Huon Hooke wrote a really interesting article for the SMH’s Good Food magazine about a boutique Margaret River winery in the sub-region of Wilyabrup called Cloudburst. Run by American Will Berliner, Cloudburst burst onto the Australian wine radar late last year when the Cloudburst Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 won trophies for Best Cabernet Sauvignon, Best Single Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon and Best Red Wine of the Show at the prestigious Margaret River Wine Show.
The tiny, hand-tended vineyard is biodynamically farmed and most of the cabernet sauvignon vines were planted in 2005 and 2006 from Cullen and Moss Wood cuttings. (Berliner does much of the weeding by hand himself!) And up until recently the winery’s small production of cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay was only available in top US restaurants like Blue Hill and Eleven Madison Park. Hooke describes the wines are “exceptional, and rare, and very expensive.” But, according to Berliner, he doesn’t cover costs.
His first cabernet vintage won three wine show trophies before a single bottle had been sold in Australia. And the price, when a few bottles finally trickled onto the market, was $250-$270. Both these feats make history, I believe.
Will Berliner of Cloudburst seems a most unlikely person to set records. The gentle, quietly spoken American, who loves camping and hiking, is almost apologetic when, after a two-hour tasting and meeting at which he unveiled his wines to sommeliers and press, he finally revealed the prices of his Margaret River wines. Chardonnay $200 retail; cabernet sauvignon $250-$270.
Cloudburst exploded into our consciousness late last year when the first vintage of its cabernet sauvignon, 2010, staged a daring raid on the Margaret River Wine Show, snatching trophies for best cabernet sauvignon, best single vineyard red, and best red wine of show, from under the noses of many famous wineries. And this a region that is to cabernet what Lord's is to cricket or St Andrews to golf.
Word got out that Cloudburst was a tiny vineyard near Woodlands in the prime Margaret River sub-region of Wilyabrup and that it was owned by an American. The vineyard was biodynamic, the vines were just five years old in 2010, and the wine was selling for $150 in the US - in a Who's Who of American restaurants.
Having recently tasted the first four vintages of chardonnay and three of cabernet sauvignon, I can confirm it's all true: Cloudburst really does exist, the wines are exceptional, and rare, and very expensive.
Berliner says he was shocked when his cabernet cleaned up at the Margaret River show. He comes from the north-eastern US where he owns property in Maine and New Hampshire. He used to have an outdoors/hiking clothing company in the US and is a documentary film producer. His wife is from Sydney, a fact that brought him to Australia and he bought land in Margaret River with no intention of making wine. His land was "carved out of the bush 60 years ago by the Palandri family, Italian migrants whose children sold the land when the parents died". His first plan was to grow avocados, but an agronomist advised him to plant grapevines. He'd been a gardener his entire life and wanted to establish a ''green manure program''.
"A lot of the things I was told to do made no sense, such as driving arsenic-treated pine posts into the ground. I used local Wandoo timber instead: it's naturally termite-proof and there's no need to treat it."
Chemical-based agriculture is anathema to Berliner. He doesn't use any chemicals: just milk and sulphur sprays against fungal attack, and ''surgery'' - he cuts out any diseased berries with scissors. He reckons Demeter would certify his vineyard, but he's not seeking certification. His regime doesn't fit any of the usual pigeon-holes. He respects the ''purity of vision'' of the biodynamic associations, but says they don't share his ideas about how to run his property.
He follows the lunar calendar ''quite a bit'', and harvests on fruit days and flower days, but admits to having some scepticism about it.
He doesn't irrigate his vines and doesn't cultivate the soil as others do. "They want their vineyard to look like a paddock," he says. Instead, he's attempting to build up a layer of humus, which will mulch the soil - "like the deciduous forests in the north-east of the US". Instead of slashing or ploughing or spraying to control weeds, he pulls them up by hand. Needless to say, the cost of farming his way is very high.
"In January, we did 500 hours of weeding. If you're paying Australian wages, this doesn't make sense. I could have spent about $70 on Roundup, but as soon as you start killing one area you affect another area. That (the hand-weeding) is the kind of effort that goes into what you're tasting."
Cloudburst was first planted in 2005 and 2006, then more in 2013, all on close-spacings: one metre between vines and one metre between rows. The cabernet cuttings came from Cullen and Moss Wood.
The vineyard is tiny: about 1.2 hectares all-up, of which only half a hectare is in production. Yields are low. The mix is half and half chardonnay and cabernet, plus a sprinkling of malbec. He doesn't see Cloudburst getting bigger, as he does most of the work himself and his way is very labour intensive.
"I did very well prior to the GFC, and now I work in the vineyard. Every expense has to be justified."
Even at the prices he charges, he's not covering his costs, although that might change when the rest of the vines come into bearing.
