It’s a short step from flowers to fruit, and especially easy for a man as tall as Paul Carpenter, who looks as if he should be shooting baskets rather than pruning vines. Having nicely mixed some metaphors, the facts are simple: Carpenter is the senior winemaker for Australia’s Tintara Winery. He grew up in the country’s Willunga District on his family’s commercial flower farm. He plays the rugged, often-violent game of Australian Rules football on a high level, and played for the South Adelaide team in the South Australia National Football League.
Carpenter was in St. Louis recently to talk about his wines, which retail in the $20 range and, like most Australian wines, are rich, red and hearty.
He worked in the family’s commercial flower business as a boy, which helped him decide on being a science major when he enrolled at the University of Adelaide.
"They work hard," he said, strongly emphasizing the third word, when he spoke of his parents, who still operate the flower business. But as the grape doesn’t fall very far from the vine, or the apple from the tree, Carpenter took his degree in Applied Science in Agriculture and gained a graduate degree in oenology, while working in a number of vineyards and wineries in the prime Australian wine area of McLaren Vale.
Carpenter pronounced it "val," and said that was the way the word was pronounced in Australia. "One of the reasons I went into oenology," he added, " was because I was jealous of all the wine students who were not only allowed, but encouraged to drink, and they all seemed to be having a lot more fun than I was."
His apprenticeship in the wine industry also included labor at vineyards in the Beaujolais area of France, and at the Wirra Wirra winery in Australia, where he spent three years, first as an assistant winemaker, then as the head man. He came to Tintara as red winemaker (Australians often divide the top jobs by wine color) and is about to celebrate the first anniversary of his promotion to senior winemaker.
Like most winemakers, however, Carpenter sees the quality of the wine beginning in the vineyard, and he pointed out that the feared phylloxera had never arrived in Australia, so that "old vines," in terms of shiraz and cabernet sauvignon, and shiraz as well can truly mean old.
For example, he opened a bottle of 2004 reserve grenache (94 percent grenache, 6 percent shiraz), poured a glass to show off a color rather dark for the grape, and urged a sniff. The wine had a deep, berry aroma, again rather intense for grenache, and it had bright fruit flavors.
"These vines are 50 to 80 years old," he pointed out, "while some of the shiraz, or syrah, vines go back more than a hundred years."
Cabernet sauvignon and shiraz, both from 2004 and each 100 percent of the naming grape, are a little more elegant, a little less fruity, equally delicious. The cab shows plummy aromas and hints of chocolate on the palate, along with a lengthy finish, the tannin (mostly French oak) softening nicely as the wine is exposed to air. Both of these are better being opened and poured 30-40 minutes before drinking. Shiraz, the most popular Australian wine, is dark and vibrant in color, with a touch of anise in the aroma and the flavor and a smooth finish. The shiraz, as opposed to the cabernet sauvignon, is aged mostly in American oak.
The Tintara winery dates to the 1860s, and has, as a memento, a bottle of 1867 claret, reported to be the oldest known bottle of Australian wine. Carpenter’s red wines have an elegant quality, but he and the winery ownership, the giant Constellation Brands, are planting Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Barbera and Tempranillo grapes, perhaps bringing an Italian and Spanish future to the Australian winery.
–Joe