Wine

Brian Croser And Tapanappa - The Titan Of Tiers

The man who rewrote Australia's wine future. Our wine history is blessed with names that have shaped what we drink, how we make it, and how we talk about it.

Trailblazers like Busby, Reynell, Seppelt, Penfold, O'Shea, Schubert, Gladstones, Lake, Evans, Dr. AC Kelly and Halliday have all made, and still make, vital contributions to the vinous landscape we taste daily.

There is one name however, whose additions to Australian wine are hard to quantify, his influence yet to fully crystallise across the stratum of its functional componentry.

That name is Brian Croser, and as a vigneron, scientist, winemaker, educator, researcher, industry leader, mentor, businessman and administrator, the impact of his five decades across vineyards and vintages around the world can only be partly calculated.

From pioneering the Adelaide Hills to championing site- specific viticulture, Croser has reshaped where we plant, what we plant, and how we make and understand wine.

BRIAN CROSER'S INFLUENCE AND INSPIRATION

Born 1948 in Millicent on South Australia's Limestone Coast, Croser's parents then moved to the Clare to farm sheep. Croser himself would go to Adelaide's Scotch College on an endowment from his great-grandfather. There he met Charles Fisher: biology teacher, headmaster and wine lover, who planted the seed in Croser's head to pursue winemaking.

Drawn to the biological/agricultural side of life, Brian opted for agricultural science at the University of Adelaide as his pathway. "When I made that decision, winemakers were very much stuck in the wine room," recalls Croser. "They rarely walked in a vineyard, including Max Schubert, Colin Preece, Rudi Kronberger and other luminaries." 

He graduated and went to work for Hardy's. With their support, Croser decided to secure a masters in oenology/ winemaking at University of California, Davis. He left without a degree, but with a love of Chardonnay - and lots of inspiration. "The American industry was really eye-opening," explains Croser.

"It was 1972, 1973, so when I arrived there was a thriving boutique wine industry happening: Chalone, Hanzell, Freemark Abbey and a stack of brand new boutique wineries. Seeing it all, and in particular Chardonnay, made me determined that that's the direction I would head when I got back." 

GRAPE, PLACE AND ACADEMICS: A PATH TO PICCADILLY

Brian Croser, Wine Selectors Co-Chair Adam Walls, and Selector Publisher Paul Diamond.

At that stage, single varietal wines - and table wine in general - was yet to become important, but from his time in America, Croser understood that great wine was made in the vineyards: the right sites, planted with the right varieties.

After coming back to work at Hardys, a shift from fortified was underway. "So, as chief winemaker, I started Hardy's down the track of really understanding the vineyards," says Croser. "We set up a team and a method of sampling, understanding vineyards and protecting the quality of fruit every step of the way into the bottle."

But at Hardy's, Croser felt snookered. It was becoming clear that his role was desk-bound, and the appeal for it all after six vintages began to diminish. Obligations to Hardy's prevented him from starting his own business.

A solution to this conundrum came through teaching the then-disparate wine production components of growing and production together, along with the relevant chemistry, biology, microbiology and oenology discipline, as a single stream.

He headed to Wagga and established a course in wine science at the-then Riverina College of Advanced Education, later to become the Bachelor of Wine Science and Bachelor of Viticulture at Charles Sturt University: alongside that offered at University of Adelaide, one of the foremost wine degrees in Australia, if not the world.

PETALUMA'S PARADOX

But those that can, do, and Brian's desire to bring all of his philosophies to life led him to start Petaluma, a brand focused on making  wine from 'distinguished sites'. The first Petaluma wine was a Riesling from Ngambie's Mitchelton vineyards, then a Gewrztraminer and a brace of Chardonnay from Cowra.

To give Petaluma a home, Brian and his wine Ann purchased in the cool, wet slopes of Adelaide Hills' Piccadilly Valley. He then close-planted a Chardonnay vineyard called 'Tiers', arguably the most important Chardonnay vineyard in Australia.

The fruit from these close-planted vines eventually became Petaluma Tiers Chardonnay, and joined Clare Valley Riesling (Hanlin Hill), a Coonawarra Merlot and Cabernet Merlot (Evans Vineyard), to form the basis of what became the benchmark for modern Australian wineries. Within all this, Brian created his eponymous sparkling brand as a Blanc de Blanc, and Croser is now one of Australia's most recognisable sparkles.

