Applying the experience of working vintages in Burgundy, former Australian architect Brian Franklin has established himself as the maker of critically acclaimed Pinot Noir at his Tasmanian winery Apsley Gorge. Konrad Muller reports…
‘The coffee machine is out of order,’ he says in a deep rumble. ‘So you can have water or wine.’ As it’s 11am, and I have to take the spectacular Great Eastern Drive back to Hobart, and had seen the warning signs to ‘EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED: rockfalls, ice, trucks on narrow causeways and wildlife’ on the road up, I say water will be good thanks.
Scroll down for Konrad Muller’s pick of Apsley Gorge wines
But I am tempted. For the winery – an anonymous old fish factory in the seaside hamlet of Bicheno – is Apsley Gorge, and my host is Brian Franklin, a one-time Melbourne architect turned Tasmanian fisherman and knife-wielding deep-sea diver.
Apsley Gorge winery is an old fish factory
(Image credit: Credit Unknown)
He is also one of the great mavericks of the Australian wine world – the maker of rich, alluring Pinot Noirs that speak of deep immersion in Burgundy, where Franklin has worked the vintage every year since 2002 with Philippe Charlopin at Gevrey-Chambertin.
In fact, so deep is the immersion that Franklin, with a Burgundian friend, has recently made his own grand cru – an extraordinary feat for an outsider.
Much of this he dresses up as so much happenstance. Of his move to Tasmania, he says: ‘I came here when the bottom fell out of the building industry in Melbourne in the early 1980s. I knew how to dive; I spent 18 years underwater harvesting abalone.’
Of the choice in 1988 of the mighty site at Apsley Gorge where he has just 5.5ha of Pinot Noir and 1ha of Chardonnay, he assures me: ‘It was more good luck than anything.’
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He points to the good soils and unique microclimate of which he was then blithely unaware – river loam over clay, shot here and there with ironstone; and the benign effects of the gorge which acts as a vent, preventing frost in spring, and in autumn shepherding the extended slow ripening of the rich, fully flavoured fruit that is probably the last each year to be harvested in Australia – sometimes as late as June, in the first nip of winter.
Vintage roots
And of his rare entrée in Burgundy? A similar good fortune. As Franklin tells it: ‘I had a friend, a wine importer – Ross Duke. He imported a bit of Burgundy, and I asked him if he could get me a job there for the 2000 vintage. Ross found me a job with Domaine Fourrier in Gevrey-Chambertin. The son, Jean-Marie, had just taken over; he spoke a bit of English; I went across, refining my French.
‘Then, in 2001, I didn’t go back – only vintage I’ve missed in Burgundy since 2000. Anyhow, that year I get a call from Jean-Marie. he tells me he’s got a friend, Philippe, and Philippe’s got a son, Yann, and Yann’s just finished his degree and is doing this thing called the stage. Could he come to Tasmania and do his placement with me for six months? I say sure, we’ll find him something to do.
‘Well, I was told two things about Yann. The first was he didn’t smoke cigarettes, and the second was he spoke very good English. The day his bus arrives from the airport, I’m late picking him up. I turn up at the bus stop, and here’s this young bloke sitting in the gutter, with a Malboro sticking out of his mouth. I wind down the window and go: “That you, Yann?” He looks at me and says: “Quoi?”
‘He didn’t speak a word of English; he does now, with a Tasmanian accent. Yann lived upstairs in the old fish factory here for six months. First time out of France, big adventure for him. We did a few trips on the boat together – I made him paint the mast, put him in the bosun’s chair and winched him up. He wasn’t too happy about that,’ Franklin smiles.
‘Anyhow, Yann went back [to France] in June 2002, and I said, “Can I come and work at your father’s domaine?” I’ve been doing the vintage with the family ever since.’
Fruit first
Without formal training, these Burgundian interludes with the Charlopins (echoed by other young French winemakers staying with him in Tasmania) now frame Franklin’s every thought from the soil to the barrel, whether in Tasmania or making a grand cru in France.
On fundamentals, he defers to his Burgundian master: ‘Taste, taste, taste,’ he reiterates. ‘Philippe Charlopin said to me very early, the secret is to trap the fruit. If you trap the fruit, everything else follows.’ Accordingly, Franklin places a premium on low yields – at times as low as 9hl/ha for some Pinot Noir parcels (and 30hl/ha for the Chardonnay).
He does not irrigate (something banned in Burgundy) and he eschews fertilisers, except for the organic (seaweed, cow manure), which recently he has applied sparingly.
Soil hygiene is a genuine precept here. Herbicides have not been used for some years. ‘In Burgundy,’ Franklin notes, ‘there are areas where the soil is dead after 50 years of herbicides. The view now is let’s not kill the soil.’ He stresses that the timing of harvest is driven by taste, ‘not a set of chemical parameters’, and underlines: ‘I am looking for full fruit flavours, for phenolic ripeness, not acid.’ Green notes – bracken characters especially – are an anathema.
