LIFE The Bangkok Post’s lifestyle, arts and culture section
Bangkok Post
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2013
James Halliday, Australia’s most successful wine writer, talks about his passion for top drops
Reaching
a fine
STORY: GAVIN NAZARETH
J
vintage
ames Halliday, a lawyer turned winemaker, wine writer and wine judge, has certainly aged well. His annual compendium of Australia’s top drops, the 2014 edition of the Australian Wine Companion, has just hit the bookshelves. Completely revised and updated each year, it is recognised as the industry benchmark for wines from Down Under and is eagerly awaited by vintners, collectors and oenophiles alike. The latest edition’s 776 pages cover 1,396 wineries, with tasting notes for 8,039 wines. His iPhone app, on the other hand, offers over 79,000 tasting notes spanning 10 years of tasting — translating into approximately 7,900 wines in a year, or almost 700 a month — at the swipe of a finger. And all the while he is working on this laborious project, he still finds time to write other books and regular columns on the subject for a clutch of newspapers and magazines, judge at wine shows around the world, blog and consult. At 75, Halliday, said to be Australia’s most successful wine writer, stills maintain a punishing schedule that would put most of us to shame. ‘‘When I’m at home,’’ he says, ‘‘my schedule is basically 12 hour days, from 7am-7pm, seven days a week.’’ But before wine became his world, he began his professional life as a lawyer in 1962 at Clayton-Utz specialising in IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, and the lease and sale of jumbo jets. His initial introduction to wine came through his father who kept a small cellar at the family home in Sydney. In the mid-60s, he met Len Evans, credited with playing a central role in the remarkable success of Australia’s wine industry. Every Monday, Evans would host Halliday and three others at Bulletin Place, his fine wine shop and restaurant in an historic 1816 warehouse. It was here that the group was introduced to some of the top wines coming out of Europe, and encouraged Halliday and two of the other lawyers in the group to set up their own operation in Hunter Valley, Brokenwood Winery. It also led to Halliday’s first writing commission for Epicurean magazine; numerous other newspaper and magazine columns followed. His first book, The Wines And History Of The Hunter Valley, in the late 70s, eventually led to other tomes that focused on the wines from each of the major wine-producing states. A love for pinot noir and a move to Melbourne to set up a Clayton-Utz office in 1983 brought to fruit a second winery in the Yarra Valley. He set up Coldstream Hills in 1985. But a recession and a wine market crash saw Southcorp take over the winery in 1996. The following year, he was appointed Southcorp Group winemaker supervising a number of their estates, a position he resigned in 2000, though he continues to consult for them and still lives in a house he owns on the estate. ‘‘I have effectively lived two lives at the same time. I sometimes say that my wife was law and my mistress was wine. I was involved first in law after I graduated from university in 1961 to mid-1966 when I started to become seriously interested in wine. But only as a consumer with no thought that one day I would end up where I am, having divorced my ‘wife’ and married my ‘mistress’,’’ he said at a recent wine event in Bangkok. Winemaker, lawyer, wine critic. In your opinion is wine tasting subjective? I think it is partly subjective when it comes to the question of style preference. Do you like lighterbodied red wine, or do you like full-bodied red wine? Do you like to drink your wine when it’s only a few
James Halliday, one of the world’s most respected wine writers, at work.
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A Life In Wine, one of James Halliday’s books on the viticulture. years old, or when it is 10 or 20 years old? That is subjective. Quality is or can be objective, depending on the experience of the taster. What sets you apart from other critics? I began writing about wine in 1969, both for newspapers and magazines, and have also written 65 books since. So I have been writing for longer than anyone else. Secondly, there is the unusual nature of being a winemaker, a wine writer and a wine judge all at the same time. The Americans don’t understand how I could possibly be all three things at the same time. They see it as a conflict of interest. Neither the consumers nor the wine companies in Australia agree with that. I have been doing it longer than anyone else and I do have a broader perspective on wine. And I also have judged at overseas shows and so have a big exposure internationally as well. What do you think of the Robert Parker system of rating? After 30 years or more, we have finally decided that we will move from a 20-point scale to a 100-point scale. The best wine publication in the world, Fine Wine magazine from Britain, has a permanent translation on any tasting article, lining up stars out of five, or points out of 20, or 100, so you can look up or down this scale. People want a number. I have to confess that if I get lazy and make a note about a wine and don’t write down points, then six months later, reading what I have written, I probably wouldn’t know just how good I thought the wine was. I may have a description of it, but what did I really think of it? And that is one of the complaints I have about other writers. My view is that a good tasting note should explain what I thought of the wine in terms of its structure, flavour, length, balance. So since the 100-point system is fast becoming an international norm, we have started using it too. What do you look for in a wine when tasting it? There are certain basics that any good wine must have. It must have balance, particularly if it’s red wine, between the flavour, the tannins, the acidity and the oak. The next thing is it must have line. And by that I mean, when there is a sort of continuous line of all the components of balance I talked about. If it suddenly breaks or stops, then it’s a short wine and that’s no good. A good wine must also have, above all else, length on the palate, which means after you have swallowed the wine or spat it out, you must continue to feel the wine in your mouth. ●
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