2 November/3 November 2019 ★ FTWeekend 21Food & Drink
A master of
Margaret River
L
ocal opinion varies on
Will Berliner, founder of
Cloudburst, with its record-
breaking prices for Margaret
River wines. Rob Mann,
award-winning grandson of the revered
Western Australian winemaker Jack
Mann, is an admirer and loves that
Cloudburst’s wines, which cost up to
A$500 (£265) a bottle, have given the
green light for higher prices for any
decent WA wine.
OtherMargaret River inew
producers dismiss the Cloudburst
phenomenon as “an American thing”,
referring to Berliner’s nationality,
prime inspiration andmain market.
Garlanded winemaker Virginia
Willcock of Vasse Felix says: “The price
is controversial but I believe that
beautiful little vineyards nurtured by
hand in an organic and biodynamic
way are worthy of high prices.”
Another seasoned winemaker says:
“There’s nothing that special about the
wine. What’s special is the man. He’s
a salesman. We can either take the piss
out of him or take a lesson from him.”
I must admit I had never heard of
Berliner until I received an email in
September that said: “I’m sitting in
Pomerol with Fiona Morrison [a fellow
Master of Wine married to the owner
of thered bordeaux Le Pin], who is
urging me to connect with you when
I am in London this coming Monday.”
He is certainly a master networker.
One of his wines had been included
in a dozen I’d just tasted at a London
event organised by Wine Australia.
The bottles had been assembled by
Australian wine luminaries Andrew
Caillard and Mike Bennie to exemplify
“future wine icons”. Caillard, a
specialist in Australia’s fine wines, has
recently saidCloudburst wine “has
helped correct the expectation of price
for quality wines in the region”.
So how has this newcomer and
outsider managed to achieve prices so
much higher thanestablished names
on estates that may be half a century
old, in what is arguably Australia’s
finest region for Cabernet Sauvignon?
Incidentally, my favourite Margaret
River Cabernet, Cullen DianaMadeline,
can be found for about £60 a bottle.
The key may be Dana Street, owner
of Fore Street restaurant in Portland,
Maine, who introduced Berliner to fine
wines — and the great prices they can
fetch. He also introduced him to New
York’ssommelier community, which
provided further invaluableintroductions. On the Cloudburst
website, under theheading “Praise”,
there are links to 70-odd articles about
Berliner’s operation. Not bad for
someone with barely a hectare of vines
making only 8,000 bottles a year.
In the early 2000s, Berliner, now 65,
started looking at properties in
Australia with his second wife, a
teetotal nurse from Sydney. They built
a house on land about two miles from
the Indian Ocean in the idyllic
Margaret River on WA’s southern tip.
When I met Berliner, the former
owner of an outdoor clothing business,
in London recently, he struck me as
extremely charming, but a restless
type. For those who know him well, it
can’t have been too surprising when,
surrounded by wine estates, he thought
he’d have a go himself.
He shadowed Stuart Watson, the
exceptional owner-winemaker of the
nearby Woodlands winery, and took a
long-distance course in winemaking at
UC Davis, California’s best-known wine
school. He planted his first vines in- His land, which is on a sandy
stretch between celebrated wineries of
the Wilyabrup district and those south
of the little tourist town of Margaret
River, is not obviously prime vineyard
country. In fact, one of the region’s
most experienced vine growers
described it to me as “a funny little
block on a creek too close to the coast”.
But, with such a small area to look
after, Berliner has been able to manage
it with exceptional care and attention:
organic methods (though no
certification), unusually close planting
to guarantee a low yield of super-
concentrated grapes per vine, and
careful tending of each plant.
He doesn’t irrigate and doesn’t till
the soil, cultivating a rich diversity of
the microbes that affect quality. His
team of pruners follow the fashionable,
sap-conscious techniques advocated by
“the pruning guys” Simonit & Sirch,
consultants in vine pruning.
When Berliner welcomed the pro-
organic New York Times wine writer
Eric Asimov to the vineyard, he
stopped ina row of vines and settled on
the ground cross-legged, inviting
Asimov to “listen to the vines”,assuring
him: “My focus is on mindfulness and
listening rather than commerce.”
That may well be the case but he has
proven to be extremely successfulall
the same. Initially, he built his
reputation by selling Cloudburst wines
to a band of well-heeled American wine
lovers, who he breezily calls “the cult”,
and he still sells to them directly. Most
are on the East Coast but apparently
“there’s some Chicago action too”.
His wines have also long featured at
Eleven Madison Park, theNew York
restaurant. In Australia, success at the
2010 Margaret River Wine Show
propelled him into the spotlight.
