Gourmet Traveller WINE Winemaker of the year 2010 finalist: Jim Chatto, Pepper Tree Wines
An intuitive mind, an eye for talent and infectious enthusiasm have defined an exceptional career and earned the respect of some of the industry’s biggest names.
Let’s start with the essentials. Anyone who likes pinot noir and trout-fishing has to be a good guy. I’m not sure about the fishing, but wine and food were an important part of the Chatto household in Canberra where Jim grew up with his restaurateur father. Hardly surprising, then, that he started working as an apprentice chef.
It wasn’t long before Jim’s father took him to Edgar Riek’s Lake George Winery, where he had his first experience of tasting from the barrel. Then, his father bought him a copy of Len Evans’ Complete Book of Australian Wine, which Jim read from cover to cover. He said, “I presented it back to Dad in 2002 as a thank you.”
While studying at Charles Sturt University, Chatto worked at Tamburlaine with Greg Silkman and followed him to his new contract winemaking venture Monarch. Shortly after, he became chief winemaker at the winery, now renamed First Creek Wines, and remained there until 2007, apart from for an interlude in Tasmania. During this period, he designed and built the Rosevears Vineyard on the west Tamar and made wine in two vintages. That short stint had greater significance, however. Firstly, he met his wife-to-be, Daisy, in Launceston. Secondly, he gained a love for Tassie pinot noir and has been making small parcels for his own label Chatto ever since. These two loves combined when he and Daisy planted their own pinot vineyard at Glaziers Bay, in Tasmania’s chilly south.
Since 2007, he has been chief winemaker at Pepper Tree Wines where he has brought greater consistency and pursued exciting new directions in style. He nevertheless continues with several consultancies, including the old firm at First Creek. “I’m excited by what we can do at Pepper Tree,” he says. “Getting the best people and delivering consistency is the start. We’re getting grapes from three heritage vineyards – Trevena, Braemore and through our lease on Tallawanta – so we have great material to work with.”
He was a Len Evans Tutorial Scholar in 2002 and throughout his career has been active on the show circuit. He has now judged at several regional wine shows and in the Sydney, Hobart and Adelaide Shows and the National Show in Canberra.
Brokenwood’s Iain Riggs has seen plenty of Chatto while judging and as a fellow winemaker in the Hunter. “Absolute passion,” is Riggs’ first comment. “Since he became a panel chair at Sydney he’s shown dedication. He’s strong on wine style and is a great teacher with the associate judges. Jim’s enthusiasm is infectious. He’s taken over as head of our wine sub-committee [in the Hunter] and is really good at organising tastings.”
Greg Silkman echoes Riggs’ comments: “He’s so talented. Jim has an amazing palate. He has this intuitive understanding of what good wine is and how it should be made.”
So what challenges are there still for someone who’s achieved so much in such a short time? He briefly looks wistful and says, “As a professional, I suppose it’s working closely with our vineyard people – Pete Balnaves in Coonawarra and Wrattonbully, Nick Lander in Orange, and Liz Riley in the Hunter – to get the finest wines we can, refining them to get the best regional expression. And then there’s the dreamer, trying to grow and make world-class pinot at our tiny Tassie vineyard.”
I’m sure he’ll find time to catch a fish while he’s about it.
WORDS NICK BULLEID MW PHOTOGRAPHY PEPPER TREE WINES
This article is from the August/September 2010 issue of Gourmet Traveller WINE.