In conversation with: Celine Rousseau

8 min read.

In producing Ancient Country, Inspired Wines, the mini documentary on the Canberra District wine region, Emma sat down with some of Canberra's leading lights to talk wine, winemaking, riesling and shiraz in this region. Here is an extract from her conversation with Celine Rousseau of Eden Road Wines.

Throughout the conversation, Emma and Celine refer to both the Eden Road vineyard, in Murrumbateman in the Yass Valley, and the Cullerin vineyard. The Cullerin vineyard is the first planted vineyard in the Canberra District, planted in the early spring of 1971 by Dr Edgar Riek. It is located on the shores of Lake George and is situated between the current Lerida Estate and Lake George wineries. 

Emma: So, Celine, where have you made wine around the world? And what brought you to the Canberra region?

Celine: Well, it could be a long story but I’m going to cut it short [laughs]. So I made wine firstly in France. I’m originally from the Loire valley and I studied microbiology at the University of Science in Paris. So I went after that to do my Master of Winemaking in Champagne, so I made wine in Champagne, then went to do my Diploma in Bordeaux, so I made some in Bordeaux as well for quite a long time. I went to Languedoc in the South of France. Then I thought well, I wanted to travel a little bit and to learn more about all the country, what does the country do for winemaking. So I came to Australia. I went to Margaret River, and then I went back to France and then I came back to Australia a couple of years later, to Western Australia.

Image: Celine in the 1971-planted Cullerin vineyard, Lake George / Weereewa.

Now what brought me to Canberra was the Hilltops wine region. After Western Australia, I was in the Hilltops for 15 years and I knew the Canberra region really well because I was commuting between the Hilltops and also Canberra, so I knew already all the winemakers here, so I was familiar with the different wineries. And in 20 years living in the Canberra District, I saw this district growing more, vineyards being planted, more winemakers coming into the district. So I thought three years ago, when Eden Road approached me to be their winemaker I said well, it’s probably time for me to jump ship, basically. 

Emma: What was distinctive about the Canberra region that made you go, okay, yes it’s time to jump ship. Was there something where you thought, yes, I’ve got a future here.

Celine: Basically, I’m drawn to the cool climate factor. So the fact that this region is cool climate, and I’d always worked in cool climate regions – except in Western Australia in the Perth Hills it’s pretty warm. Margaret River was not that cool climate but they consider themselves as being cool climate compared to the rest of Western Australia. So, that was the first point and I worked for 15 years in the Hilltops, and with the Tumbarumba region. And I thought that I wanted to stay connected as well with all those different regions so the position at Eden Road was perfect in a way because I already had those relationships in those different regions with growers. I knew them, so it was easy in a way.  Also, the fact that Canberra itself is fairly cool climate was actually the thing drew me most to the region.

Emma: Well that might lead into a good discussion about Canberra Riesling and shiraz; how does the cool climate influence those two particular varieties and what do you love about working with them?

Celine: I think they are the two varieties I probably like the most, Riesling and shiraz. I would add also Cabernet Sauvignon, but I don’t make any Cabernet Sauvignon here at Eden Road. I would love to go back at some stage to Cabernet Sauvignon from Hilltops.

So what makes it unique – Riesling, we have here a very continental aspect in a way, we’re far enough from the sea so it’s a continental climate. So we’ve got cool nights even during summer, we’ve got warm days but it’s not extremely warm. In this valley here in the Yass Valley it’s always windy, all year round so in the evening it cools down dramatically and during the day there is always a light breeze. It’s very rare when we get the temperature of 32 or 35 degrees. I think Riesling is one of the best varieties for this region. The soil is red sandy loam granite so Riesling is doing well on that type of soil. I think the climate and the difference of temperature in day and night means that Riesling retains a lot of acidity, so during the growing season, during the maturation of the grapes, having warm days – around 25 degrees – but night at like 10 or 12 degrees or sometimes even less helps to retain a lot of acidity. I think in Riesling if you don’t have that acidity, and that’s the base of the Riesling, then you cannot make very good Riesling. So I find the minerality in flavours in Riesling of the Canberra region quite unique. As much as people from the Clare Valley and Eden Valley will say some other things, those regions are very different to the Canberra district. And it’s site related, it’s not everywhere the same as you know.

