Joining forces
Collaborations across the industry are resulting in some exciting wines. Here, we look at three South Australian projects all about cooperation.
We look at three South Australian collaborations creating exciting wines.
FIERCE COMPETITION has fuelled the Barossa’s wine fraternity through its 180 years, yet within this rivalry for sales, trophies and sourcing the most prized fruit, a spirit of cooperation is alive in the region. Links between different winemakers and grape growers are propelling several of the most interesting projects to have emerged in recent times.
The Artisans of Barossa collective – comprising John Duval Wines, Schwarz Wine Co, Sons of Eden, Spinifex and Hobbs of Barossa Ranges – has pioneered the clustering of small wine brands as an effective marketing confederacy since 2005. Beyond presenting their wines as a group at various trade shows and events, the Artisans’ first innovative shared tasting room outside Tanunda set a new benchmark for an informative cellar door experience.
At the start of the year, they moved a step ahead by opening Vino Lokal, a bold new style of wine bar and tasting space in the main street of Tanunda that fuses serious wine analysis with carefree informality and impressive food to share. Even more interesting is the Artisan group’s Grenache Project, designed to explore the terroir of a single vineyard. Each of the five wineries created their own expression of grenache from one tonne of grapes from adjoining rows. It’s a serious idea, laced with the joy of freedom for the winemakers.
“Artisans’ meetings had become all about governance and no fun, so we launched into this project so we could express ourselves through an interesting winemaking statement,” says Tim Duval, who works with his winemaker father at John Duval Wines. “We all have an affinity for grenache – it’s the winemaker’s grape – so we wanted to provide a personal vision of how we best see the same vineyard through a single wine. Everyone had their own ideas – whole-bunch ferments, drying fruit on racks before pressing, carbonic maceration. There’s so much variation in the wines, and we only got to see all that once they were released.” The first Artisans Grenache Project from 2017 received great acclaim. Fruit was sourced from a vineyard near Penrose quarry, looked after by Sons of Eden, and each winemaker had access to two rows of fruit. In 2018, they all picked on the same day. For the 2019 vintage, the winemakers picked their allocation at different times, and winemaker Phil Lehmann (Eden Hall Wines, Max & Me Wines) has now joined the project, which has attracted an instant fan club. “There’s lots of good storytelling in this project. In essence, it’s our Barossan answer to pinot,” Tim adds. “It’s been a really solid project that has brought the Artisans group even closer together.”
THE SPIRIT OF COOPERATION DEFINES AN IMPORTANT FEMALE WINEMAKING INITIATIVE CREATED TO RAISE FUNDS FOR THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN IN WINE AWARDS. THIS GROUP AIMS TO PROVIDE A BEACON OF INSPIRATION FOR MORE WOMEN TO JOIN THE INDUSTRY.
FRATERNITY is not just a male thing. The spirit of cooperation defines an important female winemaking initiative created to raise funds for the Australian Women in Wine Awards. This group aims to provide a beacon of inspiration for more women to join the industry and strive for outstanding results.
It’s a significant issue; women comprise less than 10 per cent of the Australian wine industry, with numbers dipping further in viticulture. Representation of women in leadership and senior roles is even smaller. To help rectify this imbalance, Australian Women in Wine Awards wants to start a scholarship that supports young women undergoing tertiary wine education. This idea led to The Wine Creators’ Project as a fundraising initiative; a collaboration of four female winemakers to make a very mod style of shiraz. It happened late last year in a rustic vineyard shed at Irvine Wines, involving Sue Hodder from Wynns Coonawarra Estate, Corrina Wright of Oliver’s Taranga in McLaren Vale, Emma Norbiato from Calabria Family Wines and Rebekah Richardson of Irvine Wines. Each winemaker donated an elite barrel of 2018 shiraz, which created an elegant multi-regional blend called Hear Me Roar.
The finished wine shows enticing aromas of violets and bright plum, but also striking mid-palate plushness and juicy generosity. It was available via the Australian Women in Wine website, and sold out fast. The impressive wine serves as a reminder that each of the participating winemakers is doing plenty to shake the status quo. Rebekah, for example, is making big changes within the Irvine portfolio, which had long been a stoic champion of merlot while under the direction of former owner Jim Irvine. She is now taking radical steps in other directions since becoming winemaker three years ago. “Changes with Irvine Wines have come through me being encouraged to find my own expression,” says Rebekah. “That type of support prevents a winery from getting stuck in time. It comes from all of us being part of a bigger conversation.” BAROSSA GROWERS are also benefiting from wineries taking a different approach. RedHeads, the Australian arm of London-based Direct Wines Production, which trades as Laithwaites Wine, now has a 500-tonne winery near Angaston, expanding its production of small-batch Australian wines for a thirsty global audience.
Since emerging in 2002, RedHeads has morphed from serving as a communal local production site for South Australian-based ‘flying winemakers’ who had worked vintages at the Laithwaite family’s facilities in Bordeaux, France. The RedHeads Collective produces a diverse suite of interesting small-batch wines for Direct Wine Production, now the world’s largest direct-to-consumer wine business, with a portfolio of more than 1500 wines. Within this range, it sells about 25,000 dozen RedHeads wines into the UK, US, Canadian and Australian markets.
The original disparate collection of RedHeads Collective winemakers left to form their own brands, leaving the new winery’s manager Alex Trescowthick to work with individual parcels of fruit from a wide network of independent grape growers. “Quite simply, we needed more wine,” says general manager for production, Iain Muggoch. “We have customers calling out for it, so we needed to be able to dramatically scale up our production. Choosing the Barossa as our location is about us wanting to obtain increased access to Barossa fruit.”
As a result, RedHeads has provided a new sales avenue for many local growers, including Barossa stalwarts Adrian Hoffman, John Kalleske, and Matt and Deb Poole. This results in a dizzy maze of brands under the RedHeads banner, sold by Direct Wines Production. The majority have a production ceiling of between 1000 and 2000 dozen bottles, although some are as limited as 250 dozen. “We’re still making limited batches, but now we’re working with a larger league of growers, and giving them good contract options beyond what some of the giant corporations offer,” Iain says.
VINO LOKAL, A BOLD NEW STYLE OF WINE BAR AND TASTING SPACE IN THE MAIN STREET OF TANUNDA, FUSES SERIOUS WINE ANALYSIS WITH CAREFREE INFORMALITY AND IMPRESSIVE FOOD TO SHARE.