At least the wines are very good, especially the cabernets (2010, '11 and '12). The style is medium-full bodied and elegant, moderate alcohols (13 per cent) and violet and blue-fruit aromas. They're more Cullen than Moss Wood in style. The 2011 is my pick of them, a wine of great balance and precision. The chardonnays, while very good, aren't quite so impressive: the 2010 is powerful and rather oaky; the superbly long and balanced '11 is my pick, while '13 and to a lesser degree '12 are shy and need more time to open.
A cloud has burst, a star is born. It's all very cosmic.
Everyone loves a good creation story. Will Berliner, owner and winemaker of Cloudburst, an incredibly successful new biodynamic winery in Australia, has a doozy. He’s a mashup of Henry David Thoreau, James Cameron, and John Locke. Think of his idyllic Cloudburst Farm in the Margaret River region of southwest Australia as Pandora in Avatar.
Here’s how Berliner, a filmmaker from New York with a Yale degree in ecological biology, describes his farm near Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park and Aboriginal lands:
“Terroir is the grace of this place, the generosity of all the forces and powers operating here mostly beyond my ken. Like this creek that appears in the rainy season to house a universe of animals and plants only to disappear in perfectly adapted dormancy in the dry, it is the only appropriate response to forces and cycles no farmer can hope to manipulate, or understand.” You could read his blog as your daily devotional.
Now his story: Berliner’s wife, Ali, is Australian and she became homesick. “She needed a place there,” he told me during a press tasting in Manhattan. “Keeping her from it was like cutting off a piece of her soul.” The site that “spoke to us,” he said, was a richly biodiverse plot. It was also on a wine trail near the famous Leeuwin Estate, one of the first wineries in the now renowned Margaret River district.
Berliner says he initially considered growing avocados, but an agronomist pointed him to grapes. Someone else told him he could make 20 more cases of wine if he cut down some old hardwood trees, but he refused—“some were older than my father.”
So he studied at UC Davis and in 2005 planted experimental plots of vines. His first vintage, 2010, which produced 400 cases, wasn’t available in Australia, which, of course, only ramped up interest there. Instead, he directed it to hot restaurants in the U.S., like 11 Madison, the Four Seasons, and Tribeca Grill in Manhattan; Alinea in Chicago; and Spago in Los Angeles.
At that press tasting, I tried some of his wines that had been bottled and some that had not. The 2010 Chardonnay had amazing finesse and great balance and I adored it. I thought the 2010 Cabernet was a little diffuse. When I pressed Berliner on the $150 retail price for each —if you could find them—he said all winery functions were done by people and labor was expensive, adding, “I want everyone to prosper. It’s a realistic price.”
Later, his representatives sent me the 2011 Chardonnay, which I found utterly pure, almost distilled, “a pretty impressive blueprint for the way forward,” I wrote, and the 2010 Cabernet Reserve, which had evolved into a stunner: “Huge, Bordeaux-like, some herbs, nice bitterness on finish. A lot of oak but appropriate to the fruit.” At the most recent Margaret River Wine Association’s annual competition, that Cabernet won Best Single Vineyard Estate Red Wine, Best Red Wine of the show, and Best Cabernet Sauvignon. Berliner recently got a license and can now ship to U.S. consumers. And Locke’s theory of supply and demand works, darn it: The new prices are $200 for the Chardonnay and $250 for the Cabernet.
A decade ago, my husband and I had a very difficult time finding enough high-end Australian Chardonnays ($50 and up) for a respectable sampling for our column. Shelves were full of value-priced examples. Something bad happens to an industry when its output becomes synonymous with “inexpensive.” A 400-page report commissioned by the Australian government’s Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation and dated May 2013 notes that growth in the country’s premium wine sales has been “constrained for a number of reasons such as Australia’s image as a low-priced value wine producer.”
I don’t have $200 or $250 to spend on a single bottle of wine, but if I did and I wanted to taste what’s new and exciting in Australia—a wine that is showing the way—I might buy a bottle of Cloudburst and lay it down for a while (either the Chardonnay or the Cabernet). Hey, the always-wonderful Penfolds Grange is Australia’s most famous wine, its “first growth,” and the perfect-scoring 2008, which was released in 2012, sells for about $750 a bottle.
As for Berliner, he’s still feeling his way at Cloudburst Farm. “I make slow moves. The cycles of nature are much bigger than we think,” he told me. “I’m patient.”
Tasted alongside the 2010, and this for me is the better wine. Something like one or two points better, to be imprecise.
Beautiful perfume – all seaweed, dried herbs and violet – then dark fruit, dark chocolate and some coffee, vanilla and spice. Medium bodied and all just so in the mouth – depth of fruit, firm but well rounded chewy tannin, perfect acidity – then flavours of dark chocolate and fresh dark berried fruit carry it long. Again, a regal sort of air, yet relaxed and affable – to walk with kings, and not lose the common touch. Clearly the product of a top Cabernet site (and winemaker). Superb.
