Click on images to enlarge
Gil1
1 June 1979
Licensed Wine Exporters For 3 Year Period Commencing 9 June 1979 New South Wales
Craigmoor Wines Pty Ltd P O Box 67 Mudgee 28502
1 August 2009
Roaring celebration
Karen Halabi witnesses an ancient harvest tradition revived among some of Australia's oldest vines.
A flaming branch is thrown on a massive pile of grapevine cuttings and it erupts into a bonfire. A cheer goes up and everyone raises their glasses to toast the end of harvest and pruning and the start of a new season.
The doors of the 150-year-old Craigmoor winery open and everyone gasps. Before us is a cavernous French-style wine cellar. On one side are a roaring fireplace and oak barrels filled with wine, on the other a long table decorated with "cane" cuttings lit by bud lights and laden with a harvest feast and the best wines of the season. The assembled crowd moves inside, the music starts and we swing into a traditional country barn dance, Strip the Willow.
I'm in Mudgee amid some of Australia's oldest vines for the annual Burning of the Canes a ritualistic, almost pagan bonfire and feast. Celebrated in France since ancient times, the Burning of the Canes marks the end of winter and pruning and the start of Budburst. The tradition involves the collection and burning of grapevine cuttings, known as canes, to ensure disease from the dead cuttings cannot spread to the nude vines. The scene is reminiscent of the burning-off that takes place seasonally in sugarcane fields and symbolises death and rebirth by fire.
In Mudgee the ritual is celebrated at sunset with ceremonial bunches of canes over a bonfire, followed by a feast with lots of good wine, laughter and dancing. Craigmoor, the region's oldest winery and now part of Robert Oatley Vineyards, was the first NSW vineyard to take up this ancient vintner's tradition; Arrowfield Estate in the Hunter Valley is the only other vineyard that celebrates the ritual. I attended last year's feast; this year's event at Craigmoor will be bigger, with places for up to 220 guests and open to the public.
Like old-world festivities, the dinner here celebrates the end of the pruning season but it's also a chance to give thanks to locals for helping with the harvest.
The massive bonfire of canes continues to burn long after everyone has moved inside and settled for a night of feasting and dancing inside the barrel hall. The long table is laden with traditional French and rustic local bush food.
I meet local winemakers, including master winemaker Chris Hancock, and rub shoulders with the pruners, agriculturalists and young bloods such as the vineyard's senior winemaker, James Manners. He's the son of chef-turned-providore Michael Manners, formerly of the Orange fine-diner Selkirks, and he has brought along some of his father's melt-in-the-mouth pork rillettes.
"Stripping" or swinging in a figure-of-eight dance from arm to arm is a great introduction to the region's characters. Among them is Sandy Oatley, the head of Oatley wines and scion of businessman and yachtsman Bob Oatley.
Sandy tells me his father left his Hunter Valley vineyards reluctantly, partly due to encroachment by the coal mining industry. Oatley senior sold Rosemount to the wine giant Southcorp in 2001, making a fortune in the process that funded his purchase of Hamilton Island and the development of the five-star resort, Qualia. But Oatley was itching to return to winemaking, says Sandy, so he bought the old Montrose winery in Mudgee in 2006 from Transfield's Franco Belgiorno-Nettis and started again.
Coincidentally, "Montrose", Sandy tells me, is French for Rosemount, the name of their former label that became a household name and put Australia on the international wine map. Later that year they bought Craigmoor from Orlando Wyndham. Now with seven vineyards and more than 450 hectares growing grapes, Oatley Wines is the largest winemaker in the area. Some in the wine industry are calling it "Rosemount, the sequel". But now coal mining is encroaching on Mudgee, too, and the Oatleys aren't happy.
Our conversation is interrupted by the arrival of platters of country fare, including french onion soup, sugar-cured salmon with violet flowers, followed by a standing rib roast with smashed potatoes, all manner of vegetables, cheeses and accompaniments and a constantly refilled glass of wine from the Robert Oatley and Wild Oats ranges.
