Ahead of Sunday, a moment of Father’s Day reflection, if you will: A highlight of my week was a touching tribute to what a dad did.
It was my pleasure to host a Q&A with Lindsay and Jamie McCall @paringaestate on Wednesday as they unveiled their brand-new 2022 LJM Pinot Noir to the wine trade. It’s offered as a culmination of this estate’s experience over a 40-year journey at this site, a coming together of its best wines in a stellar Mornington Peninsula season and a celebration of a father/son collaboration. LJM is a fitting landmark and fantastic wine: a cool season’s ethereal aromas, Paringa’s trademark flavour intensity, pure fruit interwoven with savoury tones and a long, lacy interplay of vibrant acids and tannins.
On the receiving end of wine, it’s easy to focus on the result. We’re lucky enough to peruse a list, pick a sure bet and find instant gratification. On the grower side, nothing’s certain and gratification can arrive at a glacial pace.
Lindsay McCall was a geography teacher when he embarked on this dream in 1984, and this steep, north-facing slope was a rundown orchard. The peninsula wasn’t a wine region—a few impassioned amateurs had been sputtering along for under a decade, and Pinot Noir was barely a twinkle in its forefathers’ eye. Lindsay had some notable sounding boards along the way, notably Nat White @mainridgeestate and Ric McIntyre @moorooducestate, but he was one to plough his own furrow—as an improbably strong track record with Shiraz attests.
Son Jamie worked his first harvest here in ’07, studied winemaking in 2010 and took the reins as chief winemaker in 2017 via harvests @kooyongwines and @domainedrouhinoregon and his apprenticeship at home.
Though Lindsay isn’t the most demonstrative vigneron, his happiness at having his son by his side is palpable. But this lunch’s marvellous moment came when Jamie paid homage, with striking and unexpected candour, to his father’s vision and tenacity. Sometimes a story can be packaged so neatly that the gift’s weight of meaning gets lost. But we shouldn’t neglect to show love for the faith and chance and grit and grind it takes to make something good—something to savour, treasure and pass on.
30th of August 2024
Ed Merrison
Instagram: @vininspo.wine