TASTINGS ... with David Bray
Peter Lehmann wines are among the best-known in Australia. I am not sure that story of the man whose name is on the label is as famous. It should be.
Peter Lehmann’s story is worth telling here because some of the highlights are beyond the knowledge of many of the people who enjoy his wines today. I am using many of the words from the company’s online tribute to its founder.
Known as The Baron of Barossa, Peter Lehmann has championed the Barossa Valley as Australia’s leading wine producing region for decades and is accepted as one of the industry’s most respected figures.
Born at Angaston in 1930, the son of a Lutheran pastor, he began his winemaking career as a 17-year-old with Yalumba where he worked under the great Rudi Kronberger for 13 years until he was appointed winemaker/manager of Saltram Wines in Angaston. For 20 years he built a national reputation for his high-quality, innovative Barossa wines. During the Saltram years, he took that winery’s production from 400 tonnes to more than 6,000 and was accepted by the independent grape growers who supplied the winery as a man whose word was his bond.
There were no written contracts with them – arrangements to buy were made with a handshake. Australia-wide grape surpluses in 1978 resulted in Saltram’s owners ordering Peter to go back on his word and break his arrangements with his long-established grape suppliers. He refused.
Knowing many growers would face near-ruin if their grapes were left on the vine, and to honour his word, Peter, with the financial support of family and friends, created a new company, Masterson, to buy their grapes. The name was taken from the Damon Runyon gambler Sky Masterson. Peter found investment partners to fund and build a winery in time for the 1980 vintage and they became the principal owners of the company, with Peter as a minority shareholder.
The imminent withdrawal of Peter Lehmann Wines’ principal shareholder in 1993 threatened the company’s survival and Lehmann was again forced to gamble – this time by offering equity in the company by public float. The growers with whom he had forged such lasting relationships and the loyal staff who had followed him from Saltram invested in the new enterprise, as did thousands of small investors and the float succeeded almost overnight.
In the latter part of 2003 he had to roll the dice again to ward off a hostile takeover by multinational drinks group, Allied Domecq, He chose the Hess Group as the partner who would most closely fit his aspirations. After another very public battle, Hess succeeded, with Peter Lehmann retaining just over 10 per cent in the company. Now retired and aged 80, he lives with his wife Margaret in a house overlooking the vineyards at the winery in Tanunda.
I have some fond memories of time spent with this man, from an afternoon at the winery weighbridge as his grower friends brought in their year’s crop, to a morning he devoted to judging (at my invitation) Queensland wines in the early days of that annual competition.
Lehmann wines and their creator have won many of this country’s and the world’s major awards. The top-of-the-range products are brilliant and the lower-priced ones well-made from quality grapes and good value.
The latest batch to hand are in the latter category and comprise six Art Series whose labels carry fine depictions of the multiple faces of the Queen of Clubs, symbolic of that mighty 1979 gamble.
All seem to me to the excellent value. They are in new lighter weight bottles, good for those of us who buy by the case and apparently taking the equivalent of many truck-loads off the road. More importantly, they are wonderfully drinkable wines, all of them.
Here are":
Peter Lehmann 2009 Barossa Classic riesling, young, fresh, slightly sweet, best chilled a little bit. ($12);
2008 Barossa semillon, claimed to be a top-selling style pioneered by this maker – “unoaked, lively, zesty, refreshing, crisp with lots of fruit flavour.’’ ($12);
2010 Barossa rose, brightly aromatic, crisp dry finish. (($12); 2009 Eden Valley dry riesling, distinctive dry, lime flavours, great to keep for a while ($18);
2008 Barossa shiraz, a worthy product of a splendid red wine vintage – full-flavoured, rich ($18);
2007 Cabernet sauvignon. A red of genuine quality and potential longevity ($16).
