First Chardonnay, 2013

The inaugural Yarra Valley Chardonnay reflects the 2013 vintage.  It was a warmer year which brought richness, but much of the blend was picked early, keeping it fresh.  The nose has citrus, nettle and nectarine.  The palate is rich, but full of fresh flavour, and balanced by a bit of tang at the finish. There is very little oak influence, mostly matured on lees in older barriques.

Chardonnay, like any wine, is all about balance.  Though in the case of Chardonnay finding the right balance is a matter of taste, and prone to fairly wild swings in fashion.  Chardonnays I made 10 years ago were considered lean, angular, and acidic.  The same wines today would be considered fat and blowsy by the vin-eratti.

I’m not going to be drawn into the trend of making Chardonnays with Riesling-ish acidity, but something needs to hold the palate together, keeping it from being too fat.  The key for me is phenolics (the tannins of white wine is the easiest way to explain it), which give the wine structure, and cut through fatty food in a more elegant way than acidity in my opinion.

Anyhow, very happy with the first release, I hope y’all enjoy plenty of it!

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What's on a label?

Deciding on a name to slap on the labels was torture.  Not exactly water-boarding, but it did cause anxiety.  Label design is another thing altogether.  Thankfully my designer was part marketeer, part shaman, part psychiatrist, and lays out text like an old-school concreter (solid as rock and smooth as silk).  Too much? Anyhow, he managed my anxieties as he would have with many clients before me.  Holding my hand throughout, all the while breaking down my stubborn fantasies of a label that has the power to sell vinegar to pinot-philes.

He was given a fairly restrictive brief for the design.  A lot of the package was already in my head: no back label, gunmetal grey screwcap (it’s an off the shelf model), no foils or embossing on the label (they cost more and often make labels look cheap).  I wanted it to be fairly bold, but not too elaborate.

With not much to work with, the designer sent through 20 separate designs, based around five or so concepts (some shown below).  I put these designs to an out-of-focus group selected from my contacts list.  The initial response from the first few respondents was predominantly options 11 and 18, neither of which I cared for.  I figured I had accidentally, randomly, selected my friends who have no taste.  So I sent the 20 options to another group, who surprised me, going the same way.  I needed to consult someone who had moved on from Howard-era design, and so I turned to two people who’s taste in all things visual is usually too cool for me to understand: my sister and Marcus Satchell.  You can guess what they chose.

At this point I could either follow the masses and choose one of the popular options, or go with my gut.  I could at least console myself with the fact that of the two respondents (out of 25) that had chosen my faves, one is a St Kilda socialite, and the other is a prominent Sydney-based sommelier.  That’ll have to do.

In the end we settled on a combination two designs, with a final tweak from the design office, adding some wonky typesetting to the main font.

The wonky typeset, combined with the off-center logo, was where we settled.  I like the logo and it’s position, conjures an image of a clown hat, helmet, religious motif, or a dunces cap.  And reminds me of one of my favourite Tom Waits quotes: ‘At some point you have to ask yourself, am I really eccentric, or am I just wearing a funny hat?’.  In my case it’s definitely a funny hat, but I’ll wear it with a grin.  Some textured paper gives it a warm feel.  At the time of printing I was content and hopeful, I’m excited by it now, a better result than I could have imagined at the start.

Sincere thanks to all involved.

What's in a name?

Here we go.  It seems necessary to say something profound in the first post, but who needs that sort of pressure, particularly when I will be able to count the readership on one hand. I may as well take the opportunity to explain how an occasionally rational person might come to plaster their name all over a wine label.  It will come across as narcissistic.  Indeed it’s already been pointed out to me, by someone I had met only seconds earlier.  Unfortunately my best excuse for this behaviour is that I couldn’t think of anything better, greatly exacerbated by a looming deadline for designing/printing labels.

The only other real contender was ‘Hall Vineyard’.  There were two problems with this.  First,  although I’m going to base the Yarra Chardonnay and Pinot on the folks vineyard, they may not have it forever.  I can imagine them selling the place, moving to a far away coastal location, where the hoards of grandkids can come and see them on occasion, but where they cannot possibly be coerced into childcare duties for a fifth day of the week.  I would become the proud owner of a wine company without a home.  Second, it’s probably the only name I could imagine that is more dull than my own.

And to my own name, tedious to my ear, and grating, like hearing a recording of your voice played back.  The only one thing I like about using it on the label is that there is nowhere to hide.  Putting your name to something that will be judged is nailing your backside to the mast for a public flogging.  Your reputation (currently worth little in my case), your company (worth even less), and the various facets of your ego (best not comment), are all lashed together, a trio of drunken sailors clinging to a sinking boat.  Time to swim or sink.