Yalumba Galway Claret returns from the dead, with a split personality
The courier delivered a couple of samples from Yalumba this week: a Galways Vintage Shiraz 2013, and a Galway Vintage Malbec 2012. The surprise was that neither label showed any resemblance to the Galway Claret label of the past, and this label has a past stretching all the way back to Robert Menzies and beyond.
Galway Claret was named after L.T. Col. Sir Henry L. Galway, K.C.M.G., D.S.O, governor of South Australia from 1914 – 1920, a keen wine lover and regular visitor to Yalumba in Angaston. The company also named its famous Galway Pipe port after the governor. Pipes are those long thin 500 litre casks used by the Portuguese for storing and maturing port.
The first vintage of Galway ‘Special Reserve’ Claret was 1942, and it became the winery’s standard dry red until Bob Menzies pronounced the 1961 Galway Vintage Claret the greatest wine he’d ever tasted at a gala dinner in 1965. What a terrific PR gift!
The Signature Blend
That was the beginning of a long and often distinguished line of reds under Yalumba’s Signature Blend label, which started with Menzies but soon became a way to honour loyal Yalumba people, from accountant Alfred Wark to winemaker Rudi Kronberger and Managing Director Robert Hill-Smith.
Galway Claret continued as the company’s standard red, and was a pretty decent Shiraz Cabernet made mostly from Barossa fruit, until its slow descent into a $10 mass-market brand in the nineties. Recent vintages were made from Shiraz alone, which did little to improve the product.
A return from irrelevance?
Yalumba launches new Galway Vintage Malbec, updated Shiraz was the heading of the press release from Yalumba. Here’s an excerpt: ‘Winemaker Sam Wigan said there is a strong synergy between the way Malbec and Shiraz are enjoyed by wine drinkers around the world. Malbec is Argentina’s most important grape variety. In fact, Malbec is to the Argentinians as Shiraz is to Australians – these are both elegant, juicy wines that are at their best with barbecued meats,’ he said.
As Australian as Argentinian Malbec
I don’t get the Argentinian connection here. Did one of the family’s kids do duty as a gaucho there, or has Yalumba planted a vineyard in Mendoza or is it planning to do so? We’ll never know. All we’re told is that ‘Yalumba Galway Vintage Malbec is one of the first single-varietal Barossa Malbecs in existence, and Yalumba Galway Vintage Shiraz is an icon that spans eight decades and is one of a handful of quality Barossa Shiraz available at this price point.’
That surprising statement is topped by the assertion that ‘Yalumba Galway Vintage Shiraz is a wine like no other in our collection. Born from adversity and determination, it has continued to endure, evolve and thrive through generations.’ And now it has to endure this kind of rubbish! For most of those eight decades, Galway was made from Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, not Shiraz alone.
Keep it real, people
We’re used to meaningless PR dribble like that coming from TWE and Accolade (and politicians), but we were hoping for something better from Australia’s oldest wine company that’s still in family hands. Yalumba has a 166 year tradition of straight-shooting, quality winemaking and pioneering that includes replanting Pewsey Vale high in the Eden Valley, introducing Stelvin caps, introducing and perfecting wines made from varieties such Viognier, Roussanne and more. There’s no need to tell us fairy tales.
It’s good that someone at Yalumba decided to revive the old Galway label and restore it to its rightful position, but that same someone clearly has no sense of tradition and has lost all the vital ingredients of the once proud brand. Suddenly we have two wines, one made from a variety that was never used in the making of Galway Claret, and we have two new labels that have no connection with the past. Instead, we get a fabricated connection with the Argentine.
The Wines
I had a Zuccardi Serie A Malbec 2013 from that country open for comparison, a $14 wine in the same price range as the Galway Twins (RRP $18). The Argentinian makes a far more convincing argument for the virtues of Malbec than the Australian. Yalumba should’ve used their Malbec to add some elegance to a big Cabernet instead of bottling it solo. The Shiraz, on the other hand, is an appealing medium-bodied Shiraz that avoids the excesses the Barossa can bring to the style.
Why oh why, I wonder, did Yalumba not revive the old Galway Claret with a 70th birthday edition – a good $20 Barossa Cabernet Shiraz from the 2012 vintage? They have the material, they have the means, they have the tradition. What they don’t seem to have is marketing people who know how take advantage of the riches Yalumba has to offer, marketing people who can tell us real stories instead of spinning fairy floss.
It’s not the first time I’ve scratched my head about Yalumba’s marketing. They did it to Christobel Hill Smith whose name graced the 1974 signature blend. Yalumba had made an elegant Cabernet Shiraz in one of the wettest vintages on record. Initially the wine was released as the FDR1A but when it collected loads of bling, Yalumba released it as Christobel’s blend.
Christobel, what a lady, what a name. A marketer’s dream. What did they do with her? Over the years, Christobel’s name ended up gracing wines around the same price point as Yalumba’s Y series. The labels are as pretty as the wines are ordinary, and even a lady like Christobel can’t add any lustre to them. What a waste. More HERE.
Kim