Rated : 96 Points
Tasted : Feb14
Alcohol : 13.5%
Price : $200
Closure : Screwcap
Drink : 2014 - 2031
Striking packaging on these wines. Change in style with this vintage, perhaps?
Struck match, white peach, some gingery spice and cedar wood. Lighter style, flinty texture, light glycerol feel, well balanced and good to drink. A little callow and unformed as yet, and trails off on the finish somewhat. May be in evolution, but time will tell. Bright and enjoyable, but not quite enough going on here as yet.
Rated : 92+ Points
Tasted : Feb14
Alcohol : 13%
Price : $200
Closure : Screwcap
Drink : 2015 - 2022
Tasting the 2010, 2011, 2012 Chardonnay releases side by side, and I suspect this bear in the middle is the one that’s ‘just right’.
Hazelnut, light spice, honey nougat, citrus and nectarine. Medium bodied, glossy smooth feel, but bright and energetic with it. Flinty texture, clear acidity and complex flavours. The job’s really done by the finish here – long and tinted with spiced oranges and savoury flavour. Excellent.
Rated : 95 Points
Tasted : Feb14
Alcohol : 14%
Price : $200
Closure : Screwcap
Drink : 2014 - 2020
Interesting to see the downward progression of alcohol in these wines, starting here.
Has a complex, hazelnutty sort of oxidative nose, almost a pleasant fino/briney tang, dusty spiced cedar oak, nectarine and citrus. Medium bodied, savoury and dry, with lovely bell clear acidity, and a very pleasing amount of light chalky phenolic texture. Length is good. The wine is both airy and complex, though somewhat alternative in style.
Rated : 94 Points
Tasted : Feb14
Alcohol : 14.1%
Price : $200
Closure : Screwcap
Drink : 2014 - 2018+
"A big discovery was Cloudburst Wine for me. It is based in Margaret River, just south of Woodlands. This means the golden mile for Cabernet. They started in 2005 and are really boutique with a production of 400 cases. The 2012 Chardonnay emphasizes texture over fruit, but did not do much for me (88 points). However, the 2011 Cabernet was a revelation. Intensity and purity of the fruit made this wine stand out. The wine had good length, too. It remains to be seen, how well it will hold up (95 points). Its predecessor won several trophies at the Margaret River wine show last year. Now the bad news: this wine is $250 per bottle. Not bad for a new producer. The wines are aimed at flashy US restaurants. Scarcity rules, I guess."
I first heard about the Cloudburst vineyard in 2008, when I was travelling through Margaret River in Western Australia.
Jamie McCall of Burnside Organic Farm, producers of tiny quantities of very good, earthy zinfandel, told me about a crazy American, Will Berliner, who had established a small block of vines on Caves Road a couple of years earlier -- crazy because this vineyard was dry-grown, biodynamically farmed and close-planted, in a region where almost all other vineyards are irrigated, chemically farmed and wide-spaced.
So I was excited when, in mid 2012, Will sent me his first wine -- a 2010 chardonnay -- to taste. It was extremely good: rich and complex and multilayered, but with a spine of minerality keeping it balanced and poised on the tongue.
This was an extraordinary debut for a new vineyard; Cloudburst was clearly a name to watch. But the $100-plus price tag and the fact that pretty much all of the wine had already been sold to flash restaurants in the US meant I wasn't all that inclined to write about it: I mean, I know I rave about obscure wines in this column all the time, but they are usually obtainable, at least if you're prepared to do some searching/emailing/hunting.
The good news is that this situation is gradually changing. Will Berliner caused a huge kerfuffle at the Margaret River Wine Show last November when his 2010 Cloudburst Cabernet Sauvignon walked away with no fewer than three trophies: best single vineyard estate red, best red of the show and best cabernet -- not a bad result for a crazy newcomer in a region awash with excellent producers.
The rush of local attention has inspired him to make his wines more available locally. On the weekend of February 8-9, Cloudburst will be one of 35 Australian artisan producers showing their new releases at the Rootstock Festival in Sydney, along with more than 30 other winemakers from around the world.
Vinted on December 19, 2013 under Most Interesting Wines of the Year, wine review
9) 2011 Cloudburst Chardonnay (Margaret River, $150)
This wonder from Oz (funny how Aussie wines do so well in this MIW round-ups each year, despite so many people railing publicly about the demise of the international wine biz Down Undah) is likely not on your radar, because so little of it is made. In fact, I was interviewed about the wine simply because I was one of the few people outside of Oz to have tasted it, apparently. Combine that with it being an early-days-promising example of the great potential of the producer, and that it almost fully delivers already on the potential for great Chard in far western Australia, and that I used it as a catalyst for a discussion on whether or not the rich actually buy wines priced like this one (hint: according to a few sources, they don’t), and you’ve set the stage for one very, very memorable bottle of juice.