Gourmet Traveller WINE Winemaker of the year 2010 finalist: Tom Newton, Hardys
As a key player in the evolution of Australian chardonnay, this is one talented winemaker who believes the merits of intervention should never be underestimated.
After 28 years with the Hardys/BRL Hardy/Constellation Wines Australia group, Tom Newton reckons he’s been making wine for longer than a life sentence. Over that time he’s seen riesling at the forefront, chardonnay rise and rise, the entry of new Mediterranean white varieties and the renaissance of riesling. But it is chardonnay that still excites him today and every day.
He graduated from South Australia’s Roseworthy Agricultural College in 1980. After working with Penfolds for a couple of years, he was enticed to join Hardys by Geoff Weaver, the chief white winemaker at the time. Weaver was his early mentor, enthusing Newton to commit to white wine, while group chief winemaker Peter Dawson took Newton’s commitment to another level, instilling in him his set of values and deep sense of the culture of wine.
With his vast experience, Newton could write the definitive textbook on Australian chardonnay. He has overseen the evolution of the variety from a simple cold, stainless-steel fermentation, as with a riesling, to the current techniques of barrel ferment with wild yeasts and batonnage. Emerging from this evolution is his philosophy that chardonnay and pinot noir are two varieties that respond to winemaking input. It’s not that he doesn’t believe that the vineyard is important, as he knows that site is the key to fruit quality and natural acidity.
His sense of history and personal experience come to the fore as he talks of Padthaway being the cool region of the 1980s and how times have changed, as has the source of the fruit for his pinnacle chardonnay, the Eileen Hardy. It’s a triumvirate from the Pines Rd vineyard in the Yarra Valley, the Tolpuddle vineyard in Tasmania, and Tumbarumba in NSW – when he can get it. In 2007, ’08 and ’09 the Tumbarumba crop failed, but he says the 2010 is brilliant and expects his Eileen Hardy to be one of his best. That’s a big call when you consider that the 2008 Eileen Hardy has won four golds and four trophies, including the Macquarie Group Perpetual Trophy to the Exhibitor of the Best Wine of the Show at the 2010 Sydney Royal Wine Show.
His sense of balance is key to his winemaking expressing a preference for natural acidity, and hence the reason to seek out cooler sites that deliver intense fruit flavours at low sugar levels and uniformly low pH.
Quizzing him on his thoughts on the past and future, he believes that riesling will again find its place but not as a bone-dry style. “The rieslings of the 1980s carried a few grams of residual sugar – five, six or seven, which helped balance the variety’s natural phenolics. They were a better drink for that. I think the trend to off-dry styles, like some we’re making from the Clare, will see sauvig-non blanc devotees turn to riesling.”
And newer varieties? “We’re playing around with the albariño thing – it was disappointing to find out it was really savagnin, but I still like the wine. Vermentino is interesting but it has a tendency to overcrop and deliver a neutral wine. Fiano is better, showing more varietal character, but both are suited to temperate growing conditions and could well be the way of the future.”
But while he has his eyes open to trends and possibilities, his heart remains firmly with chardonnay. As he says, “It gives you an incredible palette to work with, to express yourself and add your own stamp.” For a man of few words, it is chardonnay that opens Tom Newton’s heart.
WORDS PETER BOURNE PHOTOGRAPHY CONSTELLATION WINES AUSTRALIA
This article is from the August/September 2010 issue of Gourmet Traveller WINE.