Pete Bentley from Pike's Clare Valley Talks Wine and The Ashes

Great Wine Co. spoke with Pete Bentley, of Pike’s to get his spin (if you’ll pardon the pun) on The Ashes, cricket, and Aussie wine. 

So Pete, you are not just Pike’s sales guru and brand evangelist, are you? I hear you are something of a cricketer yourself.

It is fair to say I am a massive cricket fan. Although I have hung up my bat, and recently retired from playing after 40-odd years, I still coach junior cricket in the Clare Valley, at a club level. It keeps me young and has massively increased my passion for the game.

I am a great supporter of grass-roots cricket, and I really see the value in sports for the under-16s that I coach - being around your mates, learning to work as a team, supporting each-other. It is great for their mental health… and for mine! 

When I was a young bloke, we always played on a Saturday morning, but with a lot of the kids leading busy lives and playing more than one sport ( traitors!) we now play on a Friday evening. This works for me, and although I spend a lot of my time traveling the world talking about wine, I like nothing more than knocking off work on a Friday, putting the cricket field out, putting the stumps in, and putting some putting some beers (or wine) in the cooler for the parents. It has become a bit of a social event for the dads and mums, and the more people come to watch, the more encouragement the team gets. The feedback from the parents is great, but it definitely helps me just as much!

So what are your thoughts about the upcoming Ashes Test, and do you have any predictions? 

I am a realist, first and foremost. I think the Aussie team are facing one of the strongest English line-ups we have seen for years. Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes have brought a new excitement to Test cricket. It is great to watch, and it has reinvigorated the game! England’s bowling attack is good enough to cause some issues, they have six or seven quicks to choose from, and I think Australia may struggle a bit at bat. But then the same can be said for England, as this Test will see the two best bowling attacks on the planet facing off. 

Michael Neser is doing really well. I rate him as the best bowler not in the eleven and I hope he will get a game at some stage. He’s a great batter too, up there with Cummins. We need them both! Starc and Hazlewood will be in the mix, no doubt, and we’ll be relying on Smith and Labuschagne for the runs, or we are in trouble. Like any good cricket fan, we can’t wait to see what happens. I’ll be watching the Ireland Test at Lord’s with interest to see what the team looks like, and I am sure that McCullum and his boys will be watching how Australia go against India in the ICC Final. 

I remember the 2005 series with Flintoff. This was one of the greatest series we have been involved with – and I’ll say that even though Australia lost in the end! If 2023's Ashes is anything like that in terms of excitement and pace, it would be amazing.

You have a couple of wines on the list at Lord’s, and available at the Great Wine Bar in the Warner Stand. Do you want to tell us a bit about them?

Sure. I’ll start with the Hills and Valleys Riesling, as Clare Valley – where we are – is the spiritual home of this grape; it’s what Clare Valley is known for, it’s what Pike's is known for, and it’s our best-selling wine outside of Australia. This is a super-versatile wine, which goes equally well with food (from spicy, to salads, to oysters, to meat-and-two-veg) as it does with watching a Friday-evening cricket game on a lawn-chair. When Aussie wines hit the UK market in the 80’s the marketing people called it “sunshine in a glass”, and when I taste this wine – from the sunny lower parts of the valley – and get the tangerine, the white flower notes, and the touch of residual sweetness, that is what I think: “sunshine in a glass”. 

Our SBS, the Sauvignon Blanc – Semillon, is a real beaut. Whilst Bordeaux white blends are mostly the preserve of Western Australia, not many people know that before Clare Valley became known for Riesling, a lot of Sauvignon Blanc was planted here. Most of this was made in an oaked style, but Neil Pike was among the first to say, “to hell with that” and make an unoaked wine in steel tanks. Sauvignon Blanc paid the bills at Pikes for the first few years! And that is the style of Sauvignon Blanc you get here - herbaceous, crisp and elegant – the perfect batting partnership for our Semillon, blending to make a wine full of lemon-curd and fresh lemon tart flavours. A terrific wine. 

One of the reasons that Pikey said “up yours” to using barrels to age his Sauvignon Blanc was that he had better use for his wood. We don’t just make white wine at Pikes, you see, and although in '84, when Neil planted the vineyards, we stuck to the classics, we now have over 20 varietals on the property. I guess he needed the barrels for the reds. They say that necessity is the mother of invention! 

Now, when I started at Pikes everyone was drinking those big bold Robert Parker style wines. I suppose we have always bucked the trend here, and we hankered for something a little bit more accessible. So, we’ve batted back with fun wines and styles that people want to drink. I suppose you have to develop and change to stay relevant. As with wine, so with Cricket! I had the pleasure of meeting Bob Parker once; we tasted 100 wines together, then chose two wines each to go with lunch, and our choices couldn’t have been more different. A lovely guy, but we had very different palettes. 

Unlike most Shiraz – which is grown on the sunny low-lying western parts of the valley – our Eastside is grown on the Eastern (you see what we did there?!) slopes of the valley. The soil is rich in black slate, and in fact they even quarry it nearby to make billiard tables. This slate works great for red wines and helps produce a medium-bodied shiraz with balanced acidity; a European-style wine that has as much in common with the Rhône as it does the Barossa. This is a wine that says, “Top me up there, mate!” You can’t do that with a lot of Aussie Shiraz, with a wine that is all alcohol and oak. Instead, you can have a glass of the Eastside with your dinner, and still have a glass of Riesling later with your cheese plate. I mean where can you go after one of those oaky monolithic Barossa Shiraz… other than bed?!

How do you feel to know that Pikes wines are being served at Lord’s during this Ashes Test? 

I won’t lie. For me this is like a boyhood dream! After 34 years in the wine industry and having played cricket since I was 10, to see it all come together and the brand I love and have spent a quarter of my life working for being served at Lord’s is fantastic. It’s a bit embarrassing, but I’ll be giggling with childish glee. Now I just need to get myself a ticket!

Learn more about Pike's and the beautiful vineyards of Clare Valley at pikeswine.com.au.