After dinner we wander through the on-site wine museum, with its old oak cement vats, 150-year-old oak barrels and winemaking equipment from last century. Here we find antique champagne corkers and dusty bottles of vintage muscats and sherries. The Craigmoor winery, I learn, was the site of the earliest chardonnay plantings in Australia, while the Montrose winery on Henry Lawson Drive, has the oldest Italian vines trebbiano, sangiovese, barbera and nebbiolo.
The next day we head into town for breakfast at a converted butcher's shop now operating as a cafe, with original white tiles and old shipping posters. Owner James O'Neill, like many in Mudgee, is an escapee from Sydney. "In the last five years Mudgee has really taken off," he says. "It's a really happening place. The name doesn't really do it justice."
The food scene, in particular, is well established and a number of local boutique producers are thriving; free-range pork, pistachios, hazelnuts, olives, tapenades and honey are all produced in the area and on sale in its shops.
A rusty sign in front of a nondescript house at 28 Robertson Street says "Mudgee Honey" and marks the place where the famous honey is produced. It's open daily. We take a look, then explore the historic town centre, admiring its colonial and Federation-style buildings with their huge verandas and wrought-iron balconies.
With buildings such as the clocktower, the old Regent Theatre, Lawson Park Hotel, the Oriental Tavern and the 1884 railway station, Mudgee has one of the best preserved country townscapes in NSW.
Heritage-listed buildings now house funky cafes and restaurants that would be equally at home in the culinary landscape of Darlinghurst. Sajo's Lounge Bar & Restaurant, for examples, is in the former Lester's Pharmacy, with its construction date of 1859 embedded in the tessellated tiles in the doorway and a wall of pharmacy pillboxes behind the bar.
We leave Mudgee via Henry Lawson Drive and spend the afternoon driving past more cattle-filled green pastures, old tin sheds and silos to visit local vineyards. First stop Logan Wines, a high-tech winery with a stylish cafe restaurant where we tuck into a tasting plate on the large deck overlooking the valley and vineyards.
Then we head to Tinja Lane to drop in on David Lowe of Lowe Wines, following up his invitation of the night before. He shows us how he produces his biodynamic organic wines and describes how he has been working towards making his vineyard carbon-neutral. At Nullo Mountain just out of Mudgee in the highest vineyards in Australia, he grows cold-climate wines, which are sold under the Tinja label, and also produces an award-winning zinfandel recognised as one of the world's best.
None the worse for wear, we wend our way out to Montrose where Manners is waiting to show off his high-tech facility, then on to the rustic Woolloomooloo vineyards to buy some of their olive oil and, finally, to the lookout shed in Chardonnay Park.
Here, over a glass of wine amid the serenity of budding vineyards, we realise that in one weekend we've barely touched the surface. We make plans to return for the Mudgee Wine Festival, to be held this year on September 15.
I've been to concerts in vineyards and Opera in the Vines but this is my first Burning of the Canes. I make a note in my diary: "BOCF: most fun I've had in a winery ... coming back next year."
Karen Halabi travelled courtesy of Robert Oatley Vineyards.
Fast facts
Getting there Mudgee is a 3-hour drive, or 270 kilometres north-west of Sydney via the Great Western Highway. The Robert Oatley Vineyards Burning of the Canes Feast is on Saturday, August 15, 6-11pm, at Robert Oatley Vineyards Cellar Door, Craigmoor Road, Mudgee.
Limited tickets are for sale at $120 each. The evening includes the ceremonial burning, unlimited Robert Oatley, Wild Oats and Montrose wines, a three-course feast cooked by guest chef Pete Evans (of MasterChef and Hugo's fame) and entertainment by five-piece a capella group Suede. Phone 6372 2208 or see oatleywines.com.au.
Staying there Cobb & Co Court Boutique Hotel, a sandstone inn, is in the heritage-listed former stables at 97 Market Street, Mudgee. Run by chef-owner Scott Tracey, it has a great restaurant, the Wine Glass Bar and Grill. Rooms from $145 including breakfast, phone 6372 7245, see cobbandcocourt.com.au.
Other events September is Mudgee Wine Celebration Month; see visitmudgeeregion.com.au. A Day on the Green, this year featuring Kasey Chambers, will be held at Robert Oatley Vineyards on October 313 .