PJ Charteris has ping-ponged between New Zealand and Australia his whole life, and few winemakers wear their wanderings on their sleeve quite like him.

PJ and his wife, Chrissi Pattison, run the Charteris wine label from their cellar door in Pokolbin in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, where they also peddle the New Zealand wines PJ makes in Central Otago.

Kiwi PJ met his Australian bride while they were both working at Brokenwood in the Hunter Valley, the Semillon-synonymous region that has been a constant in PJ’s career.

Having grown up in the Waikato on New Zealand’s North Island and got his first job among the vines there as a 13-year-old, a spot of luck took him to Roseworthy Agricultural College in South Australia. This set him up with experience and acquaintances that brought on the crisscrossing stepping stones of his future journey.

One of the (literally) biggest influences was Lindemans, where PJ served in the Hunter, at Karadoc in Mildura (Victoria)—where he talks about blending the multiregional Bin 65 Chardonnay, and in Coonawarra, where he cites the prestigious red-wine trio of Pyrus, St George and Limestone Ridge.

Lindemans at the time was part of Southcorp (later morphing into Treasury Wine Estates), which owned several brands across Australia, hence PJ’s exposure to various regions and portfolios.

One of those is Penfolds, maker of Grange—Australia’s most famous red wine—and the project we discuss is Yattarna, where PJ effectively scoured the country to conjure a white Grange. At one point, this may have been Riesling, Semillon or Chardonnay, but Chardonnay won out and Yattarna has become a storied blend of immense intensity and complexity.

PJ drops a lot of names here; the sheer number and calibre of these peers is one of the most endearing parts of his story. There are too many for these show notes, but I will fix the spellings in the transcript so that you can look them up. There are a few that need some context, though.

Michael Brajkovich MW of Kumeu River is the New Zealander PJ cites as a notable Roseworthy predecessor. Tom Carson, the “fourth axis” of the team under Tim Knappstein, is the long-serving winemaker at Yabby Lake on the Mornington Peninsula and grows his Serrat wines with his wife Nadège in the Yarra Valley. The schmick wines they drank together are La Tâche (Pinot Noir from Burgundy) and the Bordeaux châteaux Margaux and Haut-Brion.

David and Ginny Adelsheim are the Oregon pioneers PJ worked for. As well as running Adelsheim, they were then making wines for Domaine Drouhin, the US outpost of a Burgundy estate.

Among the Lindemans legends, Philip Laffer is the chap who’d recently left, leaving Phillip John and Geoff Hendricks as the top duo, while (ex-Seppelt) sparkling wine maestro Ian Mackenzie and former Penfolds Grange maker John Duvall were a couple of the senior influences.

I’m glad PJ shone a light on the NSW regions. Just so you know the names and can seek them out, he briefly mentioned Cowra and Canowindra and was especially excited about Orange, Tumbarumba and Hilltops.

In the Hunter Valley section, PJ speaks of James Busby and his brother-in-law William Kelman (PJ calls him John by mistake). Busby is credited with planting the seeds of the Australian wine industry, having brought an extensive collection of European vine stock to Australia in the first half of the 19th century. PJ also mentions the work of Julie McIntyre, author and research fellow in history at the University of Newcastle, as well as Max Allen’s excellent book, Intoxicating. Oh, and those other Semillons to drink and compare (among others) are Andrew “Thommo” Thomas and Mike de Iuliis.

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