Taz you like it

STANDING among the vines atop an exposed Tasmanian hill in late March, I don't need persuading that this is Australia's coolest wine region. I wrap up tightly in my jacket. It is early autumn down under, yet the Aussie mainland areas such as the Barossa Valley are sweltering in the heat, the sun ripening big, powerful black grapes such as Mataro and Shiraz.

But here in Tasmania, despite a bright sun, there is a distinctly chilly breeze. Instead of rich reds, the grapes that surround me are Gewrztraminer, destined to go into one of Pipers Brook's crisp, aromatic, Alsatian-style white wines.

Cool temperatures

Imagine a "typical" Australian wine region and you certainly wouldn't picture Tasmania. Apart from its cool temperatures, the island is heavily forested and relatively verdant. The best wines to emerge from here so far are those aromatic whites (Gewrztraminer, Riesling and Pinot Gris), sparkling wines, and elegant Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs. This is not the place for blockbuster wines.

"It's a marginal area, with a serious threat of frost, so we have to be very careful where we select our vineyard sites," says one grape grower. Making wine in Tasmania is certainly no cinch - many growers plant rows of tall trees to create wind breaks, and cover their ripening grapes with ghostly veils of white netting to keep birds from pecking at the crop.

Unsurprisingly, getting the grapes to ripen can be a struggle. Dr Andrew Pirie, of Pipers Brook, shows me an intricate trellising system in part of his Pinot Noir vineyard where he has split the vines, first by the lyre system, then divided each part further by the Scott Henry system, and finally plucked leaves away from each bunch of grapes - all so that the fruit is exposed to the sun.

Given such supreme efforts, you might wonder whether this is the best spot in which to make wine, but let me reassure you that the final results can be very impressive indeed. At their best, wines from this triangular island off the south coast of mainland Australia have an extraordinary elegance and complexity, and a purity of fresh fruit flavour that many complain is missing in bottles from hot climates.

In particular, I am thinking of sparkling wine, currently the most exciting style to emerge from Tasmania. Indeed, line up a set of top Taz sparklers (my list would include those from Clover Hill, Moorilla, Pipers Brook vintage cuvée Pirie and Yalumba-owned Jansz) and the quality is so high that I am surprised there has not already been a marketing push to establish Tasmania as "Australia's Champagne". Think creamy, fruity, crisp, premium méthode traditionnelle sparklers. It is, for my money, simply the best group of sparkling wines to emerge from one relatively small area in the whole of the New World.

The positive side to that marginal climate is the long, cool, sunny ripening season, one which can last as long as seven months, the last part usually being a warm, dry autumn. "That long period of ripening gives us incredible flavours," says Chris Markell, an American with international wine-making experience now working at Clover Hill on a fine range of sparklers and white wines.

Natural flavours

Jim Chatto, newly arrived from mainland Australia as wine-maker at Rosevears winery, agrees. "I have been amazed by the intensity of the fruit flavours in Tasmania," he says. "Here the varietals are very true to their natural flavours. And there are great natural levels of flavour, acid and sugar here. You don't have to be a chemist to correct the imbalance."

Other wine-makers point out how "European" the styles of wine are, and they are quite right.

The intellectual Dr Pirie is responsible for putting Tasmanian wine on the international map with his benchmark winery, founded more than 25 years ago in the Pipers River region of the island. Today, he turns out a finely tuned range of wines for Pipers Brook, with Ninth Island the user-friendly second label. His "Alsace trio" - a delicate yet tangy Riesling, a grapey, peachy Pinot Gris and a rose- and lime-scented Gewrztraminer (my favourite) - are distinctly European in style, quite unlike anything from mainland Australia.

"There is much more interest in the diversity of styles coming out of Australia than ever before," Pirie says. "Consumers are beginning to realise that different wines from different parts of the country are available, and are getting to know the various regions much better." This trend is in evidence in the UK, as Australian-wine drinkers who started out on cross-regional blends turn to wines from specific spots. It's clearly a great time for Tasmania, with its distinctively cool-climate wines, to make a bigger impact on the market.

Pipers Brook is a particularly cool spot in the north of the island, near the city of Launceston. The other important wine-producing area close to Launceston is based around a second river, the Tamar. Pipers Brook, Clover Hill, Rosevears and newcomer Tamar Ridge are among the wineries at the north end of the island. Generally speaking, it appears to be sparkling wine, Chardonnay and aromatics, particularly Riesling, that stand out from this part of Tasmania.

At the other end of the island, near Hobart, there are some warmer areas, and the reds are a little riper and more rounded. One of the best Tasmanian wineries, Moorilla, lies in the leafy Hobart suburbs and produces a rich, almost meaty, scented and succulent Pinot Noir. Not far away is the Stefano Lubiana operation. This small, already cult winery makes superbly rich, multi-layered Chardonnay and great fizz, as well as smoky, ripe and well-structured Pinot Noir.

Domaine A, in the exciting Coal River Valley region near Hobart, turns out astonishingly complex and deeply flavoured reds, including unusually satisfying Tasmanian Cabernets and Merlots. Owner Peter Altus admits that he dislikes "blockbuster reds", keeps a cellar of fine claret and is rightly proud of the complexity and finesse of his Tasmanian reds, the product of a relatively warm site in a cool region. "The reds of this region improve enormously with age," he says, underlining their apparent claret-like qualities.

On the way back up to Hobart, we stop at a couple of wineries on the eastern side of the island, notably Freycinet Vineyard and Spring Vale, where the Pinot Noirs continue to stand out from the New World crowd. In all, I visited a dozen wineries in Tasmania, enough to convince me that this is no Aussie backwater but a thriving wine industry at a vital stage in its development. Tasmania has long been known for its fabulous seafood; now it looks as though, at last, its food-friendly wines may become world famous, too. n