones has had a head start on many of her contemporaries that also trained and worked interstate and overseas.

"Tassie's a great place for winemakers," she says.

"No two seasons or vineyards are the same."

"Our winery and home base are at Pipers River, which is one of the coolest and wettest places to grow grapes in Tassie. Our vineyard there only grows sparkling wine varieties because we know we can't always get the necessary ripeness we need for the table wines we want to make.

"The award Sauvignon Blanc comes from the Coal River Valley and the Derwent Valley, because they're much better suited to that variety. The Coal River Valley is in a bit of a rain shadow, so it's quite well protected. It's a bit warmer and drier than the Derwent. It's also a pretty consistent fruit source for our table wines. 

"Head up the Derwent Valley and sites became a little bit cooler as you move further north. Fruit there allows us to create wines with some lovely perfume. They're a little bit softer and more delicate than we see from the Coal River."

When vintages like 2014 come along, you just have to roll with the punches, according to Jones.

"It certainly wasn't an easy one, with wild and windy weather conditions during flowering affecting fruit set and reducing yields by 30% on average," she says.

Strong and destructive winds made their presence known in the first week of January. They re-appeared in early February, with gusts of more than 100kmh causing widespread damage in the State's south. That aside, summer and autumn rainfall totals were actually below average. 

Spells of warm weather came early - peaking at 40°C at Bushy Park in the upper Derwent - and lasted until well into May. Campania in the Coal River Valley reached 24°C on 15 May, the highest maximum temperature ever recorded that late in a Tasmanian autumn.

Terroir challenges naturally go hand in hand with Tasmanian winemaking, Jones says. 

But perhaps the industry's biggest challenge to date lies beyond the vineyard and the winery.

"Tasmania is really only a tiny producer in terms of volume, but we put everything into making wines that are world class," she notes. 

"Part of the challenge is getting our story out to the rest of the world." 

Job done, Penny Jones. Job done.

Prepared for publication, 5 July 2015: tasmaniantimes.com