By Tracee Hutchison Photos Yanni
M
oorooduc Estate’s Kate McIntyre loves wine. She loves the sensory overload of its palate and its nose, the way it plays with the light when it swirls and the how it lands on the tongue. But, most of all, she loves the language of wine. To her, the finest drop makes an even finer dissertation.
“It’s one of the few things in life that is equal parts science and art. The great wines in the world are as artistic as the greatest play, the best piece of music, the most beautiful painting in the world and they express themselves in that way. And they have a bit of alcohol in them so they help you relax as well!” Yes, Kate is a wine-whisperer. And she has the wine world’s most prestigious qualification to prove it. A venerable Master of Wine, that comes with an entitlement to letters at the end of her name, MW. It’s also the toughest and most arduous to attain: A four-day exam. Twelve blind tastings. And a written thesis. “When I sat it you had five chances to sit the exam in a six year period, but you have to pass either the testing or theory in the first three goes. I was on my last attempt. “In my exam, the one I passed, I got 8 pinot noirs from different parts of the world. You need to identify grape variety, identify as closely as possible the origin of the wine and things that have happened in the wine making process.” That Kate hailed from prime pinot noir country might have helped, a wine she has handled from the vine from a very early age when her father, Richard, became one of the first to plant vines in the early 1980’s, on the advice of Gary Crittenden who’d discovered the Mornington Peninsula as perfect country for grapes. “Dad and Gary came down to the peninsula and looked around for different sites and found the original site for Dromana Estate which is now Crittenden Estate and the site for Moorooduc Estate at the same time and they both fell in love with the two sites and Dad stood in this big 20 acre empty paddock that had nothing except a dead tree and a great view and decided – yep – northfacing slope, good soil, not too good ‘cos vines don’t like good soil, very sandy soil and said: This is where I’m going to plant my vines. Still in its original location, Moorooduc Estate sits in a classic peninsula setting: down an old gravel track looking out across Port Philip Bay. “Dad and Mum bought the property in 1982 and we planted our first vines in 1983 and when I say we planted our first vines, we as a family physically planted. Dad had some cuttings from other vineyards and we all were involved in the plantings.” Now one of a handful of second-generation Mornington Peninsula wine families, the young Kate McIntyre never saw a place for herself on her Dad’s ‘hobby farm’. “For a long time I thought wine was a nice thing to have in the background, it’s a nice thing that Dad’s doing. My great
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passion was languages and theatre and I thought I was going to be a playwright, theatre director and producing French theatre for all the millions of people who wanted to come and see absurdist French theatre productions in Melbourne.” Instead it was the theatre of wine that sparked Kate’s real passion. “Absolutely, I think all of that theatre training really helped me communicate both verbally and on paper about wine. It’s a great passion I have communicating about wine. I have a lot of friends who enjoy drinking wine and they say ‘But Kate, it just tastes like wine. What is all this wine commentary? Writing about wine, how can you find so many words to describe wine and to talk about wine?’ And I think that’s something I’ve had from my early days in the wine industry.” It was in the 1990’s that Kate found herself in esteemed wine company, in retail, when Victoria was emerging as a major wine producer. “I started out in the wine industry working in what was probably Melbourne’s best wine shop at the time, Phillip Murphy Wine & Spirits in Toorak. I planned to work there for maybe six months. Phillip being Dan’s son and Phillip now has a winery down here