The new guard
The wine world is changing, with producers diversifying, collaborating and experimenting like never before. Here, we highlight some of the shifts and initiatives happening now.
We look at some of the new approaches to making and working with wine.
WORK IN WINE is becoming more flexible and inclusive. No longer is it contingent on generations of legacy, an inherited patch of land, or the capital to get going in what can be an incredibly expensive business. Start-ups are happening in communal wineries and hospitality hubs. Wine is being made everywhere from a warehouse in the city to a shed among the vines. Australian winemakers are using fruit sourced not only from around the country, but also the world. And new ways of winemaking – and drinking preferences – are allowing newcomers to get started with relative immediacy.
CO-OPERATIVE WINERIES
Picture this – you’ve got the wine bug. Badly. You’ve learned a lot about your favourite topic and want to switch from wine appreciator to maker. So, you buy some grapes and make some wine. Simple, right? Well, not exactly. It’s a pricey business and cost of entry can be restrictive. Getting a toehold can require creativity. Tim Sproal of Minim Wine is one winemaker who found an alternative way. The former environmental consultant and “tinkerer of ferments” got serious about wine while managing the kitchen garden at Bress winery in Victoria’s Bendigo. “Me and the assistant winemaker bought a tonne of grapes and thought we’d have a crack at making a bit of wine,” Tim says. “The moment I put that wine in a bottle and stuck a label on it, I realised this is what I wanted to do.” Tim started out in some less-than-ideal spaces, including in a friend’s underground carpark. He wasn’t alone. “Jarad Curwood [of Chapter Wines] was working in the corner of someone else’s winery, and another mate, Pat Underwood [of Little Reddie] was making wine in a mutual friend’s shed. I’d been looking at spaces around Castlemaine, and an opportunity came up to sign a lease at the Mill, which was somewhere we could work together and share costs.” And so the Boomtown Winemakers Co-operative began.
“Wine is one of those industries where it’s so hard to make a start,” Tim explains. “A lot of people are born into it or have the legacy of a family winery. With new start-ups like us, you work for someone for 10 years and wait to do something for yourself – not many places let you make wine on the side. If you want to press some grapes, it costs around $30,000 for a good press. Your first vintage, if you want to make five tonnes, you’ve probably spent $60,000 before you’ve even put anything on the shelf.”
Jarad and Pat have since moved out of Boomtown, now with their own established brands, and several other small labels have spent time in the space, including Chevre Wines by Jordy Kay, Ephemera by Rhen Dodd, and Jeffrey Wines by Nick Jeffrey. “It’s a place where young winemakers can use the equipment and produce five or 10 tonnes in an environment that’s inclusive, informative and safe. Even when we have cellarhands come in, we always encourage them to make a tonne, whether they want to turn that into something they sell or just give it to their mates.”
At Boomtown, everyone works on each other’s products based on the most pressing tasks. “If a ferment needs attention, then it gets it. We all take responsibility for everything, and when processing needs to happen, we do it together.” It’s the sharing of ideas that has proven most rewarding for Tim. “Every time someone new comes in, they bring something new. That’s the best part about the collaborative space. You always keep the mindset that there are lots of different ways to do the one thing.”
Boomtown has a cellar door on the winery floor, so visitors can watch the action while tasting different styles from the various producers. “We have people come and have a glass of wine during vintage while we’re working. It’s pretty open,” Tim says. “People are so thirsty for knowledge at the moment, and there’s a really captive audience for new things.”
Steve Frazer of Stones of the Yarra Valley recently established No. 7 Healesville, another co-operative space, and its associated Young Winemakers Program. “We do a lot of events with our businesses, so we thought it would be good to make wine for ourselves. Along the way, we recognised that it’s increasingly difficult for young winemakers in the Yarra Valley to pursue labels of their own, so we created this program,” he explains.
There are a limited number of available spots and applicants are expected to have some industry experience, but it’s a fast track to trying their own thing. “We understand the bigger players can’t allow their staff to take small batches and have a play in the corner. So for us to have the capacity to do exactly that is wonderful, not only for these young winemakers, but also for the companies they work for, as they’re learning and getting better outside of their day jobs,” Steve says. “They also get the experience of starting their own label with limited risk, as we buy back half of what they make, which effectively means they get a full return on their investment.” So far, the program has attracted some serious talent from top wineries in the region, such as Giant Steps and Helen’s Hill.
URBAN WINE
The ability to connect people with winemaking processes and the stories behind what they taste in the bottle is integral to success. Having a cellar door by the vines is nice, but visitation is reliant on wine lovers making the journey. Enter the urban winery.
Urban wineries have been popular for some time, with the modern movement of inner-city winemaking tracing back to the early 2000s in places such as San Francisco and Oregon in the US. Producers making small amounts of wine out of non-traditional spaces, or garagistes, have existed for much longer in France and Italy. In New South Wales, winemaker Alex Retief launched one of the first large-scale urban wineries in 2016.
Alex’s Urban Winery Sydney concept had been brewing for some time before he finally took the plunge, with a bit of a detour on the way. “My wife is from Sydney, and I’m from country NSW, so once we got engaged it was like, who’s going to make a move?” Naturally, they settled on halfway around the world, to Bordeaux in France, where wine was a big part of everyday life. It made Alex realise how different it was in Australia, with most people removed from the wine production process. The couple’s next stop was Canberra, where Alex started buying grapes and renting space in other wineries. “It was always in the back of our minds that we could do that anywhere,” he says. “Why couldn’t we start a winery in Sydney and run it like a craft brewery?”
