Not the least of the pressures facing winemakers is the constant demand for capital. In an industry notorious for low or negative returns to investors — just ask any of the estimated forty per cent of Australia’s wineries currently losing money – this means a reliance on external funding. That funding might come from the … Continue reading Petaluma — a retrospective tasting
Talking to a few local winemakers recently led to a little flurry of samples arriving on the tasting bench. While far from a comprehensive review of what the district has to offer, tasting the wines confirmed a view that Canberra excels with shiraz, looks increasingly good with riesling and offers pretty good value at the … Continue reading Shiraz and riesling emerge as Canberra’s top wine varieties
After the decade-long, tenfold expansion described here last week, Canberra’s wine industry remains – from a drinker’s perspective, anyway — principally a boutique affair. While the announcement of Hardy’s Kamberra project in 1997 encouraged several large vineyard plantings and delivered us one quite big and outstanding winery, the district’s identity still comes primarily from the … Continue reading Canberra wine region — a boutique affair
Tulloch Hunter Chardonnay 2006 $14.99 After decades in various corporate hands the Tulloch label finally moved back to the Hunter in 2001 following Southcorp’s acquisition of Rosemount Estate. A syndicate consisting of the Tulloch family, Inglewood Vineyards of Denman and the Angove family now owns the brand and out sources the winemaking. Canberra-bred Jim Chatto … Continue reading Wine review — Tulloch, Coriole & Water Wheel
In 1997 when BRL Hardy Ltd (now Hardy Wine Company, a division of US-based Constellation Brands) announced ambitious plans for Canberra, the local industry, then twenty-six years old, produced about thirty thousand cases of wine annually from about 400 tonnes of grapes. It was a time of great optimism for the Australian wine industry. Surging … Continue reading Canberra wine region consolidates
Chateau Pato Hunter DJP Shiraz 2004 $45 & Old Pokolbin Vineyard Shiraz 2004 $29 Chateau Pato, founded by the late David John Paterson and now run by his son, Nick, makes impossibly small batches – 160 dozen and 180 dozen respectively – of these classic Hunter Shiraz styles. The first, bearing David’s initials and from … Continue reading Wine review — Chateau Pato, Fox Creek & Mount Horrocks
The story of how Peter Lehmann rescued grape growers abandoned by Dalgety — then owners of Saltram Winery — in 1979 is well known. Perhaps less well appreciated is that in doing so, Lehmann probably spared a century-old winemaking tradition from extinction. Lehmann had been winemaker at Saltram since 1959. He’d taken the reins from … Continue reading How Peter Lehmann kept the Barossa flame burning
Seventy-one years ago Australian scientist, Ray Beckwith, joined Penfolds Wines. A little over a year later, with the blessing of Leslie Penfold-Hyland, he purchased the company’s first pH meter. Shortly thereafter he found a cure for ‘sweet wine disease’, a malady destroying about thirty per cent of Australia’s fortified wine — the industry’s then major … Continue reading 94-year-old Ray Beckwith wins O’Shea Award
For many small winemakers Canberra’s Winewise Small Vignerons Awards is the most important Australian wine show, overshadowing the usually prestigious and larger – but to them irrelevant – Sydney, Adelaide and National Wine Shows. So how did this little home grown show assume such importance? What began for Lester Jesberg (then a tax office official) … Continue reading Winewise small vignerons awards
Leconfield Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 $26 to $30 In the early eighties some Coonawarra makers flirted with early-picked cabernet styles. The resulting thin, green wines enjoyed wine-show support for a time before good sense and ripeness once again prevailed. Leconfield hung onto a green component in its cabernets for much of the nineties, so it’s … Continue reading Wine review — Leconfield, Evans & Tate, Miceli