If you’ve never heard of a wine called tarrango, you’re probably not alone. Just like music, hairstyles and clothing, popular wine styles ebb and flow over the years.
“Tarrango was really popular throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, especially in the UK, and then for a number of reasons it went out of fashion,” says Katherine Brown, fourth generation Brown Brothers winemaker. “People moved to sauvignon blanc and other varieties and other ways of enjoying their red wine.”
That tarrango fell off the radar is made more notable by the fact it’s a grape developed by the CSIRO in 1965 specifically for warm Australian conditions.
“It was put together through a crossing of two other grapes: touriga nacional, which is originally from Portugal; and sultana, like the grapes that you buy in the supermarket,” Brown says. “The idea was to get a grape variety that dealt well with our conditions up in the Murray Valley region or the inland regions of Australia to deal with a lack of water.”
Brown Brothers was one of the last major producers of tarrango, and kept its vines despite not using them to produce any wine.
“My dad [Ross Brown] and I have had a huge passion for tarrango and made sure that, as much as the market wasn’t calling for it, it didn’t get forgotten about,” Brown says.
Now, with light, chillable styles in demand, the tarrango vineyard at Mystic Park in northern Victoria is again producing a wine that’s perfect for warm weather drinking.
“It’s essentially a step up from rosé,” says Brown. “If you’ve drunk rosé before and you’ve drunk pinot noir before, it really sits right in the middle there. And we chill it – it’s an amazing wine for a sunny day.”
For Brown, the beauty of tarrango in 2022 is that its cherry and spice notes fit with our modern approach to wine and food.
“I think about the last few dinners and lunches I’ve gone out for, it’s very rare now that you sit down and order a dish just for yourself – it’s all about sharing and different flavours and bringing together different cultures,” says Brown. “I think tarrango is perfect for that. It’s a red wine, it’s got a bit of body, it stands up to flavours and a bit of spice.”
“My absolute favourite pairing would be a cold duck salad. It’s got a pinot-esque flavour to it so that gamey duck works well.”
At the moment, Brown Brothers is the only producer of tarrango. But there’s no exclusive deal – rather, it demonstrates the winery’s commitment to working alongside forward-thinking organisations such as the CSIRO. If you keep a close eye, you might spot the next wine trend before it catches on.
“We’ve currently got some other CSIRO varieties in the ground,” says Brown. “None of them have sexy names like tarrango; they’re more like M5110 and those sorts of things. Every harvest we bring them in and make wines with them of different styles to hopefully at one point be like ‘Yep, we’re onto the next big thing.’”
This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Brown Brothers. Brown Brothers Tarrango available now at Dan Murphy’s and Brown Brothers
