Marking 20 years of UMAMU
Celebrating 20 Years with our rock star
I can’t believe it is our 20th anniversary producing UMAMU. This sure calls for celebration. Not sure if I have been married to UMAMU for 20 years or maybe that my child is now 20 or both but either way it is significant. I have stayed loyal to the brand for two decades. If only my parents were here to celebrate with me, “well they are from wherever they are”. It was my parents who were introduced to a Margaret River Chardonnay in the early 80s (no guesses which one) and it became their favourite part of Australia. In 1997, Dad fell in love with this hidden away vineyard, with its plantings dating back to 1978. He put in a dam so that we would have irrigation when needed and planted more fruit. Mum insisted he planted varieties of merlot and cabernet franc so we could emulate the Bordeaux Blend, Aunty May’s Chateau Pichon Lalande. The view of the old vines with the dam is to this day a wow view, what a perfect picture. I often wonder how the vineyard would have looked when Dad fell in love with it, before the dam and further plantings.
Our first vintage was in 2005 and the very first wine we produced and released was our 2005 Semillon Sauvignon Blanc (SSB). I brought this to market in 2007 in Perth and retailers thought I was mad showing them a two-year-old white wine. My palate was developed on French Bordeaux wines that typically have had time to smooth out before release. I took on this approach when we started producing wines. I made it a point to monitor our wines and only release when they are ready, i.e. balanced on the palate with no screaming parts. And so I continued my strategy of this ‘later release of wines’. This was not the norm for Australian palates used to wines that were released young. Sometimes I used to think they like their wines so young, even before they are bottled! If you know what I mean.
Photo of back then and this year - perfect with somewhere over the rainbow.
I carried on with what the retailers thought as madness for twenty years and refined the approach to also rerelease museum wines. I check in on the wines each year, hold some in the museum cellar and see how they track and perform. And if they have the horsepower, I then rerelease them.
In the early days I stuck very much to the export market given the wines were being received well and my propensity for travel made it very easy for me to visit and work the markets. It was only around 2013 that I realised it was time to focus on the local market when we were successful in tenders to Qantas and our wines flew International First and Business Class. I started to participate in local events and my favourite event has become the Good Food Wine Show which we started showing at in 2017. These events continue to be our pop up cellar door where we get to share our hard work with consumers.
I had fun showing blind two vintages of SBS/ SSB, ie labels are not shown so the drinker does not know the vintage of the wine. I chose a young vintage 2016 and a mature vintage 2010 to see what Australians liked and it was interesting to note that half liked the older and half liked the younger.
I took a risk and brought our museum Chardonnay 2008 out to show at the VIP lounge at the Good Food Wine Show Perth in 2023. A risk because it is a mature Chardonnay, but I believed it would go down a treat as it was showing so well. The number of consumers who came to our stand at the show to give compliments was heartwarming. I felt such a sense of achievement that my courage and perseverance, sticking to my belief to show the wine at its best had finally made traction. As the saying goes seeing is believing, having an open palate to try a new wine opens up a new world. Fortuitously, times and palates have changed in Australia, boy am I thankful and grateful.
Consumers are now enjoying wines that have had time to develop in the bottle. Their palates are curious. Am thrilled to rerelease our twenty year old SSB05. It has been and continues to be a rock star. It has been the biggest seller at our shows this year. Once consumers, especially those who enjoy an aged Semillon, taste it, they love it. And they can’t believe the wine is 20 years old. When I open a bottle, the aroma jumps out at you like it is giving you a big hug. I love it. It’s my favourite vintage of our blend. It still appears fresh and lively yet with added flavour and full of character from the time in the bottle. It is like the wine is having a chat with me with an intensity and flavours that keep going on my palate.
How has this wine aged so gracefully? I have been thinking about this so that we learn on our winemaking journey. Here are my thoughts.
Our vineyard is blessed with high levels of natural acidity, which is one reason our wines age so well. They are afforded the chance to mature and gain character because the acidity keeps them alive and going.
This particular wine, our SSB05, was our first vintage when I had decided on the picking dates of the fruit. And the day we were picking the Semillon, Tuesday 29th March 2005, Mother Nature chose to send us rain – my bad for not checking the weather map! Trust me I sure learned to and it became my bible. There was nothing for it but to pause the pick and resume another day, 1st April. Luckily there were no April fools and our pick was all good. By picking over two days, the wine develops double the flavours and added complexity. This is similar to the method they use for the famous Sauterne, Chateau d’Yquem, that picks over several days getting the grapes at their peak with each pick. The percentage of semillon in our SSB05 is in the majority at 65% so we are definitely crafting heaven in a glass. Then about 10% of the blend has gone through oak fermentation and stayed in oak for six weeks, which adds another added layer to the wine. And let’s not forget the fact I love to hold wines back and observe them for their potential greatness, giving the wine time to blossom. Our vineyard and winemaking teams produce wines that can last. We think we have a great recipe for a great wine.
I joined the family business after my MBA back in 2001. Dad asked if I wanted to take on the challenge and it seemed like something that would make full use of all my education thus far from a Natural Sciences degree from the University of Cambridge to a Diploma from Le Cordon Bleu and Diploma from Inchbald School of Design. I always wanted to make the most of my education especially with Mum and Dad sacrificing so much to send us abroad to boarding school. Since I was a little girl, Mum instilled in me how important it was to always try my best as that that is all I could do. In reflecting back, I have used all these skill sets and continue to do so. From our survey last year, the request was for more food wine recipes. I was delighted to put a tick on my dream bucket list of cooking in the vineyard to share that experience with you. It was a lot of fun making pumpkin soup without splashing any of it on my outfit and seeing which wines paired with which recipe. I get a real kick out of seeing which other wines could pair with one dish, rather than picking just the one. I hope you enjoy the recipe and wine pairings.
Please join me in giving thanks to the land our vineyard breathes on, to Mother Nature, to my parents, to the team who all help me make it possible to produce UMAMU and bring to you and to celebrate our twenty years passed and the years to come.
May I continue to seize opportunities with joy and have the courage to do what I feel is best even when it isn’t the norm. We don’t have a crystal ball but with passion and hard work, one never knows where we might find ourselves.
May UMAMU enrich the celebration of your lives. Cheers to you all.