As in the vineyard, so in the winery. Franklin’s emphasis is on natural processes and minimal intervention. Many of his practices go back to Philippe Charlopin’s own friend and mentor, the legendary Henri Jayer. Historically, table-sorted fruit at Apsley has been 100% destalked (though, in the latest vintages, Franklin has toyed with small volumes of whole-bunch, 10%-15%) before an extended cold maceration; the lateness of the season means that rarely is that maceration artificially chilled. Wild yeasts are then left to do their own work in their own time. ‘You don’t force it. There’s no point in forcing it,’ says Franklin, sounding like the ghost of Jayer. The malolactic is also indigenous and runs to nature’s clock as the temperatures warm up in the spring. Franklin does not adjust acid. There is no fining, no filtration. The wine sits for a minimum of 18 months in the barrel (30% new oak), longer than is usual for Pinot Noir in Australia.
Ageing gracefully
The results at Apsley Gorge are wines, and especially Pinot Noirs, that brilliantly express spirit of place, a Tasmanian terroir through Burgundian technique – richly flavoured, complex Pinot Noirs, with soft tannins, that are an ode to the splendours of late autumn fruit. At a vertical tasting of vintages from 2010 to 2015, what emerged was how individual the different vintages were.
The 2012, from a very small-cropping year, was a dense, multi-hued Pinot with chewy tannins above notes of plum, blackcurrant and liquorice straps, shifting into spice. The 2014, by contrast, was more suave, not subtle as yet, but rich and resonant, a festival of violet, cherry and plum. Franklin himself detects an overall shift towards greater elegance, reflecting slightly higher yields and vine ageing, allowing ripeness at lower pH.
Back in the old fish factory now, as the cold waves thud in from the Tasman, Franklin recalls that when he first returned and told his confrères in Tasmania what the Burgundians were doing, ‘they mostly didn’t want to know’. The main problem was indigenous yeast: ‘Too dangerous, too risky, it scared the shit out of them,’ he says with pungency. And it is true, historically, that Apsley has sat outside the orthodox in Australia, where Pinot Noir has tended to be very controlled, occupied with pH and acid, as opposed to picking on full ripeness and submitting to nature’s hand.
For all these reasons, Andrew Jefford, a declared fan, once listed the unschooled Franklin among the 10 bravest winemakers in Australia. Today, Franklin looks less maverick than seer, as Burgundian methods have become more frequently applied to Pinot Noir in Australia. Critical acclaim has also come, and Apsley’s cult wines sit comfortably in the premium price range for Australian Pinot Noir (on a par with Burgundy premier cru).
Kindred spirits
And so to the latest project: the grand cru Franklin is now making on the Côte d’Or. His partner here is none other than his old friend Yann (not smoking the Malboro any more). These days Yann has his own domaine (Charlopin-Tissier, as distinct from his father’s Charlopin-Parizot) at Morey-St-Denis, just down the road from Gevrey. And that explains Franklin’s incredible access to the grand cru fruit: a tonne of viticultural gold. ‘If it were me,’ he concedes, ‘and not Yann Charlopin, it would not have been possible – a business like you wouldn’t believe.’ He does not elaborate.
Brian Franklin (right) with Yann Charlopin at Domaine Charlopin Tissier in Morey St Denis
(Image credit: Credit Unknown)
The source, in any case, is the clay soil at Clos de Vougeot, which can get quite wet, but in a dry year delivers good quality. The 2017 vintage was dry and Franklin assures me: ‘The fruit is sensational, as good as any I have seen during my time in Burgundy – superb primary Pinot characteristics, cherry and strawberry, and no astringency.’ Nor are there divergences on matters philosophical. Franklin remarks: ‘The basic principles – 100% destalked, a long pre-ferment maceration, indigenous yeast, a press for grand cru that halts at the tannins, and 100% new oak – go back to Henri Jayer, and the techniques he imparted to Philippe Charlopin. Yann is his son; and I have worked as assistant winemaker to Philippe. There is complete likeness of mind.’
When we spoke, the wine, in two special barrels – one from François Frères, another from Taransaud – was going through malolactic at Yann’s winery. Some 600 bottles will be on the market under the Charlopin-Tissier label before the end of 2019. As with Franklin’s Tasmanian Pinots, the UK retailer will be Justerini & Brooks. A grand cru with Yann Charlopin? No better tribute to Brian Franklin’s Burgundian odyssey.
Konrad Muller is a writer based in Hobart, Tasmania. He works for part of the year in a small family vineyard in the Tamar Valley
Fine light gold. Toasted nuts and classic Burgundian Chardonnay notes with aromas of honey, mint and hay. The palate is soft and rich with well-integrated...
A dark ruby colour. Aromas swing toward blueberry and blackcurrant fruit, however violets and meaty characters evolve on the palate with time in the glass....
Complex secondary aromas in the French style with earthiness and forest floor. Fruit aromas of blackcurrant and blueberry conserve with violets. A firm structure with...
Konrad Muller is a freelance a writer based in Hobart, Tasmania. He works for part of the year in a small family vineyard in the Tamar Valley. He has appeared in publications such as Decanter and The London Magazine, among others. For Decanter magazine, he reported on Apsley Gorge – the Tasmanian winery of former Australian architect, Brian Franklin.
