Corkscrew: Flying colours
Nellie Ming Lee
A "flying winemaker" is someone who makes wines on more than one continent. Supervising the viticulture and winemaking at several wineries, this person shares ideas, techniques and knowledge with local teams. And thanks to the six-month gap between the harvesting seasons in the southern and northern hemispheres, it's easy to moonlight at different wineries.
The most influential flying winemaker is Michel Rolland, a French oenologist who advises and consults for hundreds of wineries in 13 countries. His influence is vast, second only to that of wine critic Robert Parker Jnr. Rolland's signature style for the wines he helps to make encompasses the use of extremely ripe fruit and generous use of oak for barrel ageing, which results in lots of vanilla on the nose.
One of his more interesting offerings is called Borobo and is made at Casa Lapostolle, in Chile's Colchagua Valley, in collaboration with the winery's owner, Alexandra Marnier Lapostolle (whose great-great-great grandfather created Grand Marnier, in 1880). It involves a blend of grapes that sound as though they should not work together - pinot noir, merlot, syrah, cabernet sauvignon and carmenere. These grapes are traditionally grown in France - Burgundy, the Rhone and Bordeaux - and the blend was so unusual that I had to try it, even though I was expecting the wine equivalent of chop suey.
It was surprisingly good, in a new-world way, with rich berry flavours that were well balanced. Blending these grapes together in France would not be permitted under Appellation d'origine Contrôlée rules but in the new world, anything goes.
In Hong Kong, we have our own flying winemaker. Eddie McDougall, of the, um, Flying Winemaker, in Lan Kwai Fong, caught the wine bug when he was a university student working at a restaurant in Australia. A bottle of Paul Blanc pinot blanc so caught his imagination that, after getting a business degree, he decided to attend wine school. His mother, being Chinese, thought he was mad but now she proudly shows off her son's wines and is McDougall's biggest fan.
He started making wine at Shadowfax in Victoria, Australia, then moved on to O'Leary, in the Clare Valley, and later Bannockburn (Geelong). Umami was his first solo vintage, which he made from 2007 to 2011, during which time he also worked with the Innocent Bystander and Giant Steps wineries in Yarra Valley. In 2008, he officially became a flying winemaker when he also made a Barolo with Vietti in Italy; and, in 2009, he began making wine in Hong Kong, at the 8th Estate.
Of course, there are no vineyards in Hong Kong - the grapes are brought in frozen from various wine regions (McLaren Vale, Clare Valley, Marlborough, Piedmont and Bordeaux) and vinified once defrosted. Interestingly, white wine grapes are frozen in whole bunches whereas red wine grapes are destemmed (the berries are taken off the vine and stems completely).
Today, McDougall has his own name on his wines, which he makes from grapes grown to his specifications in Australia.
