Good Evans

Making a fresh start with a new business initiative poses all manner of risks. But when Ricky Evans and Chanel Parratt chose April 2020 for the launch of their Havilah wine bar, they didn't figure that a State-wide lockdown and fears of a global pandemic would soon pose the biggest challenges of all.

"We had to wait until the beginning of July 2020 before we could finally open the doors," Evans says of the thriving urban cellar door located in Launceston's upper Charles Street.

"We had a pretty shaky start. It was really stressful to be honest. But things are going well now. As newcomers in the business, we didn't really know what things were like before COVID-19 came along. We were just glad to establish a steady base that we could build on over the next few years." 

Working under pressure is something that comes naturally to the Tamar Valley winemaker. 

As the owner/operator of Two Tonne Tasmania – and a Bay of Fires winemaker before that – Evans has spent his entire working life responding to challenges imposed by changing seasons and the careful scheduling of essential winery processes.

Right now, it looks like the Tassie bloke is living his best life.

Earlier this week, Evans suddenly found himself in the national spotlight with the release of Gourmet Traveller's Annual Restaurant Award Finalists.

The finalists in Australia's longest-running restaurant awards hail from all six states across six categories: Best New Talent; Best New Restaurant; Best Destination Dining; Restaurant Personality of the Year; Wine Bar of the Year; and Readers' Choice Icon Award.

Havilah is just one of six nominees for Gourmet Traveller's Wine Bar of the Year.

The only other Tasmanian industry players to find their way onto July's shortlist are Maria Hobart (Best New Restaurant) and Lachlan Colwall and Sophie Pope (Restaurant Personality of the Year). The latter run Hobart's Omotenashi, 10-seat kaiseki restaurant where Japanese tradition meets the food purity of Tasmanian produce.

Gourmet Traveller editor Joanna Hunkin says the awards provide a welcome opportunity for the industry nationally to take time out to celebrate milestones and achievements.

"These finalists represent an exciting and diverse line up of talent from across the country and reflect the deep creativity that exists within the Australian hospitality industry," she adds.

"A huge congratulations to all our finalists and the teams behind these restaurants. It's important we continue to lift up this industry."

Award winners will be announced on 19 August at an exclusive function being held at Sydney's iconic waterfront restaurant Catalina.

Suitably chuffed, Evans is not about to be swept away in a tidal wave of industry praise or self-congratulatory one-upmanship. His focus is a much broader one than that.

"Havilah is not just about showcasing the great wine and food we produce here in the State," he says.

"It's about putting that into context with other parts of Australia and with the rest of the world. Havilah stocks close to 100 Tasmanian, mainland and overseas wines. They're featured against a backdrop of quality-driven, seasonal local produce and foods that have a distinct international flavour."

Evans says his experiences as a winemaker in Europe and North America only served to heighten his appreciation of Tasmania's pristine natural environment and its capacity to produce world-class wines.

"I spent a lot of time working away from home, and was really excited about coming back here," he explains.

"The best wines I see coming out of Tasmania have a genuine purity running through them. That's first and foremost what I'm trying to create in the wines I make here myself. Freshness and vibrancy are their cornerstones.

"I want people to understand they're special characters that help make our wines unique. We're genuinely cool climate here in Tasmania. We're affected in so many ways by the ocean and by our close proximity to it. You see it in our wines.

"The vines we grow here aren't stressed out by their environment or by the weather. They're just doing their thing quite naturally – just cruising along – a bit like Tasmania itself really."

Eminently aware that the word 'unique' is in danger of becoming hackneyed through continual misuse, Evans says it's the striking but subtle differences he finds between various winegrowing districts and individual vineyards that underpin the small-scale Two Tonne Tasmania project he began back in 2013.

Evan's winemaking talent and capacity to understand consumer needs was soon rewarded. In 2016, his Two Tonne Tasmania took out the People's Choice Award at the Young Guns of Wine Awards. He was also a finalist in its main award category.

Evans was shortlisted again in 2017, and again in 2018 and 2020.

In 2019, Evans created his Havilah wine brand. One to sit comfortably alongside the classically styled Chardonnay, Riesling and Pinot Noir wines then being packaged under his flagship label.

"Havilah is really an expression of creativity," Evans notes.

"It's an outlet for anything that we feel like doing at any particular moment. Anything from fizzy to skin contact and alternate new varieties for Tasmania, the range is ever changing."

In 2021, a third string was added to Evans's bow. Woodlawn Tasmania. 

The brand takes his original Two Tonne Tasmania concept to another level, paving the way for a range of super premium traditional method sparkling and single site Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Woodlawn is Evans's home base in the Tamar Valley. It's located on the old Evans family farm at Swan Bay, on the eastern side of the river. The property comprises a working winery with an adjacent 4ha vineyard of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir that Evans planted there himself in 2017.

Two other Tamar Valley sites feature in the Woodlawn Tasmania portfolio.

Waverley Vineyard - just east of Launceston - was planted to Pinot Noir in 2005. By the time Evans stumbled upon it in 2015, the site had been hopelessly neglected by its owner. Eventually, Evans was able to talk his way into taking on the vineyard and bringing it back to full health.

Three Wishes Vineyard – just north of Hillwood in the West Tamar – was established by the Whish-Wilson family in 2000. Growing conditions there are subject to the moderating influences of the nearby river estuary. 

Evans's Waverley site is slightly more elevated and more distant from it. Here, the surrounding hills and valleys are more likely to influence grape and wine characteristics.

"I put a lot of time and effort into sourcing small, discrete parcels of fruit from which I can make more complete and complex wines," he says. 

"Tasmania's vineyards are incredibly diverse.

"Part of my role as a winemaker is to communicate that. I like to spend a lot of time in vineyards picking out the bits that are going to shine in particular ways. The idea is to either showcase their special nature or to blend those components together to make something more complex and interesting; something capable of evolving into really nice wines over time."

Time like the present, perhaps, when Evans is able to pause for a brief moment to reflect on the user-friendly body of work he's created.

Who knows what he'll come up with next?

Last page update: 26 May 2026