On The Grapevine

with David Ellis

A wine region you can bet on

The NSW Southern Highlands wine region has grown at nine times the national average since 1996.

If you want to make a dollar, invite a bet on what is the biggest growing - albeit overall still quite small - wine region in Australia.

A clue is that it's cool and wet climate is not dissimilar to Northern France or Northern Tasmania. And with new cool climate techniques, modern trellising and canopy management, it's producing fresh wines with very distinctive fruit flavours, and becoming a natural home to Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris.

In 1996 there were just 10 hectares under vines on five vineyards in the area; today there are 20-fold hectares under grapes, on more than 60 vineyards. So, where am I you may ask.

The answer is the Southern Highlands of NSW, an hour or so south of Sydney.

In 1983 Kim Moginie planted six hectares of grapes on his Joadja Vineyards, the first wine grapes in the Highlands since 1857. And with 30 years experience wine making with Rothbury, Arrowfield, Lindemans and Rosemount, he's now also making wine for the Scott family's 26 hectare Blue Metal Vineyard near Berrima.

"The unique terrain of the Southern Highlands gives us fruit of immense aromatic character, full of tropical fruit aromas but with complexity gained from a long ripening in the cool, wet climate," he says.

A recently released 2004 Blue Metal Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc ($18.99) and a Pinot Gris ($23.99) are both typical of these characteristics, and are wines made for enjoying with seafood. If you can't find them in your bottle shop, its worth calling (02) 4878 5236 or emailing wine@bluemetalvineyard.com.

One for the cellar: Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Shiraz Merlot 2002; this wine is rich, intense and complex, yet has nice softness as a result of the blending of the three grape varieties. Pay $18.99 and enjoy in 2009.