Connection to Country resonates with Peninsula wine producers

Blue smoke wafts gently up into the trees on the edge of the Red Hill Showground, catching shafts of morning sun as it rises. As Bunurong elder Uncle Alvin Rajkovic gently fans a pile of smouldering leaves, a large group of winemakers, grape growers and vignerons line up to walk through the smoke and wrap themselves in the scent of manna gum, wattle and cherry ballart.

“The manna gum represents community and knowledge,” says Uncle Alvin. “The wattle pays our respects to our tools, the black wattle boomerangs we made to feed our families. And the cherry ballart represents the children; they’re our future. The decisions we make today are going to affect their tomorrow.”

It’s February 2023 and this Welcome to Country ceremony – this tanderrum – is taking place at the 10th anniversary of the Mornington Peninsula Pinot Noir Celebration, a biennial event that attracts hundreds of wine-lovers from around the world. As well as being a moving experience for the participants, the ceremony also captures much of the ethos both of this year’s celebration and of broader thinking in the world of wine and drinks, an increasing awareness of and engagement with the Indigenous history and culture of where our drinks are grown and made and a deepening focus on sustainability.

Look on the label of the next pinot gris or pinot noir at cellar doors across the Peninsula, or take a look at the wineries’ websites, and you’ll see a growing number of producers acknowledging that the region is Bunurong Country and paying respects to elders past and present. It’s a recognition that the way wine people talk about terroir – the concept that the combination of a vineyard’s environment, climate and culture produces unique flavours in the wine grown there – can resonate with the Aboriginal concept of “connection to Country”.

This intertwined idea of custodianship is also inspiring an increasing number of Peninsula vineyards such as Quealy, Foxeys Hangout and Handpicked to convert to certified organic or biodynamic viticulture; it’s also why others are practising regenerative farming in their vineyards and signing up to the wine industry’s Sustainable Winegrowing program.

It’s not just about connecting with culture and custodianship. You’ll also find more and more indigenous ingredients appearing in Peninsula drinks, from Penni Ave Distillery’s range of infused vodkas –pepperberry and coastal rosemary; wattleseed and burnt honey; sea celery and salt bush – to Bass & Flinders’ Angry Ant Gin, featuring native lemongrass, native sandalwood nuts, currant bush and – yes –Australian ants. Non-alcoholic company ETCH also features native botanicals extensively in its grownup sparkling soft drinks, from one that’s a blend of Davidson’s plum and strawberry gum to another featuring finger lime and lemon myrtle.

It’s fitting that both the embrace of Indigenous culture and the focus on sustainability should be such prominent parts of the 10th iteration of the pinot celebration because there are quite a few other anniversaries also being celebrated by the Peninsula’s wine and drinks producers at the moment, all emblematic of the further maturing of this region’s gastronomic culture.

It’s been 25 years since the establishment of several now-prominent wineries, from Hurley to Yabby Lake to Scorpo; 30 years or so since Kathleen Quealy and Kevin McCarthy released the first vintages of their groundbreaking T’Gallant pinot grigio, a grape variety that was uncommon back then but is now planted across the region; about 40 years since the establishment of Moorooduc Estate and what is now Crittenden Estate; and 50 years – give or take a year either way – since the first two commercial vineyards of the modern era were planted at Elgee Estate and Main Ridge Estate.

And it’s 160 years since the pioneering – albeit shortlived – vineyards were planted in the region at The Briars near where, according to Andrew Caillard in his recent book, The Essence of Dreams: the story of Mornington Peninsula wine, a lone surviving vine from that era can still be found.

Although not quite as well-established as the wine community, the region’s spirits, beer and cider producers are also celebrating some milestones.

Bass & Flinders, the Peninsula’s first commercial distillery, has its 15th birthday in 2024, and managing director Holly Klintworth is proud to be one of this country’s very few second-generation distillers. Chief’s Son, the award-winning whisky distillery in Somerville, turned 10 in 2023; and Dromana distillery JimmyRum turns five next year. For those of us who have been observing and writing about the drinks scene in Australia for decades, it only feels like yesterday that the craft spirits boom began. We can remember when these places were brand new, and yet here we are celebrating with them.

It's a similar story with the region’s burgeoning craft beer scene, which dates to the mid-2000s when Karen and David Golding established Red Hill Brewery and the Hickinbotham wine family set up their Hix microbrewery at their cellar door. And while most of the Peninsula’s cider brands, such as Eddies and Mock, may have appeared in the past decade or so, the tradition of sustainable apple-growing and orcharding in the region in fact dates back much further. The certified organic Edwards family have been farming at Red Hill for six generations, and the Mock family, orchardists since the 1890s, will be celebrating 50 years of Demeter-certified biodynamic farming in 2024, making them long-term practitioners of sustainability.

Back at the tanderrum, Uncle Alvin is explaining long-term thinking in another way to the assembled wine crowd as the leaves smoulder and the air becomes rich with their scent.

“When you walk through the smoke, you’ll be acknowledging that you’re going to follow the rules of the land, Bunjil’s rules (Bunjil the wedgetailed eagle is the creator being of the Bunurong). There are two rules: one is to look after the land and the waters, and the other one is to look after the children. We always talk about family, because this land is our family.”

MAX ALLEN

Max Allen (opposite page top right) is an award-winning wine and drinks writer, and a columnist for the Australian Financial Review and JancisRobinson.com. His latest book is Alternative Reality: how Australian wine changed course (Melbourne Books).