When Huon Valley couple Rosemary and Terry Bennett first planted vines on their Ranelagh property in 1992, the couple had little understanding of what would be needed to turn the project into one of Australia's most highly regarded Pinot Noir operations.
Too cool for viticulture. That was message being given to prospective vineyard owners in Tasmania back in the 1950s and 1960s. Today, few people would doubt our island's capacity for producing elegant, European-styled wines.
You don't have to look far these days to see that winegrowing has become a very successful adjunct to traditional farming operations. For a small handful of producers, the fruits of their labours can be very sweet indeed.
As a young Tasmanian agricultural science student, all Fiona Kerslake planned to do on graduating from university was to work in the field of animal production. She never imagined that in less than a decade she would become a Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (TIA) Junior Research Fellow.