Inspired by the innovation and direct-to-market model of the craft-brewing scene, Alex set about starting Urban Winery Sydney – first in St Peters, and later moving to the more central location of Moore Park to meet the demand for events. “We serve other wines as well as mine, plus beers and spirits, aiming to provide as broad a spectrum of the NSW industry as possible. We only serve NSW produce, too. When you walk in, there’s a big map of all the state’s wine regions, and the menus describe where everything is from. My parents were farmers, so that’s important to me,” he says.
People can also get their hands (and feet) dirty with blending classes throughout the year and stomping days during vintage.
“The one downside is that I need a specific kind of truck to get in here, so I can’t share freight with others transporting fruit from the same regions. But it doesn’t add much more, and with a market like Sydney at our doorstep, the benefits outweigh the costs.”
The logistics don’t pose a risk to grape quality, either. “The fruit bins go in a cool room, and the trucks get loaded at about midnight, so the truck doesn’t get stuck in traffic, and the grapes are still cool because they drive them overnight.” Alex says this is no different to how many wineries operate around Australia. “In the Old World, the vast majority of wines are made right in front of them, from their vineyards. Full stop. In the New World, it’s not unusual for us to truck grapes to different places.”
WINEMAKING WITHOUT BORDERS
In business and otherwise, we are becoming increasingly global. The wine industry is no different. Self-professed “global nomad” Sierra Reed of Reed Wines has had a less-than-traditional pathway to the industry. While filming a series on some of New Zealand’s famous wine families, she fell for wine. Always following her instincts, this led her to complete vintages in some of the world’s great vineyards and regions, from Mount Langi Ghiran in Victoria to Rippon in Central Otago and Domaine du Vissoux in France. “Everything I do is by feel and instinct. That’s how I make all of my decisions,” Sierra says. Drawing on her diverse experiences, when she started Reed Wines, she knew exactly which regions, sites and wine styles she wanted, and tenaciously chased them. “I don’t think it’s a super-easy decision to work in this way, but rather it’s an uncompromising one. That attitude exists among my peers, and it’s something I’ve always had – if I want something, I’m prepared to do what it takes.” Today, Sierra’s wine range covers Australian regions from Victoria’s Geelong to South Australia’s Barossa, and she also makes a gamay from Beaujolais in France.
“These days, there are so many satellite producers, and people want to know how to shape us, how to tie us to something because we don’t have a vineyard. But the beauty of it is that we don’t have borders, and that’s exciting in itself,” Sierra says. “The luxury of being in the New World is that you can paint with any colour you choose, so long as you can get your hands on some of the best fruit.”
Despite not owning a vineyard, for Sierra, that’s where the work happens. “Sometimes I’ll drive 4000 kilometres a month to walk vineyards and bring in fruit. I collected all these sites – not just regions – specifically because they paralleled with my philosophy so I could then be a purist about them and celebrate them without a lot of winemaking application. When winemakers buy fruit, they often do more to make it look and feel like them, whereas I do that with site selection. Then when I bring in the fruit, I don’t feel the need to touch the crap out of it. I just trust that I’ve made an effort to choose a vineyard that works with me.”
Sierra has a soft spot for gamay, which is how she ended up making Beaujolais. “With every red wine I look at, I wonder how it could be more like gamay. Having worked with Pierre Chermette from Domaine du Vissoux for multiple vintages, when he came to visit after I had my daughter, I said, ‘No one is letting me buy gamay in Australia.’ And he responded, ‘Well, why not make it with me?’ Pierre has become like a father figure to me, which is why that wine is called ‘Papa’ Fleurie. There’s a lot of respect there. I don’t just go and take some of their wine and put my label on it – everything has to have a reason and purpose, and I really try to honour that fruit.” Sierra isn’t alone in her pursuit to work globally. Others include Jane Eyre, making pinot noir from Burgundy, Gippsland, the Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula; Meagan and James Becker of Becker Wines working across the Hunter Valley and California; and Justin Bubb of Tasmania’s Pooley Wines bringing the best of Italy to Australia with his BABO label – to name a few.
CO-WORKING AND COLLABORATION
Michael Bascetta, Attica alumni and co-owner of Melbourne venues Bar Liberty and Capitano, saw a gap in co-working spaces for the food and beverage industry, founding Worksmith in 2018. “It’s become a real community hub where people can collaborate and learn from each other,” he says.
Collaboration is at the core of all these new ways of working, and more partnerships are forming between wineries and restaurants, retailers, breweries, and other wineries than ever before. Victorian bottle shop Blackhearts and Sparrows has created several bespoke products with wineries, breweries and distilleries, and leading restaurants are increasingly working with producers to make exclusive in-house wines – from Aria in Sydney, to Carlton Wine Room in Melbourne. “Five years ago, that was unusual, whereas now it’s fairly commonplace,” Michael says. “People are doing everything from creating their own wine labels and spirits to custom-making pottery and leatherwork.”
These collaborations are no small investment and require a lot of work. But according to Michael, they’re worth it to build relationships with peers and create unique experiences.