Brokenwood: Quintessential Hunter Valley

What began in 1970 as a Hunter Valley hobby-farm vineyard for three Sydney-based solicitor friends, Tony Albert, John Beeston and James Halliday, has today evolved into one of Australia’s premier wine brands.

Brokenwood Wines produces an impressive range of high quality wine from vineyards around Australia, including the Canberra District, Beechworth, and even as far afield as McLaren Vale. However, it’s in the heart of the Hunter Valley – Australia’s oldest wine region – that Brokenwood calls home.

‘Hunter Valley terroir is very unique in Australia,’ declares Brokenwood’s managing director and chief winemaker, Iain Riggs AM. ‘Our sub-tropical climate typically means dry winters and wet summers, so humidity, low fertility soils and rapid ripening from véraison to harvest plays a big part in the unique quality of Hunter wine.’Semillon and Shiraz are the stalwart wine grapes of the Hunter Valley. While Brokenwood doesn’t own any Semillon vineyards itself, it produces an outstanding expression from two of the finest sandy-loam Semillon vineyards in the region: Oakey Creek and Trevena.

ILR Semillon

‘The ILR [Iain Leslie Riggs] Reserve Semillon is typically a blend of two high-quality vineyards in the Hunter, bottled under screwcap and released with six years of bottle age,’ Riggs explains.

Graveyard Shiraz

Brokenwood’s most significant vineyard holding is Graveyard, so named because the 15ha patch of red clay-loam and ironstone patches was once dedicated as a cemetery, although it was never used as such. The first Shiraz vines were planted in 1968, with the Brokenwood partners purchasing the vineyard ten years later. The first single-vineyard Shiraz was made by Riggs in 1983.

It’s the only Hunter Valley Shiraz in the Langton’s Classification, occupying a spot in the highest, ‘Exceptional’, category.

‘We only make Graveyard in the very best years, usually to around 13-14% alcohol, with 100% new French oak. Because of the lack of colour and tannin extraction, the wines are very much in the medium-bodied spectrum, which is typical of most Hunter reds.’

The tasting

In late 2018, Brokenwood invited a select number of guests to attend the opening of their new cellar door and taste a 13-vintage vertical of their seminal ILR Semillon, and an 18-vintage vertical of their quintessential Graveyard Shiraz. Below are my highlights of the tasting – the top six vintages of each wine.

Tasting Brokenwood’s Hunter Valley wines:

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