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A simple plan for Moorooduc Estate

Jane Faulkner

Moorooduc Estate vineyard and Jill's restaurant - fine wine, fabulous food and luxury accommodation [©Moorooduc Estate]

Someone shrieks in delight that there’s a peacock shaking his seductive, iridescent tail-feathers near the cellar door. Sure enough, it’s true. What a show-off and what an enchanting if unusual greeting at Moorooduc Estate, one of Mornington Peninsula’s premium wineries. Although the usual welcome comes from owners Richard and Jill McIntyre, the dynamic duo of thoughtful winemaker and chef respectively.

For Moorooduc Estate is much more than a cellar door.

The modern outpost also includes three stylishly appointed guest suites and Jill’s restaurant with requisite stunning vineyard and bucolic views. The whole building is an impressive rammed earth and exposed timber construct designed by internationally recognised environmental architect Greg Burgess and completed in 1999, 17 years after they bought the property. Back then, the idea the McIntyre’s would one day create three successful intertwined businesses had barely germinated.

“It’s one of those things that we started off with a simple plan,” says Richard, “and we were quite naive. I thought I could be a wine producer with an overlapping second career (he’s a surgeon) and Jill had a long time ambition to do some sort of food. But we certainly didn’t have any grand vision at the beginning of the adventure.”

He happily adds that “we were also blissfully ignorant as to what vines to plant.”

Initially, they were advised to grow cabernet sauvignon. In the early 1980s, few knew about pinot noir and it was erroneously believed that the Bordeaux varieties would flourish on the peninsula. In 1983, both he and Jill literally got their hands dirty and started planting. Of course, hindsight is a great thing and the Mornington Peninsula wine region is still deemed cool climate (despite any future impact from global warming). So guess what? Cabernet hates the cold as it won’t ripen properly with the resulting wine often tasting of green hard and bitter tannins with tomato leaf or capsicum notes. Awful and not at all enticing.

“I made terrific cabernet in some years but not enough in all years,” says Richard, so there was only one thing to do. Graft those original vines over to pinot noir, which was only done last season. However, by the mid-90s Richard knew pinot noir was going to be a more suitable variety and had started to plant it.

“I remember the attitude to pinot noir back then that it wouldn’t travel outside its heart of Burgundy and prosper. Then it gradually dawned on me that pinot had the potential to do wonderful things in this region. It was an evolving process and I’d like to say there was some grand inspiration behind planting it but there wasn’t. It was sequential.”

It sounds like a French conspiracy saying the variety wouldn’t flourish anywhere else because now, pinot noir has made the Mornington Peninsula very popular, famous and prohibitively expensive. It is also the region’s leading and most alluring red.

Now with 25 years of winemaking and viticultural experience and an understanding as to what his patch of soil can do, Richard is simply building upon that knowledge. To date, he’s planted seven different clones, including those French ones known as Dijon clones that add more finesse, perfume and elegance to the mix and it’s going to be exciting to gauge those subtleties in the next few years. But Moorooduc Estate produces more than just outstanding pinot noir. There’s also excellent shiraz and chardonnay in the line up. If anything, chardonnay has proved itself to be the outstanding variety here. Ever since wild yeast ferments became part of the winemaking regime more than a decade ago, Richard’s chardonnays have been transformed into complex, textural wines yet with a tight focus. They are a joy to drink.

There are three tiers of wines at Moorooduc Estate – Devil Bend Creek that sees fruit sourced from several vineyards on the Mornington Peninsula followed by the Moorooduc Estate made from fruit only from that subregion and finally the top wine, a pinot noir and chardonnay, known as The Moorooduc, which comes solely from the McIntyre property at Derril Road. It’s a special site and no matter the effort or cost, only the best parcels of fruit go into The Moorooduc, which is identifiable by the duck on the label. The only downside, not much is made.

However, The Moorooduc features on the very nifty short wine list at Jill’s, so best order a bottle for lunch. All their wines feature, most by the glass, with some back vintages too and complemented by several choice producers including old world offerings, starting with champagne. It’s such an organic space and quite uplifting, although the aromas emanating from the kitchen certainly help, too.

Jill’s menu takes its inspiration from the Mediterranean, particularly France so in winter you can order a hearty cassoulet de Toulouse full of pork, lamb, sausages and haricot beans, which will follow on nicely from the excellent rillettes served with cornichons, caramelised onions and sourdough crisps. But more Italian-influenced dishes include the Tuscan bean soup ribollita or lemon, prawn and saffron-infused risotto.

The regional and seasonal are very much part of the menu as is the winery’s vegie patch and it’s always a delight to know something has been picked fresh that morning only to reappear a few hours later in one of your dishes whether it’s some herbs, salad leaves or vegetables.

Jill is an excellent cook with a wonderful eye for detail but the dishes are not fussily plated. More than anything, she encourages diners to graze, share and take time to savour the flavours while enjoying one another’s company. And if you’re wondering why the sour dough bread is so fabulous, it’s because Richard bakes it.

He even built the wood-fired oven, which sits proudly in the courtyard between the restaurant and cellar door. Since he’s so good with wild yeast ferments, Richard thought bread would be his next adventure and an excellent companion to Jill’s food. He sources the finest flour and learnt a trick or two from St Kilda artisan baker Daniel Chirico when deciding a few years back that baking was going to be part of his repertoire. All this means is that he’s up very early on weekends stoking the fire in preparation to bake enough bread for lunch and Saturday night dinner.

Indefatigable is a word that comes to mind to describe Richard and Jill. The next stage in their culinary and vinous journey is to revamp and expand the cellar door to include a cafe-cum-pizzeria. That and the forthcoming vintage. Bring it on.

Moorooduc Estate Winery, Jill’s restaurant and accommodation is at 501 Derril Road, Moorooduc, phone: 5971 8507. The cellar door is open Thursday and Monday 11am-4pm and weekends 11am-5pm. Jill’s is open Sat-Sun 12.30pm-3pm and Sat 7pm-10pm. For more details including accommodation packages go to www.moorooduc-estate.com.au.

Regions

• Mornington Peninsula (VIC)

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