A Lonely Quest
The Age
Tuesday November 4, 2008
Jeni Port warms to Norman Latta, a winemaker who freely admits to learning much from his early mistakes.
THERE is no filter for Norman Latta's thoughts.The winemaker from Eastern Peake at Coghills Creek hands out information, some of which many of his colleagues might consider better left unsaid, like tickets to a train.He tells of his early mistakes trying to come to terms with pinot noir grown in a place that had never seen a vine before at a time when pinot noir was still a novelty.He readily admits to failures, a costly "disaster" with corks, whether a wine should have been kept in oak longer; but mostly he tells of the loneliness of making wine in isolation.Coghills Creek is 25 kilometres north-east of Ballarat, an area that originally attracted Latta, a city boy, and his wife Dianne as a place to grow things and be self-sustainable. In wine terms it's so small it has yet to meet the requirements for regional status.I suggest to him that Ballarat is possibly one of Victoria's least known and least visited wine areas."Yes, there is no recognition for what it does," he says dryly. "People don't know where we are from."He says the previous week just three cars pulled up to his cellar door. That's probably a figure his fellow producers wouldn't brandish about."It's a godsend," he counters. "I don't serve coffee, I don't have a glass-lined tasting room. I get the people who want to come to visit me."They go for Eastern Peake's pinot noir. His chardonnay, he volunteers, is still something of a "challenge" and his first shiraz, just released from the '05 vintage from his neighbour's fruit, is very much on a learning curve.It's the pinot noir that, if anything, drinkers associate with the vineyard. You might have seen it on a restaurant wine list. There's good reason why.Latta makes what he calls "lonely" wines. That is, he smiles, they're lonely without food.Sommeliers appreciate the style; pared down, as firm as a fist in its youth opening and becoming expressive with age. And, at $30 a bottle (cellar door), it's well priced.Coghills Creek is 430 metres high on an exposed ridge of the Great Dividing Range, and it's cold. You can see that in the wines that rarely go above 13.5% in alcohol. In their youth they can look skinny, with a budding fleshiness. Some of the early vintages were almost anorexic. You suspected at the time that they would age well but still there was a question mark as there is with any new winemaker in a new area.Now, there is no question mark.Eastern Peake pinot noir ages with grace and in some years, with utter distinction. I now suspect that it could be one of the few Australian pinot noirs capable of ageing not just agreeably but with improvement for 10 years or more. A tasting of every pinot noir made at Eastern Peake since its first vintage in 1993 was convincing proof.Latta may be disarmingly casual and open but he's not stupid. He knows he makes good wine.But he wasn't always so self-assured.His introduction to wine growing came in 1983, when he answered an ad for grape growers. It had been placed by Trevor Mast, winemaker at Bests who was moonlighting with his own emerging wine brands, Mount Langi Ghiran and Chalambar, and looking for cool climate growers to supply him with pinot noir and chardonnay sparkling wine grapes."He got 40 applicants, chose three sites and I was the only one to be planted," explains Latta.The vines went in, Mast supplied support along with the Department of Agriculture and Latta, with books for his additional education, became a wine grower.Mast trialled some of Eastern Peake's pinot as a table wine in 1993 and '94. Today, the '93 is big on colour and devoid of fruit, but the '94 has kept strong colour, is spicy and generous and spectacularly youthful.Pinot wasn't Mast's thing (as we now know, shiraz was) and in '94 he suggested Latta have a go at making pinot. "I knew when he said 'do it yourself' that he was going to help me," says Latta who on that mere suggestion built a winery ready for the '95 vintage.He did "everything by the book" in '95, a fine-textured wine with autumnal, earthy qualities that was picked up for pouring by the glass by a Melbourne wine bar only last year. In '96 came his first major challenge, having to wait until May for ripeness. Lots of herbs, tomato leaf and stalkyness tell the story.In '97, he stopped driving to Mast for advice and was comfortable with his own ability, producing a wine that is fruity and full-bodied. Latta calls it "atypical". I call it "lovely".The years '98 and '99 were the lost years, lost to bad plastic corks that tainted the pinot with an oxidised sherry-ness. But you sense Latta was getting more confident.In '99 he dropped yields from three tonne to the acre, to just one tonne. When picking, he started noting the acid levels first and then the fruit. "If it hasn't got structure and complexity, it's not going to get it (later)," he explains. By 2000, there was the appearance of a strong savouriness combined with aromatic florals. The vines were mature - so was Latta's winemaking. He was taking more risks with things like wild ferments and extended maceration. The latter can take out some colour, but he notes, "That's why you get lovely tannins."The 2000 and 2001 hail from warm years, but still manage hallmark herbal earthiness and good structure. The first of the reserve wines was made in 2001, an uncharacteristic 15% alcohol, which starts off a spicy dry red and finishes savoury and firm. The 2002 shows a "greenness" that Latta has never liked. The wine looks older than it is, maybe because of the oak. "I left it in oak for two years to get rid of the greenness," he confides.Latta seems more content with the strong run of years from 2004 to the soon-to-be-released 2006 pinots (including Intrinsic, the new name for the standard pinot in addition to a reserve) as well he might.It's a trio of tight, focused winemaking that reveals wines expressive of warm years ('04, '06) and cool ('05). Their characters will age beautifully, with the kind of qualities that will endear them to the lonely-hearted everywhere.
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