You were just 18 years old when you first worked in a winery in France. Tell us, how does an 18 year old get into the world of winemaking?
Ah, running out of money in France was a good starting point! I’m a Yarra boy, and when I was 18, I jumped on a plane and got the hell out of there. It was a very small community and I felt pretty claustrophobic. So, it was’t that I was on the road to explore the wine industry, I was just getting out! I ran out of cash in France and worked a harvest. At the time, I just got excited by the background of people that I was working with – there was an amazing cross-section of culture and history over there. There were people from all over the world working together and we’d all sit around the table at lunch time and my small little mind was exploding with excitement. So, it was the people that really drew me into it initially.

You got back from Australia in 2004 to kick off your own namesake project. Was it difficult adapting differing techniques, processes and approaches when you got back to The Yarra?
I spent a lot of time in Europe, and people were quick to dismiss that Australia could produce ‘wines of place’ – there were so many furry animals on labels that were generic, piss-boring wines … but they were cheap, accessible and consistent. They were very much wines made for the consumer – and it just became like any other supermarket product. And I was witness to all of that, and probably wore a fair bit of scar tissue from it. I felt that having seen the small single vineyard estates here that we could produce ‘wines of place’, but as a region we hadn’t been through the involved process of trying to understand the nuances as we moved through the valley. The valley to start with is a pretty big region, and as the Yarra River flows upstream, you go from quite a warm section that is loosely termed ‘the valley floor’ and then you go further upstream to where a lot of the sparkling vineyards were planted in the 80s and 90s. I guess I just came back from Europe and realised that we hadn’t even scratched the surface in understand what it means to farm this land and soils. The more that we’ve looked at it, the more we believe that we’ve got a pretty compelling story, that has got very little to do with technology or winery techniques – it’s more looking at our soils and and adapting, and that’s where we start to see something unique. The uniqueness can’t come from what we do in the cellar, it really has to start in the vineyard.

How have you seen the wine culture evolve in Australia over the past 20 years?
Back when I first went overseas, there was a vague sense of wine culture here at the time. There were a handful of vineyards and wineries, but it was in the background. Back then it was just a lot of cask wine on top of the fridge, and on special occasions a cork would be pulled. There’s always that beer-swilling perception from abroad, but at the same time no one really appreciated what good wine actually was back then. Thankfully our food and wine scene has evolved a lot in the last 20 years, and it’s now comparable to really anywhere in the world. There was certainly some level of culture back then, and I think that’s important to recognise. Nowadays, there’s no competitive advantage know in terms of ‘winery technology’ – everybody has got access to the same things. Probably in the late 80s we got a head start on other countries, particular the older traditional European countries, by working with technology and getting ahead – but you walk into any cellar now, and they are the same.

What would you say are the biggest changes you’ve witnessed in the Australian wine industry?
I think the biggest change is a return to saying ‘we can’t make every wine’. When I went through uni, the general way of thinking was that ‘we can make any style of wine that the consumer wants’. The reality is that we can’t. You’re bound by the climate, soils and where you’re based. I think there has been a really healthy return to saying, well, let’s look at what’s in front of us, rather than trying to be all things to everyone. There was a great time in the early 70s when there was a sense of adventure in wine making, then it all kind of maxed out in the 80s and 90s, but now we’re in a super exciting place. I think as a consumer, we’ve got a lot more diversity and a far greater range of wines that tell our story. There is a really strong presence of Australian wine, and people want to drink our wines again on a international platform. At the end of the day – drinking it is the most important thing. We don’t want people standing around in lab coats giving our wines high scores. We’re not trying to make perfect wines. In fact, often perfect wines, like the 100-point wines, you can’t drink the whole bottle. I think wines with personality are far more enjoyable to drink. The industry right now is as healthy as I have ever seen it, and that’s both from a producer and wine consumer perspective.

With that in mind, how has the shift toward minimal intervention and natural wines changed the industry?
There’s a lot of talk about old-fashioned techniques that take longer to see wine into bottle – like, we’re planting vines at the moment, and I will be in my 70s before I get to really appreciate whether what we’re doing now is the right call in terms of variety, site and root stock. Yeah, you can speed up the process through lots of irrigation and fertiliser, but that detracts from the wines really being able to express their particular place. For us, we’re taking a very slow, dry-grow and long-term view. In the industry, I think we’ve gone from seeing those high octane big alcohol big-oak monsters where you couldn’t get enough into the wine and trying to max it out in every possible way, to now going with ‘less is more’. For us, we don’t add any yeast or any nutrient, and we’re remembering that the whole process is a very natural one. You can muddy the waters and interfere a lot and still get a result called wine, but from our perspective, the more that you tinker, the more you detract from the original story. When you think about it, we’ve inherited things from the last generation, and our long-term view will affect the next generation, and to be honest there aren’t many industries around that work on that sort of time scale any more. With iPhones and technology, everything is so immediate. So, trying to reconcile an industry where on one hand we have to embrace technology for communication with our customers and all of that, but from a production perspective we remain very old fashioned and old school … things just take time.

As a producer and winemaker, how would you best describe your philosophy?
Honest. Everything we do in the vineyard and the cellar is about being honest. That’s with ourselves and with our sites. We’re doing everything we can with respect to the fruit that we taste in the vineyard.

Winemaking has to be viewed as a long-term project. How do you keep the fire burning on a day-to-day basis?
I guess it just feels like we’re starting to see a picture emerge of what it means to be Australian and cool-climate Australian, and I think that picture is an exciting one. It’s a picture that we can be proud of and is motivating. There is a really obvious global issue in that seasons are just getting earlier and warmer and more extreme. We have to be adaptable, so it never feels like we have got the solution. Like, I’m talking to you now and we’re dealing with some hot northerly winds today – so there’s always that sense of what is around the corner and how do we adapt or respond. We’re going to have to contend with this more and more, so that’s interesting and certainly a challenge because you never get comfortable. We’re always trying things – we do still foot-stomp and hand de-stem, everything is very manual and hands on, and it’s quite refreshing when you’re really attached to it and you’re doing it with people that you like … that’s what keeps me energised. Ultimately, I feel like I am working with a bunch of mates and we are kids playing around … we haven’t had to grow up yet, which is pretty exciting.

What do you see for the future of the Australian wine industry?
This industry is still built on trends and cycles, so what’s hot now won’t be in five years. I hope that the industry doesn’t go  back to where we came from with those big, over-worked styles. It’ll be fascinating to watch, though. But I think so many people now feel comfortable saying they like this or that, with their own personal taste being the most important thing. I think 10 years ago, people were more affected by reading what journalists said and then following that lead. I think that on the back of more informed retailers, sommeliers and consumers, people are not feeling the pressure to conform. So, I think that could lead to a healthy continuation of where we are now. There should be more diversity and choice … that’s what I’d hope and expect.

Finally, what are you pouring for yourself tonight?
Ahh, after having drunk way too much like I did on the weekend … I just love opening up two or three bottles, and watching them evolve for the week. You can learn a lot from a wine over a few days. I enjoy picking a couple of wines that maybe have a loose connection somehow and then just seeing how they evolve. Because we’re planting trousseau, I’ve had more of that recently, and I’m also enjoying lot of Austrian and German rieslings.

Want to learn more and sip on the fabulous Mac Forbes wines? You can hang out with Mac himself at the Mac Forbes Wine Dinner at Harry’s Steak Bistro & Bar on Thursday September 28. Tickets are available over here.