Now there’s a feeling of aimlessness when I wake up in the morning.’ The hostile takeover of the Petaluma group by drinks giant Lion Nathan in 2001 devastated Croser, who was quoted as saying at the time: ‘I had the future worked out.
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Sharefarmers’ label now proudly sports the Coonawarra appellation.Ĭroser’s iron will usually prevails. But Croser argued that there was no significant difference between the quality of the terra rossa soil on either side of the road. Traditionally, the land on the south side of the road had been considered part of Coonawarra, the north not. The main fault of Sharefarmers was that it was literally on the wrong side of the track.
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His other Coonawarra wine, Sharefarmers, was named after its source, a discrete vineyard in the region’s north which was the chief bone of contention in the Coonawarra boundary dispute. As well, he began to make a varietal Merlot which was, from the start, one of the best in the land. His first Coonawarra reds were blends of Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, but he decided early on that Merlot, not Shiraz, was the better blending grape for Coonawarra because Shiraz didn’t ripen consistently. From the coolest Adelaide Hills sites, he would make Croser sparkling wine from the warmer ones, table wine. Croser was the first to commit himself to planting the variety in the region that best suited it, and arguably, no one has done it quite the same way since.Ĭroser started South Australian winery Petaluma in 1976, and planted Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in Coonawarra, Riesling in Clare, and Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in the Adelaide Hills. Traditionally, Australians planted every conceivable vine variety in the one vineyard, and wondered why most of them made ordinary wine, while one or two might have flourished. Many have followed him, usually just buying grapes from specific regions – Semillon from the Hunter, Clare Riesling, Coonawarra Cabernet, and so on – but back in the 1970s this was quite radical. He was the first to suit grape varieties to regions and plant his vineyards directly from that premise. He’s in a higher league than most of his contemporaries in Australia. Croser has always been a leader, even when he was a school prefect.
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‘He always knew what he wanted and how to get there,’ says Michael Hill Smith, of Shaw & Smith Wines. Talk to those close to him and the word visionary keeps cropping up. It’s not that he wants to influence you or persuade you to write a story: he is simply way ahead of the pack, and he needs to explain things to the rest of us mere mortals. It is hard to imagine him searching his soul, wracked with self-doubt. Croser, 55, is a self-contained, self-absorbed, supremely confident man.
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He is an introvert and introverts are often accused of arrogance when it’s more often shyness.
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And you realise you have been Crosered.ĭecanter’s 2004 Man of the Year, Brian Croser, is one of the most outstanding, but also enigmatic and misunderstood, figures in Australian wine. An hour later you emerge with a new perspective on some detail of viticulture or winemaking that Ben Croser is obsessed with. ‘There’s something I want you to understand about what I’m trying to do,’ he says. The host fixes you with a steady, penetrating gaze over the top of his reading glasses. HUON HOOKE meets Decanter’s Man of the Year 2004Īs you enter the tasting room, there are rows of bottles and wines in glasses. © 2021 The Buffalo Bills.Petaluma founder, mentor to winemaking students, and visionary winemaker, Brian Croser is one of the leaders of the Australian wine world.