Reaching a fine vintage

James 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 lighter-bodied red wine, or do you like full-bodied red wine? Do you like to drink your wine when it's only a few 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.

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.

Is great wine made in the vineyard or the winery?

You cannot make great wine unless you have great grapes. You can turn great grapes into a bad wine if you are sufficiently negligent or you don't understand what you are doing. If you have great grapes, the main task of the winemaker should be to express as much as possible of the sense of the variety and the place. So that someone coming across this wine and not knowing much about it will see these two things reflected in the wine.

What do you think has a greater effect, the soil or the grape variety?

Australia has gone though a transformation in this. We always used to believe that soil was not important or not nearly as important as climate. If you look at the French definition of terroir, it includes soil, subsoil, the aspect of the North, South, East and West-facing, the degree of slope, the amount of moisture in the soil, the amount of rainfall, the number of sunshine hours. Bruno Prats, [former owner and winemaker of Chateau Cos d'Estournel in Medoc], many years ago gave a wonderful definition of terroir. He pointed out that it was the total of all of these things that makes up a great terroir, a great place.

Is Asia ready to overtake Europe or US in consumption? Or has it already overtaken them?

If the question relates to volume, it will be significantly longer than if measured by value. Asian markets, led by China, are already buying more top-quality Australian wines than the UK or the US, even though the volume going into those two markets is higher than that of Asia.

From an Australian winemaker's perspective, which Asian markets show the most potential?

Simply by virtue of its size, China is obviously the most important market. However, if the winery seeking to enter the Asian market is relatively small, with limited amounts of wine available, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia are all obvious alternatives with less competition. A country that does not come up very often is Cambodia, and I don't understand why more attention isn't given to that country. Its low rate of taxation is especially attractive.

What stumbling blocks do Australian winemakers face in Asia?

The lack of understanding of the magnificently diverse viticultural regions we have in Australia, able to match everything from the warmest European regions (Portugal and Spain) through to the coolest (Champagne and Germany). Moreover, Bordeaux offers one red wine style, Burgundy two (one red, one white). Australia has many different wine styles and grape varieties to choose from. Since wine is essentially complex and intimidating, the spread of choice makes the message even more difficult to communicate.

What is the role of wine at the dinner table?

In my view, all very good to great wines should be paired with appropriate food. There are some wines, notably sparkling, but also including dry or semi-sweet Rieslings, Traminers and other aromatic varieties that can be enjoyed without food, or simply with appropriate canapes.

Asian cuisines, unlike Western, are a bouquet of flavours and aromas. How does one deal with that when pairing wines?

This is an interesting question. I think one has to look at the totality of the dish, and my answer is to consider Champagne, aromatic white wines that have not been exposed to oak, white wines that have been barrel fermented/matured, and Pinot Noir. The common feature here is the absence of the tannin structure that Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon both depend on.

How important is the glass you drink from?

The selection of glass is absolutely critical. Riedel is the best-known brand, with an enormous array of shapes and sizes to choose from. The common feature, though, is the fine crystal or plain glass, in either case with a fine rim that is no thicker than the wall of the glass, and which is of a substantial size. An all-purpose glass is the Riedel Magnum Ouverture. The ''burgundy'' glass, with the biggest bowl of all, is particularly suited for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, even though there is a separate Chardonnay glass available.

Spirits have always been favoured in Asia, but now wine seems to be taking over.

Wine is far and away the best alcohol to be drunk in conjunction with food, spirits the least suited. Indeed, beer is a better match for Asian food than spirits. There is also the positive health benefits attached to wine that do not normally apply to spirits.

Is wine really good for your health?

Provided wine is consumed in moderation, and especially where matched with food and drunk over a period of time, it has a significant health benefit, with no downsides. Major clinical studies conducted in the US, Europe, the UK and Australia over the past 40 years have conclusively shown that wine gives substantial cardiovascular protection, and it is heart and heart-related problems that are the largest single cause of death. There is some suggestion that red wines have a greater protective effect than whites, but the science on this remains to be settled.

How should a novice choose wine in a restaurant?

I always decide on the dish or dishes I am going to eat before considering the selection wine, not vice versa. From this point on, the advice of a sommelier is invaluable, but the novice should not be persuaded to spend an excessive amount on wine, which he/she can't understand or appreciate. A safety-first rule is to select the wine which is in the middle of the price range of the variety or style in question.

What's your favourite grape varietal and why?

Pinot Noir, because it is the most fragrant, the most silky, the most beautifully balanced.

If you are not drinking wine, what are you drinking personally?

Coopers Pale Ale beer, a beer that is bottle-fermented.