With another look into the McLaren Vale, we spoke to Colin Kay of Kay Brothers Amery Vineyards.
He told us about the history, and the beauty of the land his family has lived on since the 1890’s.
Colin of Kay Brothers
On your winery website it says that you are “far from the maddening crowdâ€
Well that goes back to a gentleman named Ernest Wittington. He talked about the wine business that was set up by my great uncle and great grandfather in 1890. He spoke about the place and the views from the winery here. He was quoting Thomas Gray’s poem - Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.
We were talking to Justin McNamee about how to be a winemaker you had to be far from the rushing crowd ?
This is a little bit of life’s philosophy. You’ve got be measured about what you do. Know your vineyards, understand your vineyards, know your place. I’m a pretty lucky person I was born on the property here in 1940, I followed my grandfather around as a little boy and my father.
Actually, had a little game with my father when I was six years old when I made my first wine. There were some very newly planted vineyards and probably every 9th vine had a small bunch of grapes, I must have walked over about 5 acres and managed to get about 5kg of fruit. The juice we squeezed out by hand and fermented and duly bottled. Many years later I did a similar thing with my children and friends of theirs
So was there a moment you knew you were going to be a winemaker as a career?
Well, I was already trained as a winemaker, I’d roamed round the world for three years, and when I got back here I thought, well there’s no better place than this, and I like wine making. There was a functioning winery making good red wines. I had modern knowledge, modern experience and so it was case of not throwing out the old, just tweaking it.
That’s the story of winemaking, always—you don’t throw out the baby and bath water. You hang on to the baby quite carefully. You’ll change the bath water sometimes, but it’s probably the same bath and the same baby.
At jazzwines we talk a lot about collaboration. You work closely with Corrina’s dad Colin Rayment.
He’s been my general manager here for 25 years. We know each other we understand each other. We’ve formulated a lot of what we do here.
Talking of collaboration, the Australian wine industry is a very united industry. The big companies and the little companies all sit at the same conference tables and work it out together.
I happened to be a past president/chairman of the South Australian Wine Association, which represents over 50% of the Australian Wine industry. And I’m just a tiny little player.
There are a lot of things you do and the collaboration goes a long, long way. And not just within your own company, or within your own winemaking group.
In the early 70’s, with Alex Johnston and David Hardy, we set up one of Australia’s first independent laboratories and consulting business. Again it was a collaborative thing. We made wine for other wineries.
Now are you in the room with other people, tasting wine and saying – this is what works, this is what doesn’t?
Some of the winemaking was a bit rough and ready in those days. And we used to have – two or three times a year—a workshop arrangement where we’d all get together.
We’d all look at each other’s wine. And, what was said in the room stayed in the room.
If Joe had something wrong or something great, you were expected to say – ‘I’m Colin. You’re Joe. Well look, Joe, you’ve made a bloody great mess there. This is how I’d see you need to do it’. And, Joe would say ‘Well, I wonder what was wrong’.
This is the sort of thing—a freedom to talk to each other. If you’ve got a problem, don’t go and hide it. Talk to someone about it. That’s the nature of the Australian industry.
Wonderful old wines. I’ve never forgotten that – just something so special, so unrepeatable.
Tell us about more about McLaren Vale and how it’s change since then.
It’s a vineyard that was set up in the 1880’s, the first settlers were here then.
I can look out to the east from the office I’m sitting in right now and the view is practically unchanged from photographs we have from a hundred years ago. The same buildings are in sight. Perhaps a bit more cleared ground, a few more vineyards. Things are the same.
What we are, is, the oldest wine making business in the same family hands. We’re using the same buildings, the same facilities that were put up in the 1890’s. We’re keeping the environment the same for making our wines; we’re just using some better technology.
We don’t want to change that. We use traditional open fermenters with headboards and submerged caps – and we basket press everything. We intend to maintain that whole system.
You’ve been making wine for so long, in the same way, how do you know when you’ve been successful?
Well, if it tastes good, I think. Do people want the wine?
But, there are a lot of measures of success. Are our vineyards healthy and strong? Without having a good vineyard, I can’t make good wine. To paraphrase, no winemakers ever made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear – the reverse has happened sometimes.
What inspires you when you drink a great wine?
You are looking for a balance, a harmony in the wine. Do all the parts come together properly?
Sometimes it might be a time, sometimes it might be a place. A particular food association. It might be a theater or a concert. There can be many associations. Is it a vine? a grape? What are the beauty spots in the wine?
Do you have a specific memory? A memorable moment?
There have been various moments. I’ll go back to when I was a student. And, we were looking at some sparkling Shiraz wines, bottle fermented, in 1961, with Colin Preece the winemaker at Seppelt’s by then for over 30 years.
We had a vertical tasting of wines that were twenty and thirty years old. Wonderful old wines. I’ve never forgotten that – just something so special, so unrepeatable.
Or, looking at a couple of great old Muscats with Mick Morris at Morris’ Winery. This goes back, when were talking about collaboration and mentoring. These were experienced practicing wine makers showing the younger students the great things.
That sort of thing still goes on.
My father, when my student group were here, said ‘well here’s a wine your grandfather made in 1897’. It was a Muscat actually. But, it was a wine then over 60 years old. It stood up and held. And, my particular group—they are still about in the industry—they’ve never forgotten that night.
That’s inspiring.
Yes, there things you’ve experienced, you’ve seen, they’re memories, they come back.
