Think Adelaide Hills and Shaw + Smith can’t help but come to mind. A healthy
chunk of the reason for that is our Winemaker of the Year, Adam Wadewitz.
When approached to join Shaw + Smith in 2012, Adam Wadewitz pondered, “They have a high-powered team with two MWs and a well-established and respected winemaker, why would they want me?” Certainly, they were well-established in the Adelaide Hills, had Australia’s best-selling sauvignon blanc and highly regarded chardonnay, pinot noir and shiraz. However, he soon became convinced of their ambitions to further refine their Adelaide Hills wines. Plus, there was a vineyard in Tasmania that they had just purchased, named Tolpuddle.
For Michael Hill Smith MW and Martin Shaw there was an element of succession planning in inviting Wadewitz to join their team. He impressed them as a deep thinker, confident, articulate and capable of taking on the challenge to take the winery to the next level. Fast-forward 10 years. Adam Wadewitz may have driven much of the change at Shaw + Smith, but it’s been done working alongside Shaw and Smith, as well as with sales and marketing specialist, David LeMire MW and the highly-regarded viticulturist, Murray Leake. There is a spirit of collaboration seen in activities, like inspecting the vines at Tolpuddle in the lead-up to harvest.
Vertical tastings of 10 years of Tolpuddle proves a scintillating experience. The chardonnay impressed from the first vintage in 2012, with its gentle power, restraint and lingering minerality; the 2013 is drinking perfectly now. These are textural whites that show an intensity, finesse and structure, which suggests they will age beautifully well. The 2020 Tolpuddle Chardonnay is flawless with a balance and poise only seen in the world’s most exquisite wines.
The range of Tolpuddle pinot is similarly breathtaking, showing the benefits of hard work in the vineyard alongside the introduction of new clones. The bushfires of 2019 reminded us that Tasmania is nearly, not quite, paradise; I thought the 2017 outrageously good and loved the balance, intensity and purity of the 2020. The response from sommeliers sums up the impact of Tolpuddle. There would scarcely be an impressive wine list in the country that doesn’t feature one or both of these wines.
Another major challenge for Shaw + Smith has involved taking their Adelaide Hills wines to another level. The seamless M3 Chardonnay, silky Adelaide Hills pinot and the sumptuous Adelaide Hills shiraz are arguably finer and more powerfully flavoured than ever before. However, a decision to focus on Balhannah for shiraz, and leave Lenswood for chardonnay and pinot has resulted in small-volume, single-site varietal wines of the highest quality: Delicate, pure, intense Lenswood Chardonnay; complex, deep, age-worthy Lenswood Pinot Noir; and elegant fragrant Balhannah Shiraz. Their latest venture high in the Piccadilly Valley features the planting of 10,000 vines per hectare with the finest clones of chardonnay and pinot. This vineyard comes into production next year and has the team salivating in anticipation.
Wadewitz impressed them as a deep thinker, confident, articulate
and capable of taking the winery to the next level.
A favoured story of Hill Smith’s involves the highly collaborative process of sorting grapes during harvest. They have been hand-sorting since 2011 and introduced a mechanised approach in 2021. A bottle of the wine was passed around for tasting. Hill Smith immediately spat it out saying, “That is awful.” Wadewitz fessed up, saying that he had taken rejected berries from the sorting table and made a wine from them. The point was made of the importance of the rejection process.
The latest chapter in this story is the purchase by the team at Shaw + Smith of an 18 hectare vineyard in McLaren Vale’s Blewitt Springs planted to grenache in 1939, shiraz in 1941 and chenin blanc in 1964. This ideal soil for these varieties is complemented by lively south-westerly sea breezes. The quality of wines from their first vintage underscores the value of this resource. The 2021 MMAD Chenin Blanc is a tight, flinty white with a core of green-skin fruit, crisp and dry with lemon zest flavours that linger a long while. Just superb. Likewise, the 2021 MAAD Shiraz has depth, velvety texture, power and finesse, while the 2021 MAAD Grenache is beguilingly textural, deep and long.
It’s been an action-packed 10 years at Shaw + Smith for Adam Wadewitz. His achievements there make him a worthy winner of the WINE magazine 2022 Australian Winemaker of the Year.
Photography courtesy of Shaw + Smith.
