This French flavoured pinot gris really rocks

WINE

There’s a French element in Frog Rock wines, in that the bloke who makes it has had great experience in French wineries and, as you well know, a good deal of this country’s wine industry was influenced by French tradition.
Specifically we are looking at Frog Rock 2009 pinot gris, a wine your correspondent believes deserves special mention and if it comes to that, the grape has French heritage The label says no sugar, but it has the appeal of a touch of sweetness. The label also tells us the wine is made from Central ranges fruit (it was from a vineyard in Rylstone, 40 kilometres outside Mudgee), the product of a late cool season, and suggests we look for high natural acidity and floral aromas with “soft creamy flavour of cut pear with musk undertone’’.
So here’s a white pinot, cousin of pinot noir except its name says it’s grey – The French call the grape pinot gris, the Italians call it pinot grigio, and in Australia it’s called either pinot gris or pinot grigio, depending on the winemaker and the marketing team. It can be made into wine that’s bone-dry or unctuous and sweet.
The French grow pinot gris in Alsace, where it produces quality wines (also known as tokay d’Alsace} that offer very full palates, high alcohols and residual sugar and apparently taste of honey, fresh butter, pear and hay. The best Italian pinot grigio is grown in Friuli-Venezia and the Alto Adige, and is often described as having smoky and salty aromas. The grape made its first significant run in this country from T’Gallant in the Mornington Peninsula and these days seems to be turning up almost all over the country.
Here we are in Mudgee, where the Turner family have being growing vines since 1970. They launched the Frog Rock label in 1997, naming it after a nearby and well known frog-shaped granite boulders.
Here’s Rick Turner: “The philosophy used in our vineyards is to retain the primary fruit by using as little intervention in our vineyards as possible. We minimise our irrigation and spraying of chemicals to allow for the true fruit characters to translate into the wine. By using very little irrigation we encourage the vines to reach down into the rich and deep alluvial clay soils.
"We are a family passionate about our wines and are committed to quality. We chose Frog Rock because it was a striking and unique local landmark, and thought it symbolised our quest to express the distinctive character of Mudgee fruit in our wines." The wine in question is made by the highly respected David Lowe, who started his career at Rothbury Estate in 1978 and rose to become chief winemaker and group vineyard manger. Y
our reporter well remembers several tastings in his laboratory when Rothbury was at its Len Evans-led most robustly interesting. After Rothbury there was a short time at Parker wines and then the formation of Lowe Family Wine Company in 1994. David has worked five vintages in Bordeaux.

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A short step now to Cowra, home of Windowrie Estate which has released its Deep River range “that capture the flavour of the NSW Central Ranges”.
The grapes come from its own vineyards and from Orange, Cowra and Mudgee. Your reporter likes them very much and reckons they are great value for money. The man who makes them, Anthony D’Onise, values the not unusual practice of making serious use of cellar door feedback: “We use our cellar door customers in our product research to see what they think of our wines . . . . this helps ensure we deliver wine with great flavour at a great price.”
He goes so far as to talk about boutique wine at under $12 a bottle. Windowrie Estate, one of the Cowra region’s founding wine enterprises, is family-run, set up in 1988. They built a 6000 tonne winery in 1999 and now produce a strong range comprising Family Reserve, The Mill and now Deep River. Chardonnay seems to be the star. The Mill cellar door, a painstakingly restored 1859 flour mill, is in the heart of Cowra.
There are three wines in the new range, with a likely price around $11.99: Deep River 2009 semillon sauvignon blanc is simply a lovely, zesty blend, full of bright fruit flavours and perhaps elegance unexpected in a wine of its price. Deep River 2008 chardonnay has fine fresh fruit and some French oak and is a most attractive wine, complex, balanced and full of character. Deep River 2008 shiraz has complexity, softness and is a most appealing wine.