Emma: I was so curious when you were talking about Riesling, about Clare Valley and Eden Valley and Canberra, and you’re saying they’re so different. How are they so different?

Celine: Well I think the Clare Valley and Eden Valley Rieslings have different characters – they’re a lot more limey than here. Yes, here we get that limey character but I’m also attracted more to the floral character that we get here in the Riesling. Between Clare and Eden Valley, I think it’s to do with the mineral and natural acidity. I think there’s a bit more acidity to the Clare than the Eden Valley but I’m not an expert on those two [laughs].

Emma: Sorry, I interrupted you talking about shiraz.

Celine: Yes. Look, with shiraz, I love shiraz from cool climate [regions]. I hardly drink any shiraz from warm climates, it’s very rare. So if I drink shiraz it’s either from France, from the Rhône valley, or from this region, or the Yarra Valley or Heathcote. So it’s either Victoria or here or France. I like those kind of peppery notes. And it’s good that in Australia now we’ve got different types of shirazes we can choose from. I like the fact that we get long - as I was saying before because of that continental aspect of the region - we’ve got a fairly slow ripening of the shiraz grapes, [which will] retain again a lot of the acidity. We can in a way mature the tannins or the polyphenol very slowly, and not have the increase of sugar content, which happens more in South Australia or Western Australia where they also grow shiraz we get that very difficult ripening where it’s very hot, the sugar levels go up, and the tannins don’t get ripe, really.

Image: Canberra District shiraz at harvest.

I find here it's interesting in the fact that it’s closer to what I know from France, and what I know a little bit from the Rhône Valley, where you can mature the tannins for much longer period of time. It’s probably why many people do whole bunch fermentation because some years you can and some years you cannot when the bunches are too green, but at least you’ve got that option. To me for the shiraz, especially in the cool climate region, the tannins need to be ripe. I’m not a big fan of green shiraz, you know, but you still retain - even if it’s ripe - those kind of peppery characters. So that’s what’s really interesting. And you can pick a shiraz in a blind tasting from a cool climate or from this region compared to Yarra Valley. It’s more interesting in a way.

Emma: What techniques or practices do you use to make your Riesling?

Celine: So to make the Riesling I do a bit of barrel fermentation, so it’s maybe slightly different to the rest of the Canberra district. So I do a whole bunch pressing or sometimes I destem grapes and I press them, separate the free run from the pressing, as well. I do separate the juice for whites and treat them in a different way, and I do the racking of the juice not clean, I tend to leave a fair bit of fine lees. So I’m always above 50 NTU when I start the fermentation so there’s no spontaneous fermentation for the Riesling. A couple of days after the start of fermentation I put it in all the French oak. A proportion of the wine stays in a stainless steel tank and then I blend after 3, 4, 5 months. I blend what has been barrel fermented with what was fermented in stainless steel.

So the proportion which is in oak is roughly between 15 and 20 % and I do a fair bit of batonage of that proportion for the first 3 months. I like the fact that those wines don’t end up to be too acidic, even if I pick them at quite high levels. So the fact that it’s barrel fermented that proportion which is barrel fermented is much softer on the palate, that contact with lees gives me a good blending component to soften that fairly sharp acidity. That’s why I do it, and I like barrel fermenting the Riesling.

Emma: Delicious!

Celine: And I don’t leave any residual sugar so it’s dry.

Emma: And how do you make your shiraz?

Celine: So [with] shiraz I tend not to do any whole bunch fermentation. I only do whole bunch for pinot noir. Shiraz, I destem and I ferment in an open fermenter the whole berries with plunging, so a fairly soft approach [to] the fermentation. So a bit like pinot noir but without the whole bunch. I don’t necessarily like those greenish characters from whole bunch, I think I would need to have an exceptionable year where it is not too hot, not too cold, the tannins in the bunch are ripe. When we go to the vineyard as winemakers we taste the berries, but we chew on the bunches as well. If we put the bunches in the shiraz, the same as the pinot noir, sometimes I don’t put any bunches in pinot as I find it’s too green. I don’t like those herbaceous characters in the shiraz. So I prefer the peppery notes, blackberry, cherry characters which is why I do it that way. The end of fermentation, when I drain the tanks, I blend the pressings with the free run and then I conduct malolactic in oak and I leave the shiraz in barrel for over 14 months. It’s not bottled straight away after 10 months, it’s got to be [matured] for quite a long time. I only use 10% new oak and it’s only French oak, so we don’t use any American oak here.

