Vickery Wines
It must be a strange feeling for John Vickery to begin at the beginning again over 60 years later than his first vintage in 1951. His interest in, love of and exceptional skills with riesling began with Leo Buring in 1955 at Chateau Leonay. Over the intervening years he became the uncrowned by absolute monarch of riesling maker in Australia until, in his semi-retirement, he passed the mantle on to Jeffrey Grosset. Along the way he had unsurprisingly won the Wolf Blass Riesling Award at the Canberra International Riesling Challenge 07, and had been judged by his peers as Australia's Greatest Living Winemaker in a survey conducted by The Age Epicure in 2003. His new venture has been undertaken in conjunction with Phil Lehmann, with 12ha of Clare and Eden Valley riesling involved, and wine marketer Jonathon Hesketh moving largely invisibly in the background. As one might hope and expect, the first release under the Vickery label is a beautifully groomed and proportioned Riesling of the highest quality. JAMES HALLIDAY
The man is a legend. He already was, back in 1970, when he was rough-riding young cellar rats such as John Ellis at Leo Buring in the Barossa Valley. "One night the power went off during mid-clean-up," recalls Ellis, now the owner of Hanging Rock Winery. "We thought, 'Fantastic, we might get the night off!' But soon afterwards we saw a torch coming from the house and it was John with a torch and a scrubbing brush for each of us." Vickery's obsessiveness is part of his greatness, his renowned attention to the smallest detail an important reason behind his success as a winemaker, especially with riesling, a wine that lives or dies on its fruit quality and careful handling. He is Australia's greatest riesling master.
After joining Leo Buring in 1955, Vickery forged his reputation at the Chateau Leonay winery with the Leo Buring reserve bin wines of the '60s and '70s, made from fruit sourced from the Eden, Clare and Barossa valleys.
"It is testament to him that the early Leo Buring whites even today are still looking good, while most other wines of that era have collapsed," says Doug Bowen of Bowen Estate, who worked with Vickery in the mid-'70s at Rouge Homme in Coonawarra. In a serendipitous twist of fate, Orlando Wyndham bought Chateau Leonay in 1993 and Vickery joined the company to make wines there under the Richmond Grove brand, thus bringing more great rieslings to a new generation of drinkers. His last hands-on vintage was the multi-award-winning 1998 Richmond Grove riesling. Today, at 70, he works two days a week for the company.
Vickery has shaped and defined the best Australian riesling, inspired young winemakers and set the most exacting standards. JENI PORT
