Nick Stock is one of Australia’s most well-known and highly-regarded wine critics. He co-owns McLaren Vale’s favourite beach front bar and restaurant the Silver Sands Beach Club and The Old Bush Inn Hotel, Willunga’s “top pub.” Read more of Nick Stock’s work over at nickstock.com.au
With two Jimmy Watson trophies and a list of awards and accolades for both him and his wines as long as the Heysen Trail, he has much to smile about. Yet here we are, surrounded by a lineup of his best bottles on a Tuesday afternoon in a cocktail bar in Adelaide, and he is looking a little uneasy.
Pannell has seen the Australian wine industry ebb and flow many times before but he is concerned about the current cycle and the pothole-riddled road he and all Australian winemakers are collectively seeing ahead. And justifiably so, for the entire world of wine is grappling with a crisis of multi-faceted pressures on their endeavours. There is a crisis in the wine world on all sides of the globe. Too much wine is being made, not enough is being sold and something has got to give.
Pannell’s path forward to navigate these treacherous conditions is to keep as calm as possible, to carry on making wines to his very high standards and to encourage others to do the same. He leads by elite example and knows no other way. Pannell is all in now. He believes that relying on anyone else to underwrite the brand of quality he seeks is just plain unrealistic. The most important part of the winemaking process – growing the grapes – is simply not a task he is willing to outsource.
So, alongside establishing his trio of very reputable wine labels, S.C. Pannell, Protero and Koomilya, Pannell has invested in high-quality vineyard holdings in McLaren Vale and the Adelaide Hills to support them. Vineyard ownership is the only way to guarantee the quality of each wine and, ultimately, the future for himself and his family.
Pannell’s wines are exemplary in every regard and yet they are also unique in many ways. He eschews the use of new oak;
wine should taste like grapes not trees
he says with his signature wry smile, “and the taste of place should be first, not the hand of the maker.” It’s a refreshing sentiment and one that is slowly taking hold in the culture of Australian wine. Pannell is a leader, a reluctant hero of sorts, but becoming more and more vocal about broader wine industry issues.
It’s as if he has no choice than to step up. He’s seen too much and carries a scope of responsibility that runs way past family and those close enough to hear it first hand. As winemakers go, Pannell is as good as they get. And, as an industry leader intent on shaping the future of Australian wine, there is no better person to be at the helm. His wines are breathtakingly great and borne of equal parts soul and place. Go seek them out. You can thank him later for all he does to nourish and nurture the future of great Australian wine.
I, for one, will drink to that!
Nick Stock
