The Giant Steps Riff

John Coltrane’s 1960 definitive and classic album Giant Steps is one of the most influential albums of all time. His “sheets of sound” are on full display, as his saxophone improvisations glide rapidly with sweeping arpeggios, mixing high and low registers and octave runs in what feels like a waterfall of music.

When Australian vintner Phil Sexton founded his winery in the Yarra Valley in 1997, he planted vineyards on the steep slopes of the Warramate Ranges in Victoria. A jazz fan, he named the venture Giant Steps. Sexton hired Steve Flamsteed as winemaker in 2003, and the partnership went on to make beautiful music—I mean wine—until Sexton sold his winery in 2020 to Jackson Family.

Winemaker Melanie Chester joined in 2021, and she’s continued to put Giant Steps among the definitive leaders for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in Yarra Valley. The winery’s current lineup includes single vineyard bottlings of both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from the Applejack, Sexton, Tarraford and Bastard Hill Vineyards in the Yarra Valley, along with regional Yarra Valley blends. There are also Pinot Noir bottlings from Yarra’s Primavera vineyard, and a Coal River Valley Pinot Noir bottling from Tasmania. As a group they regularly earn classic ratings (95 points or better) on Wine Spectator‘s 100-point scale.

“In some ways I’m super proud of our achievements,” Chester said on a recent trip to Napa, where we got a moment to catch up. “But the Aussie culture is just like, cool, head down, bum up. It’s not rocket science. It's not luck. It's just the right ingredients, and things working and coming into fruition.”

Under Chester’s guidance, Giant Steps has acquired additional vineyards and purchased and updated a winery facility. Flamsteed remains in a consulting role and Chester says she appreciates being able to bounce ideas off of him. “If I've got a puzzle I'm trying to think through, I will talk it out with [Flamsteed] and workshop it. And half the time when I get to the end of the chat, it's resolved.”

Giant Steps' Sexton Vineyard is one of five Chardonnay vineyards sources the winery uses from Yarra Valley. (Courtesy of Jackson Family Wines)

Her Favorite Things

Chester has a charming way of talking about the vineyards. “I’m trying to honor the personality of a vineyard. It's really useful to know them,” she says. “[Flamsteed and I] talk about these single vineyards like they are friends. Every year they look the same, but they might have a different funny hat [one year]. It’s nice to have that background information and understanding of the sites.”

It’s an interesting challenge. When you're a custodian of a vineyard, are you just supposed to let the vineyard speak, or are you supposed to help the vineyard speak? What's your role?

Chester grins at the question. When it comes to raising grapes—or children—independence starts with them being healthy, so she considers that her primary role. From there, she says she likes to tease out the personalities. “I think you'll see that in these wines, you end up with slightly more variation in style. I understand them. Now I can make the best wine I can.”

She is also aware of the challenges of taking over an established brand.

“I found that a really interesting dynamic—the pressure of delivering wines that I've always loved, but also wanting to be true to myself,” she says. “Initially, I found it almost limiting, because I was so terrified of buggering it up. But you need to trust yourself. At the end of the day, you can only make the decisions with the best set of information. It was really intimidating, but I just trusted myself.”

Chester’s changes have been small, but consequential. Giant Step Pinot Noirs have always been unfined and unfiltered. “I think that's a really important part of the texture, the detail of the wines and I've always loved that. But I don't want them to be super cloudy when we pour them. So now we just get them out [of barrel] 10 days earlier so they have a slightly longer settling time [before bottling].”

A New Melody

Tasting through the new releases, both the Circle of Fifths Pinot Noir ($60) and Chardonnay ($60) bottlings debut with the 2024 vintage. Each is a blend of the five single vineyard sites. Unlike the regional Yarra bottling, the Circle of Fifths uses equal proportions of each vineyard to tell a new story.

Chester described the lineup as the regional Yarra blend being the pop single—widely available and accessible. The single vineyard bottlings are concept albums. And then the Circle of Fifths are the greatest hits albums.

Circle of Fifths is another nod to music and Coltrane. It’s a tool that helps a musician understand how scales, chords and keys relate to each other as a way to build harmony. Coltrane didn’t invent it, but in Giant Steps he took the concept to another level. Jumping from one chord to the next, Coltrane followed the circle of fifths as a musical theory rulebook to help him through the process, arranging chords into a progression, according to Chester, who was inspired by the idea.

“Phil [Sexton] and I used to wax lyrical about the amazing parallels and mirrors between jazz and winemaking. It's about interpretation and improvisation. It's about the call and response between yourself and your partners. In wine it is the season, the vineyard, your team. It does feel very much like interpreting, but also expressing and improvising each year.”

So, how does the wine in equal fifths proportion taste? “My favorite thing about this wine is the suspension that you get, because you’re not reliant on one little pocket of the world and one vineyard,” she says. “It's not one tone or one expression of that site. It’s got a chorus all coming together. There is breadth and there is scale. I think it's a really beautiful reflection on house style and regional strength.”

The entire lineup of wines is impressive. Among all of the Giant Steps wines I’ve tasted over the years, there's something distinctive about the newest versions. I notice it particularly on the long finishes, which expand more than just linger.

Melanie Chester combines five single vineyard sites for a new Giant Steps wine, the Circle of Fifths. (Courtesy of Jackson Family Wines)

Ascension

Chester was originally a musician. A vocalist who sang classical for years, she also plays the flute, guitar and piano. “Singing is an incredible thing for my mental health. It's very mindful. When I sing I can feel the vibration in my chest. It also helps me control my breathing.”

Another fun detail Chester shares is that the winemaking team makes playlists for each wine when they are blending. She hands me her phone and shows me the playlist for the most recent Applejack Pinot Noir blending. I see the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Talking Heads, along with names of bands I’m less familiar with.

“It’s really fun to riff off the music stuff, too. Wines can be really serious, but we have to have fun,” says Chester.

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