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Winemaker of the year 2008 finalist: David Bicknell

“Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it,” wrote Sir Winston Churchill when considering adversity. He liked more than the odd glass, but wine was far from David Bicknell’s thoughts when he embarked on his first career as a male nurse. After five years and while contemplating further paramedical study, a friend introduced him to wine, which led to travels around the wine regions of Europe. This new interest then took him to Roseworthy College, now the University of Adelaide, where he graduated in 1993 with the prize for wine tasting.

His most important move came in November 1992, when he arrived at the De Bortoli winery in the Yarra Valley. This was an exciting time, with Steve Webber, last year’s Gourmet Traveller WINE Winemaker of the Year, assembling a talented team and bringing new, even radical, methods to their winemaking. Vintages in Griffith, Burgundy, Alsace and Beaujolais followed. Bicknell describes the Griffith experience with De Bortoli as particularly valuable: “There’s nothing like being given 24 pages of printout with 20 million litres of white on it and told ‘Off you go!’ You learn pretty quickly.”

In October 2001, Evans & Tate bought the Oakridge vineyard. Bicknell joined them the next June – an unfortunate move because Oakridge became hamstrung by its parent’s corporate woes. There were limited funds for equipment and new barrels, and little support.

Bicknell started thinking, “What have I done?” – but there was some light. “You only had to cast your eye over the vineyards to see where the best bits were,” he says. “You could get a good picture of the potential and see the chance to make something special. At Oakridge, our grapes came from south of the river, unlike De Bortoli’s on the north, so the wines were very different. And the bar had been set at De Bortoli, so if the wines weren’t to be as good it wasn’t worth doing it.”

Like all top winemakers, Bicknell has an inquiring mind. This became apparent at the Len Evans Tutorial in 2005, where he was unanimously chosen as dux, no mean achievement given the calibre of the students.

That inquiring mind and the ability to recognise vineyard potential delivered results. The Oakridge 864 Chardonnay is a good example. “I don’t know how he does it,” another Yarra winemaker told me. “Every time we put his chardonnay into a masked line-up it comes out top.” It’s simple, says Bicknell: “You don’t need any high-tech equipment. We run a horse-and-cart type of winery. The vineyards are so good that the winemaking’s just benign neglect – as simple as you can get. We whole-bunch press the juice straight to barrel, let it ferment itself, leave it for a while and bottle it.”

When Evans & Tate finally failed, a lifeline was thrown to him by Tony D’Aloisio, the chairman of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, who is now his partner in Oakridge. Little has changed in the winery, but Bicknell can now get the fruit he wants.

Who does he admire? His father has been his most important mentor.  John Bicknell’s extensive travels gave him an appreciation of wine, so Bicknell junior grew up in the right environment. And he quickly acknowledges others: “David Slingsby-Smith, Steve Webber and the whole De Bortoli experience. I wish I had David’s laid-back attitude.” He then adds Tom Carson and Matt Harrop. “We all talk a lot and compare notes and winemaking,” Bicknell explains, “but our vineyards are so different that the wines always will be too.” He also praises his assistant winemaker, Adrian Rodda, who is dedicated to pursuing quality.

And the challenges? “Improvement! You might get 50 per cent the first year, 20 per cent the next and then 10 per cent. Every year there’s more we can do. Now we can unfurl our wings at Oakridge and learn to fly.”

Triumph after adversity. There’s no doubt Sir Winston would have  approved.

TEXT NICK BULLEID PHOTOGRAPHY OAKRIDGE

This article appeared in the August/September 2008 issue of Gourmet Traveller WINE.