Devil in detail

Two trophies; 2 gold, 5 silver and 10 bronze medals. That was the story behind the Brown Family Wine Group's crowd-pleasing performances at the recent 2025 Tasmanian Wine Show. The presentation of awards on Friday 10 January - at Hobart's Henry Jones Art Hotel - followed three busy days of judging. There were 413 wines submitted by 65 producers.

Senior winemaker Tom Wallace was on hand to collect the family company's coveted trophies – the Cadus Trophy for Best Chardonnay and the Salamanca Inn Trophy for Most Successful Exhibitor (pictured).  

The awards could not have been better scripted.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of The Hazards Vineyard, home to the Brown Family Wine Group's popular Devil's Corner cellar door.

Devil's Corner Pinot Noir is Australia's biggest-selling Pinot Noir brand, by volume and value.

This month offers a career milestone for Wallace. A decade in his plum role with Tasmania's largest wine company.

Eleven wines bearing the Devil's Corner brand were responsible for the family's show successes last month. Their share of the company glory amounted to 2 gold, 3 silver and 7 bronze medals.

The 2022 Devil's Corner Mount Baudin Chardonnay – exhibited in class 11 for wines from 2022 and older vintages – was the show's Best Chardonnay.

"A thoroughly enjoyable class to judge," noted Chair of Judges, Virginia Willcock.

"Top wines showed purity perfectly balanced with winemaking. A huge confidence for how Tasmanian Chardonnay slowly reveals itself. A pleasure to judge."

Located at Apslawn – north of Bicheno on the East Coast – The Hazards is the State's largest single vineyard (190ha).

Its wild and spectacular views ease the company's burden of caring for such a large site. The vineyard's Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah and Pinot Noir plantings are set out in 35 blocks, each of them managed individually according to seasonal conditions and likely end-product.

The subsequent wines are all made off-site at the company's 3000-tonne Kayena winery in the Tamar Valley. It's a fair hike. The road trip from vineyard to winery is close to 160 kilometres.

The Brown family acquired Devil's Corner in 2010 as part of their purchase of leading Tasmanian wine company Tamar Ridge. At the time, vendor and foresty giant Gunns Ltd enjoyed ownership of some 400ha of vines across the State. Their plantings accounted for 20 percent of the island's annual grape production.

Plans were first drawn up for the greenfield project back in 2005. Site selection and vineyard infrastructure were determined in consultation with renowned viticulturist and researcher, Dr Richard Smart.

The 'vine doctor' had ready access to Gunns boss John Gay and didn't hold back in pursuing the roving brief he was given. Smart's extensive field work and climate data analysis led him to believe the Apslawn site would have similar winegrowing conditions to New Zealand's renowned Marlborough region.

Resident in Launceston throughout his peak years with Gunns, there were few people anywhere in the industry that knew the Kiwi countryside more intimately than Smart. Apart from decades of research and consultancy in New Zealand, he played a formative role in the growth of the industry there. He was National Viticultural Scientist from 1982 to 1990.

Smart's career accolades include New Zealand Wine Personality of the Year (1989), Honorary Life Membership of the New Zealand Society for Viticulture and Oenology (1997) and inductee into the New Zealand Hall of Fame in 2007.

Smart believed Apslawn would be eminently suitable for large-scale production of Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir for Tamar Ridge's Devil's Corner brand.

New Zealand-born Wallace has spent a good deal of his 10 years in Tasmania getting to know the East Coast site.

He's clearly enthused by its performances to date and by its future potential, especially for world-class Pinot Noir wines.

"You need a genuinely cool climate for growing great Pinot Noir," he says.   

"The East Coast is near-perfect. The coastal environment allows very gradual physiological development of all of the wine grapes we have planted there. The resulting wines have fruit forwardness and richness, much more than you find in the Tamar Valley, for example.

"Evenings and mornings on the coast are chilled by sea breezes, so there's a freshness and purity to our Pinot Noir you don't find anywhere else. The depth of colour and fruit aromatics are amazing. Bright acidity and fine ripe tannins provide ideal ingredients for winemaking."

Wallace says soil types vary, from shallow, silty loams to gravelly then heavier clayey loams. The site traverses some seven kilometres of vineyard terrain. Idiosyncracies associated with geology, plant physiology and growing and ripening conditions provide a wealth of opportunities for special parcels of fruit to find their way into small-batch winemaking regimes.

There's much more to be made from these 190ha than fresh, early-drinking wines that retail under $25.

Indeed, The Hazards Vineyard has made significant contributions to the company's mid-priced Resolution wine range which began in 2013.

Last month's trophy-winning Devil's Corner Mount Baudin Chardonnay reflects Wallace's long-term goal of adding further quality dimensions to the wines being crafted from the 20-year-old site.

Part of the company's relatively new Hazards Range, it draws inspiration from the granite peaks that are associated with the northern end of the East Coast.

Wallace's first explorations of the site were realised in 2012 with the creation of a small volume of super-premium Devil's Corner Pinot Noir under the Mt Amos label.

The wine was the product of a low-yielding vintage throughout Tasmania and had a somewhat polarising effect on wine judges around the country. Those in Adelaide in 2014 and 2016 clearly thought bigger was better and awarded gold medals to the 2012. Other pundits believed the wine lacked the variety's characteristic elegance and finesse.

More recent vintages have fallen much closer to the quality mark being demanded by fans of the quirky variety. The 2017 Mt Amos was an especially impressive wine, winning acclaim from the wine trade and wine media, in addition to its multi-gold wine show success.

Like the 2012, it was the product of a warm and very dry growing season. Part of the reason for the wine's success appears to be due to increasingly better water management across the site.

Water is a precious commodity throughout the East Coast. Two large dams on The Hazards have a total storage capacity of more than 500ML of water. The company also has access to the nearby Apsley River and is able to take water from the Swan River Valley Irrigation Scheme.

All that counts for very little when severe drought conditions prevail.

Climate data for the period 1994-2024 reveals the average growing season rainfall at Apslawn is close to 430mm. In 2011-2012, it was 288mm. In 2016-2017, it was 318mm.

"Rainfall here is either boom or bust," Wallace admits.

"That sometimes requires drip irrigation to begin in August, weeks before budburst."

The site clearly has its challenges.

Last month's show results suggests they're challenges Wallace and the crew at The Hazards are more than capable of meeting.

Last page update: 26 May 2026