Emma: How would you describe the shiraz that comes out of that process or that practice? What’s sitting in the glass when you taste it?

Celine: Well I find on the nose, you know, we do get those peppery notes, especially from the Cullerin vineyard at Lake George where it’s a cooler site, but what I find, especially to do the malolactic in oak and to not have those whole bunch characters, I find those wines are a little bit more full-bodied on the palate. Especially in cooler years, you don’t want the wine to be too lean, so in barrel they are always on fine lees, so sometimes it’s happened to me, not at Eden Road yet but it happened to me at Chalkers [Crossing] with the Hilltops shiraz to do a little bit of batonage in a really cool year for reds. It does help a lot. It does actually remove those reduced character that you can get. I like the fact that that’s where I can have a little bit more full-bodied shiraz. I don’t want to make a medium-body shiraz, I want to make something with a bit more body.

Emma: So then talking about the Cullerin vineyard and you were saying you find it a cooler site, what are the differences you notice, I guess across the region but I’m thinking of specifically the Cullerin vineyard and then the Eden Road site in terms of the two different climats, what do you notice?

Image: Quartz and granite gathered from the shores of Lake George / Weereewa.

Celine: I think they are really different. They’re only 45 minutes apart – Cullerin is 45 minutes from Eden Road vineyard here at Murrumbateman, but I’ve found that the two sites are very, very different for the climate and for the ripening of the shiraz.

So the Cullerin site is at 720-740 metres and it’s a fairly cold site, and in summer by 4 o’clock in the afternoon the sun pretty much disappears behind that Cullerin [ridge], so the grapes are a bit more shaded, so they don’t have that very long sun exposure compared to here.

[In Murrumbateman] we’re only at 620 meters and the shiraz [block] gets sun from early morning to six o’clock at night, so I pick the Eden Road Murrumbateman shiraz two weeks ahead of the Cullerin shiraz, and also we get more blackberry notes and dark cherry notes with riper tannins.

At Cullerin we get more peppery notes, more spicy notes. I’ve got to really push the ripening a bit further to have those tannins correct, you know, to have them ripe. If I pick too early I know its going to be green and it’s not going to be the shiraz that I really like.

So there is a huge difference. And two weeks apart for the same region is quite a big difference. But they’re both good, they’re complementary. Sometimes I do blend them to make the Eden Road Canberra shiraz.

Emma: Is there Riesling grown on the Cullerin block?

Celine: No. Only here. There’s a bit of chardonnay there, but it’s mostly red, mostly shiraz, malbec and pinot noir. There’s a bit of viognier that I blend with the shiraz. 

Emma: Do you always blend or co-ferment a bit of viognier?

Celine: Not here, for Eden Road we don’t have any viognier. At Cullerin we get around 300kg of viognier so yes I blend it with the best block and I co-ferment them. But it’s really almost negligible, 0.5% probably overall.

Emma: I was going to say, do you notice anything that it gives the wine?

Celine: Well, when I blend it in that tank, in the 3 tonne open fermenter yes, I notice it and after that when it’s blended. It’s just lost. It does soften a little bit the wine.

Emma: What do you love about the Canberra region landscape?

Celine: Landscape? Especially when I drive between here and Lake George I find it’s very different. There’s a lot more granite towards Lake George, and then you arrive to that lake it’s dry most of the time, it’s flat. But I find that side a lot more spiritual, a lot more attractive… it’s actually beautiful over there. And you go through hills, they’re not very big hills, but you go through that kind of change in vegetation as well, and going towards that lake there’s a lot more wind so there’s smaller trees, except on the ridge, and compared to here where we in a valley, there is obviously not only vineyards, there are also farms with cattle and sheep and you’ve got more of that here than you’ve got at Lake George. It’s a bit more isolated and protected, more like a natural reserve in a way, and it’s a very beautiful site. A beautiful and spiritual landscape, I find it, more than here.