Brian floated Petaluma. The company went public and became an Australian icon. This success cemented both Petaluma and Australia on the global fine wine map, shifting the perception of Australian wine as a volume.over-provenance, intervention-over-stewardship wine producer, to one capable of character, complexity, finesse and ageability. With this shift came the attention of corporates, and in 2001 Petaluma was the target of a hostile takeover from New Zealand beer giant Lion Nathan, acquiring 93 per cent.

To have built something so successful for it then to be taken and put at risk was a cruel, devastating paradox for Brian and the family. 'Corporates have destroyed so much in the Australian wine business,' Croser remarks. "They have diluted, almost to the point of irrelevance, Australia's fine wine image with only Treasury, Yalumba and a few smaller wine families carrying the flame." 

Croser is under no illusion of the impacts. "Almost everything the corporates have done is to destroy brands by consolidation and rely on scale to reduce costs and mechanisation which destroys quality. When it comes to great Australian brands that we have lost from it, the list is long and the regard is short." 

THE WINES OF TAPANAPPA

To move forward, Croser co- founded Tapanappa Wines in 2002 with the Bollinger family and the Cazes family of Chteau Lynch-Bages. Translated from its Indigenous origins as "stick to the path," Tapanappa is a celebration of Piccadilly (Tiers) Chardonnay, Cabernet/Shiraz/Merlot and Cabernet Franc from his Wrattonbully Whalebone Vineyard, and Pinot Noir from his Foggy Hill vineyards located on South Australia's Fleurieu Peninsula. The Chardonnays from Tapanappa have two iterations, 1.5m and Tiers, distinguished by vine spacing, age and clone.

Winemaking across both is the same: finding definitive, consistent nuance between both wines across the variance of vintage takes time. Both are complex, rich, pure and elegantly structured wines, however the youth of the 1.5m wines show aromatic energy and fragrance with a slightly richer phenolic mouthfeel. Aromatically, the Tiers Chardonnays take a little longer to unfurl with a finer, silkier texture and definition between fruit layers that's harder to distinguish.

Both wines are designed to age slowly, as the gloriously youthful and freshly textured 2005 proved, highlighting another big "Croser-ism," that "all good wine should age well." Both Tiers and 1.5m are some of the best Chardonnay in the country, however, the 1.5m 2024 and 2021 stand out for their electric layers of power and acidity, with the 2023 and 2021 Tiers shining for their supremely coiled restraint.

FOGGY HILL

Since its 2007 debut, Croser's Foggy Hill Pinot Noirs have attracted devotees for their distinctly unique expression. Fine boned, with a mineral-laced melange of cranberries, rhubarb and cherries, the Foggy Hills are shaped with fine savoury tannins woven through a sinewy frame.

They all carry the Croser signature of nuance and balance. However, as they age, micro-layers emerge and add extra complexity without compromising weight and texture. The 2014 shines with wet earth, mushroom and truffle aromatics, as does the youthful 2023, humming with restrained energy.

First made in 2017, Croser's Definitus Pinots come from just ten rows in the middle of Foggy Hill and represent the zenith of Foggy Hill's possibilities: finesse, elegance, and depth of flavour with a little more structure and tannin adding to the ferrous characteristics. Highly fragrant with cherries, tea leaves and cranberries, these wines require patience and it's clear that the best is yet to come.

WHALEBONE

Nothing like it: The superb wines of Tapanappa Whalebone vineyard.

Named after ancient whalebones found on site, it's clear that these wines represent Croser's soft spot for great Claret/ Bordeaux; built to last, medium-bodied, complex and savoury, with tannins shaping mouthfeel and structure. The Cabernet Shiraz versions are the fuller-bodied of the wines, awash with blackcurrants, cassis, earth, dark chocolate and herbs running through a fine savoury skeleton.

The 2021 Vineyard Blend Whalebone is a beautifully fragrant, polished wine, and the Merlot/Cab Franc wines are seductively perfumed and balanced, with juicy layers of cranberries, blackcurrants, mint and sandalwood.

The sweet spot for these wines seems to lie just beyond the six-year mark, where tannins start to recede to let the fine-boned, savoury nature of these wine sing. As a treat Brian opened one of the early Petaluma Coonawarra Cabernets from 1994, and its freshness, vibrancy and detail prove his vision.

Brian Croser's contribution to Australian wine is nothing short of foundational. He helped elevate the national conversation around quality, authenticity, and regional identity at a time when the global market was still uncertain about what Australia stood for.

For those who believe wine is more than a beverage, but a reflection of place and people, he remains one of Australian wine's greatest.