His wines — clearly artisanally made,
pure fruit bombs — really are show-
stoppers, and very different from the
more restrained stylemany Australian
winemakers are now aiming for. As
Berliner says of his own preferences: “I
taste very widely in the region but I’m
still a sucker forNapa, whose wines
have a generosity of fruit that I like.”
Until 2017, Cloudburstwas made in
the Woodlands winery before moving
to a purpose-built space Berliner
shares with another winemaker. But
his wife is none too keen on the night
driving necessary on roads popular
with kangaroos, so Berliner is building
a small winery next to his home — and
planning to make it as innovative and
low-energy as his vineyard.
Berliner’s wife still practises as a
nurse and apparently approves of her
husband’s engagement with his new
pursuit and all the physical outdoor
work involved in nurturing a vineyard.
But she has little time for his evening
wine-tasting sessions. “She thinks wine
talk is silly,” Berliner tells me. “She sees
us get silly and she doesn’t like that.”More columns at ft.com/jancis-robinson- Cape Mentelle
- Larry Cherubino
- Cloudburst
- Cullen
- Deep Woods
- Fraser Gallop
Jancis’s pick of notable
producers in Margaret RiverJancis Robinson
Wine
O
ur mother is three
years old. On a balmy
October afternoon in
2016, Sarit and I left a
construction site on
London’s Great Portland Street and
went to Regent’s Park with a picnic
and a jar containing organic raisins,
waterandalittleflour.
It was a much-needed break dur-
ing a very busy time in our lives. We
were about to open Honey & Smoke,
the big grill house we had always
dreamed of, and our days were full
of nerves and excitement, builders,
plumbersandhopes.
We sat down and opened the jar,
hoping that wild yeast spores in theair would settle inside it and become
a culture for the Moroccan sour-
doughbreadweplannedtoserve.
A few days later, we were testing
and tasting in our new kitchen when
the liquid in the jar started to fizz:
the yeast was ready to do its magic.
Our mother was born. The first loaf
came out of the oven, plump and
proud—asproudaswefelt.
In the life of a restaurant, so many
people come and go, there are such
highs and lows, that three years can
feel like 30. But every day, we feed
our sourdough mother and she, in
turn, makes our bread rise, its
crumb spongy and even, its flavour
wonderfully complex. Thousands ofthese little loaves come out of our
ovenseveryweek.
Thisweek’srecipeisforadifferent
loaf, from a different restaurant —
the legendary Orna & Ella in Tel
Aviv, where I began my kitchen life.
The smell of it from the oven was
partly why I committed to a career
in cooking. It is laden with seeds and
spice, whole wheat and just the gen-
tlest tang from an overnight starter
(a nifty cheat when you want that
sourdough taste but not the bother
ofnurturingasourdoughmother).
Orna & Ella closed recently, after
25 years, which is a very long time
for any restaurant and testament to
howgooditwas.Honey & Co This magical combination of flour and seeds gives rise to|
a wholesome home-baked loaf. ByItamar SrulovichandSarit Packer
Recipe: wholemeal sunflower bread
For one large loafFor the dry mix
400g wholemeal flour
250g strong white flour
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tbs whole coriander seeds
½ tsp ground cardamom
100g sunflower seeds
100g pumpkin seedsTo create the dough
30g fresh yeast
(or use 2 sachets of fast-action yeast)
400ml-500ml water
2 tbs honey
1 tbs saltFor the coating (optional)
40g sunflower seeds
40g pumpkin seeds
1 tsp coriander seedsMethod
Mix together all the dry ingredients. To
make an overnight starter, remove about
a cup’s worth of the dry mix and put it in
a large bowl. Add half the yeast and
200ml of water and mix well. Cover with a
cloth and set aside at room temperature
overnight.
Thenext day, add the fermented
starter to the dry ingredients. Mix with theother half of the yeast and another 200ml
of water. Begin to knead into a smooth
dough (add water if needed). Once it has
come together nicely, add the honey and
salt and knead for another five minutes.
Cover and set aside to double in size.
Knock the dough back and roll it into
a sausage shape. Roll the sausage in the
seed coating and pop it into the tin. Let it
double in size again.
Heat your oven to 220C and bake for
20 minutes. Reduce the heat to 200C.
Remove the bread from the tin and bake
for a final 20 minutes.- Leeuwin Estate
- Moss Wood
- Vasse Felix
- Voyager
- Woodlands
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Leon EdlerNOVEMBER 2 2019 Section:Weekend Time: 11/20191/ - 15:20 User:adrian.justins Page Name:WIN21, Part,Page,Edition:WIN , 21, 1