I think that the vineyard is prettier there than it is here but we are pretty much in a valley [so] we’ve got that aspect of being in a valley, it’s a bit more fertile in a way for agriculture altogether. I think for water they’re pretty much the same but we have more impact of drought at Lake George than here because of that wind. In summer that wind dries the vines and the soil. I like the landscape. I love Tumbarumba because the hills are a bit higher and it reminds me more of France when I start driving towards the Snowy Mountains.

Emma: I love Tumbarumba too, it’s just a beautiful region. For you, what’s unique about our terroir here in Canberra, if you can use that word. So if you had to explain Canberra to someone who hadn’t heard of the wine region before, how would you say it’s different?

Celine: I think what’s unique to start with [is] I think we are the smallest region in Australia, smallest wine region, so it makes it pretty unique. So there’s more boutique wineries here than anywhere else. We don’t have that big commercial aspect, when you go to South Australia, to the Barossa Valley – yes it’s a very old wine region but it can be commercial. It can be a little bit a different scale. Here I think people may find it’s more attractive because the vineyards and the cellar doors are a bit closer to each other and they can taste wine from some vineyards they would never actually have heard [of] before because it’s not sold in big retail chains. So I think that’s what makes it really attractive – the proximity to Canberra city for the food scene and the wine makes it attractive, to be only half an hour from Canberra, we’ve got an airport which is half an hour away, hotels, restaurants. I would love to see in the near future a good restaurant here, not in Canberra. [laughs] that would be good.

Emma: I 100% agree with you [laughs]. Do you think actually, just going off the back of talking about Canberra, do you think the food and wine culture in Canberra is changing how the region develops in a way?

Celine: Yeah, I’ve thought about that before, because I could see in 20 years the Canberra region, even winemakers in this region, coming inside the region you’ve got the older generation, you’ve got the newer generation, winemakers who are starting in a winery then make their own label and make different wines and I think it’s more what’s happening in the Canberra region with the winemakers here that will change the wine and food scene in Canberra itself. You can have [an] example here of winemakers who are making natural wines, low-intervention, and all the range of wines may be natural wines.

Here at Eden Road we are organic so we really wanted to do something about respecting not just the environment but the consumer as well when you drink a glass of wine – Lake George is exactly the same, it’s an organic vineyard as well – so I think the fact that a lot of winemakers from different parts of Australia came over here, I mean me I came from another country, makes things a bit actually change the culture, the food culture as well in Canberra. There’s been a massive improvement in the restaurant scene in the last 20 years, I mean that’s really good and I think now there is choices of wines to go with that foods. It is more diverse, it’s not just people making Riesling and shiraz, it’s people making Tempranillo or making Graciano or making Malbec.

I think most of the winemakers haven’t been afraid to actually plant new varieties here, not stick just to Riesling and also shiraz. It’s the backbone, it’s the base of the regions, they’re the two icons – however I think there is room for the varieties like Gruner or Malbec, maybe gamay as well, you know like because they are pretty much cool climate varieties as well. But you know shiraz and Riesling are the familiar icons here and I think it will stay that way probably.

Emma: The last question is, which is a bit of a... well, answer how you want to, where do you think the region will be in 20 years’ time?

Celine: Well obviously the older generation… some people won’t be here anymore. I guess it’s a region that attracts winemakers from anywhere around Australia, hopefully more people from overseas as well. […] an Italian winemaker or a French winemaker or a Spanish winemaker would be great, or even Kiwi winemakers I mean there are some around the Canberra District. I think it’s good because they bring something else, they bring their different expertise, different palate. It makes the region richer. And I think the fact that winemakers here are actually quite willing to actually take risks and plant some varieties that haven’t been planted here in the past. 

This interview took place in the Eden Road winery, autumn 2021.

Images: Sammy Hawker and Ash St George.