JamesSuckling Interviews: Fraser McKinley

Barossa winemaker and proprietor Fraser McKinley jokes that his analog approach at Sami-Odi is the result of not being able to fix anything that plugs into the wall, but his humor belies a passion and craft for honest and exceptional wines that are redefining Australian shiraz. Since 2006, the New Zealand-born McKinley and his wife, Andrea, have focused on small-batch, highly coveted shiraz distinguished by a refined freshness and pure, site-driven character achieved in part by hands-on, organically driven and minimal-intervention farming in the vineyard; early picking; whole-cluster fermentation and blending across sites, barrels and vintages.

McKinley’s innate sense of artistry and balance, his years working with organic trailblazers like Napa’s Turley Wine Cellars and his source material of superb young and old-vines from the storied Hoffmann Vineyard have resulted in an expression of South Australia that’s both authentic and surprising, challenging traditional notions of how to tease out the best of the region’s terroir.

Susan Kostrzewa recently talked to McKinley about the silver lining of the Barossa’s erratic growing conditions, how he leans into art over science in the blending process, his upcoming foray into white wine varieties and why shiraz worldwide has an identity crisis.

Congratulations on the Sami-Odi Shiraz Barossa Valley Hoffmann Dallwitz 2023 finishing at No. 10 on our Top 100 Wines of Australia 2024 list. The wine’s elegance, freshness and aromatics are particularly striking. Can you talk about the ’23 vintage and how it contributed to this?

The Barossa Valley is a warm, dry, sunny place, certainly for the growing season, during the summer months. And I'd say the hot years aren't the most successful ones. Heat is a viticultural hazard when it gets really hot, and the same goes for dry or drought conditions. 2023 was cool here, and a cool season in a warmer spot like ours is ideal. That said, it came with plenty of hurdles as well because we're used to clear blue skies and warm, dry temperatures, with low humidity through the summer months. 2023 was not that at all. It’s not often that in a climate like ours, you're waiting for ripeness. It was cloudy. There were weeds growing on the vine. There was some disease that comes with moisture. It was challenging. But looking back, it was a good challenge and I like the wines. They have a lightness and a fineness to them.

Overall, the last three years in Southern Australia have been unpredictable, with La Niña weather pattern throwing curveballs in the vineyard. Can you talk about the variation?

I think weather for anyone in our field becomes your No. 1 hobby; things like golf are long gone. In 2019 and 2020 we came off two of the warmest, driest seasons we've had, ones that broke all the records for summer heat and early picking dates. It felt like the world was on fire. It put the vines under so much stress. Then, sliding into ‘21, ‘22 and ‘23, which were all extremely mild and in which we didn't record a 40 degree Celsius [104 Fahrenheit] day, was delightful. It goes back to cooler seasons in a warmer, dry environment. 2021 was as nice a season as we've had. 2022 was really long and cool for us, extremely cold overnight during the ripening period, which slows down the ripening and makes for really interesting, cooler flavors through the wines. 2023 was cloudy with lots of pop-up showers and moisture through the ripening season. But I think everyone would quite happily sign up to some summer moisture and some cool conditions through the growing period.

How does your manual and organic approach to farming address these climate change concerns you're facing in Australia? 

Things are constantly changing, but we're also constantly looking at ways to improve. We’re super conscious of what's going on around us and in ways of farming. We have a whole crew that helps with picking but that's the only other extra labor that's on this property all year. Otherwise it’s just my wife, Andrea, and I farming away. That means that you're in the vineyard or have some kind of connection with the vineyard every single day. That keeps things nimble as well; you can move and shapeshift a bit as you see things changing or as you see pests kind coming in or whatever happens to be the challenge. We try to align with nature the best we can.

What are some of the resulting approaches in the vineyard?

Even though we are low on moisture here, we’re getting 20 inches a year in rainfall. Regardless of that, I like to keep permanent ground cover on all of our vineyard here that's under vine, in the mid-row and in the headlands and everywhere else. We've constantly got a matting that's protecting and holding our soil, keeping it to a lower temperature and absorbing what moisture we do get; that's hand-hosed. There’s no cultivation – it's just us pruning and shoot thinning and trying to make things as nice as we can. I think thinning out our shoots has really helped in years where we've got less moisture, so we've got less growth. I feel like we're really helping out the plant, and we can direct the energy that we have into the spots where we would like it. We’ve also grazed with animals in the wintertime here. I feel like that's really good for the health of our property.

Do you think there have been any specific silver linings in the fruit expression these changes have brought?

In those cooler seasons, we're picking a little later, and because the crop hasn't had to endure any kind of intense heat you get this beautiful freshness, this mountain feel about it. We can't order that up. That'll just come when we get the longer, cooler seasons. But with the warmer, earlier harvest like we're harvesting now, the fruit manages to keep a real crunch to it. The fruit is ripening quickly with the sunshine and none of it is soft to squeeze. It gives the wines some bite. The wines have a soft lushness regardless, so if we can get some crunch in them, it’s fantastic.

Your winemaking and viticultural approach have been described as “exhaustively manual” and “lo-fi.” What do you consider the key elements of your start-to-finish management in achieving the wine style you’re pursuing?

Wines are made in the vineyard. No one has a magic wand. Unless the vineyard part is appropriate, it's super hard to make something interesting from it. On that end, we just try and keep crops low. We want them healthy. Carrying huge amounts of fruit without much water available is a really tricky thing to do. We ferment with whole clusters; everything stays on its stem. There’s no addition of yeast, there's no acidification, there's no altering of sugar levels, either upper or lower. We pick things when they're fresh and bright. Everything just kind of ticks along at whatever pace the season desires. We ferment the wines and as a result of not tweaking them, you get a soft plushness to them which suits me.

Talk about your time at Torbreck Vintners, The Standish Wine Company & Turley Wine Cellars and how it influenced your career and future work with Sami-Odi.

I got my first harvest intern job at Torbreck in 2002 for the 2003 harvest, and I had never worked in a winery before. I was really interested in wine. I thought maybe more of an academic route was the way to go for me, but I wanted to learn more about how wine was made. But it was very apparent just a few days in that viticulture was the course for me. It was a young crew. There were four full-time employees in the winery and eight or nine interns who had come from the world over. It brought this beautiful energy to it. Dan Standish was my boss at the time. Dave Powell, who we worked for at Torbreck, was really supportive of us making our own wines. I was at Torbreck for five years and went on to work for Dan (at Standish Wine Company) for the next seven years. I loved it and I’d work for Dan any time.

I was fortunate to get a position at Turley Wine Cellars in 2004. That was life-changing for me. They’d been organic since day one. I loved that the farming and the winemaking weren't really talked about as two different activities. It was one team of people that did the work, whether in the cellar or out in the field. I think these days that's a link to probably every great wine producer in the world. I got to work for [Turley general manager] Ehren Jordan and one of my greatest friends, [Turley winemaker] Tegan Passalacqua. That really put me on my path of wanting to get into organic farming and practice organic farming. I'm not from a farming background, I'm from the city, and just the energy and the effort they put into it was infectious.

Can you talk about your blending approach and how you feel it enables you to achieve the style of shiraz you’re seeking? How much of it is science and how much art, in your opinion?

When I was 15, my mom went to my high school to ask if I could not do science. I was so interested in the arts and had this clear path in the artistic world. I begged her to do that. And then 20 years on, you're like, ‘Gee, a little science wouldn't have gone astray!’ But I love the artistic side of what we do here and what the great producers of the world do. When I walk into one of the great cellars, whether it be in France or the U.S. or anywhere else, I get a feeling of artistry. I get a feeling of culture. I don't get a feeling of science.

When it comes to blending, that's entirely the way I think of it. It's a touch and feel thing. I go with the idea that if that barrel tastes good, and so does that one, regardless of the differences, they should be interesting together. We kind of potter along and put ones together like that. It’s really fun. We also typically make a vintage wine each year from the old vines out at the Hoffmans, as we do from the vineyard on our hillside at home here. And we make a wine with multiple vintages.

And to follow up on that, how much consistency are you looking for in each bottling?

I'm looking for consistency in the quality end, but as far as how the wines look and feel from year to year, they differ greatly. And I really like to highlight those differences. Early on in my wine time, I'd be lucky enough to get a mixed box of wine from Drew Noon of Noon Winery, a small production here in McLaren Vale. And each year, the first thing I would do is check the alcohol content, because they used to fluctuate between three and four degrees from year to year in alcohol. No marketing department would tell you that that's a good idea. They'd want consistency throughout what you're making. But what I loved about it is it gave you clues every year as to what that season was like. The wine that was 16.5 percent alcohol clearly had a very different season to the one that was 13 percent. I try and embrace that. From a soil to glass transfer it should be as honest and have as much integrity as it can.

Any new projects on the horizon?

For the last 20-ish years of doing vineyard work, I'd never planted a vine before. I'd never trained a vine before; everything I'd always worked with was existing. My wife and I cleared a hillside at our property in the Eden Valley here and planted our first vines in 2017. We've taken cuttings from our favorite growers throughout the region. Pretty beautiful that the best landholders in the region are just super comfortable sharing their vine material with you. I think it says a lot about the community here. We are on to our sixth harvest this year, just she and I, and that's been a really exciting thing to do. We’ve also purchased a property next door that has a small west-facing hillside. We’ll plant a small vineyard there in the next few years with some mixed white varieties.

Do you think people fully appreciate premium Australian shiraz globally?

Penfolds Grange is maybe 70-odd years into its history. That’s gone really well as a fine wine of Australia. But I'm not sure the whole world knows that's made of shiraz. Henschke Hill of Grace, which is just up the road from us, is maybe the most beautiful shiraz vineyard I've ever seen. But these wines don't spread too far and you're talking about tiny volumes. A lot of the great examples in Australia seem to stay in Australia. But beyond that, we can try and make the wines in a style that doesn’t belt you over the head – fresh and delicious.

As the industry as a whole grapples with negative messaging and a decline in consumption, how do you feel we could do better to entice new wine drinkers into appreciating and consuming wine? Have we done a good job of this, in your opinion?

Wine is primarily fermented fruit juice that has some alcohol as a byproduct. I don't really like it being coupled in with someone ripping into a Bourbon and coke out of a pre-mixed can that's made from caramel and all these things. The culture and history of wine to me is what’s so beautiful and separates it from other alcoholic beverages…the people working the land, harvesting grapes, working with grapes all year to ferment them and express their site.

I hope young people can still get interested in the entire world of wine, because the journey that goes with it and the pilgrimages that you get to go on, to go and find these places and seek them out, seeing these plots that were maybe planted by monks, etc. – it’s incredible.  As far as anti-alcohol bodies, those will probably only get fiercer as time goes on. But you know, my travels have had me bump into and meet some heroes of mine who are in their 70s and 80s who have done this for a lifetime, and wine has been a cornerstone of their diet. And they are glowing pillars of health. They don't seem like an advertisement to something that's going to tear you apart.

– Susan Kostrzewa