NW sold on quality
With the mercury hovering around 6°Celsius – and hours of processing to be done – the romance of making cool-climate wines during late April and May can be hard to sustain when you're working in the dead of night and there's still a press load to finish before bedtime.
That noted, Eastford Creek's Andrew Gaman wouldn't have it any other way.
"When you consider all the time, money and effort that you have to invest in making world-class wines, there's no point in doing anything second-rate," he says.
It's been 20 years since Gaman was named a Young Australian Winemaker of the Year finalist. Just over six years since the former Margaret River winemaker took on his key role in North West Tasmania.
Eastford Creek was established in 2018 by former Sassafras poultry producers Rob and Sue Nichols.
Gaman reckons vintage 2026 on the 12ha vineyard was among the most challenging – and perhaps the most satisfying – of his entire career.
Last year's pruning and forward planning anticipated a total wine grape harvest this year of around 250 tonnes. That included a bit of contract winemaking for a handful of vineyard clients scattered across the State's north.
The final figure for 2026 was close to 100 tonnes.
"I've done 3,000-tonne vintages that were less demanding than this one," Gaman adds.
It's a familiar story.
Last week's release of the 2026 Tasmanian Vintage Report brought sad tidings for the small army of consumers that really look forward to new vintage releases from the State's 2800ha of vineyard plantings. There'll be a fair bit less wine than usual from 2026.
Industry body Wine Tasmania announced that following a record-breaking 23,002 tonnes in 2025, "the 2026 vintage will be remembered for its scarcity at just 11,163 tonnes, roughly equating to around 10 million bottles."
The upside is that Tasmanian wine producers are celebrating the exceptional quality, intense flavours and vibrant freshness of the 2026 vintage.
"If 2025 was a year of abundance, 2026 is a vintage of absolute concentration and character – for both our grapes and our growers," said Wine Tasmania's Sheralee Davies.
"Nature threw everything it had at the island this season – from late spring frosts and unrelenting winds to a cool, drawn-out summer which delayed harvest by up to 3-4 four weeks in some areas.
"The prolonged, cool ripening period allowed for incredible flavour development and structural density, particularly in Chardonnay and aromatic whites, while reds are showing concentrated deep colour.
"With low extraction rates due to small bunch sizes, the resulting wines are showing early signs of being incredibly fine, dense and exciting, underpinned by Tasmania's elevated and crisp natural vibrancy.'
The Wine Tasmania CEO praised the resilience and skill of the island's grape growers and winemakers who navigated the season's demanding conditions.
"Reflecting the focus on quality not quantity, Tasmania's 2026 wine grape harvest represented just 0.9 percent of the country's total by volume, but 5.0 percent of its national value," she remarked.
This year's vintage challenges came at an especially critical time for producers in Tasmania's North West. The renowned dairy, beef and vegetable country has seen a rapid rise in vineyard plantings this decade. Almost all of them are owned and operated by families like the Nicholses.
Significant wine show successes have enabled the North West to establish a strong and growing reputation for cool-climate wine quality. These included Eastford Creek's two national wine show trophies last year and Ghost Rock's barrowload of trophy and gold medal awards at recent Tasmanian Wine Shows.
Increased consumer appetites for the Coast's ultra-fine sparkling, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in particular have fuelled the growth of new vineyard cellar doors. And those same consumers have voted with their feet.
Eastford Creek's very popular Summer Wine Down events ran at full pace earlier this year, unaffected by weather conditions. Eight sessions of fine food, wine and live music over a 12-week period literally had the Sassafras vineyard humming.
Consumer-driven demand is a very welcome sign for an industry that has been troubled nationally by increasing costs of production and decreasing wine sales.
That's put pressure on North West vineyard managers and winemakers to come up with the goods required. Cellar door visitors arrive with expectations of not only having their favourite drop being available on the tasting menu, they want it to display the quality and sheer drinkability they encountered on their last visit.
Meticulous vineyard management and skilled winemaking are always key factors in driving wine quality. Vintage 2026 brought other fundamental requirements into play. Luck and patience.
"Strong winds, rain and hail did most of the damage fairly early on, affecting flowering and fruit set," Gaman explains.
"November wasn't just wetter than average. It was cooler than average. Strong winds persisted almost until New Year, and that really slowed the season down. Ripening across all varieties was delayed. It became a matter of just waiting things out.
"Then all of a sudden we had this massive wall of fruit coming at us out of the vineyard. We had many different varieties all being picked at once. We didn't pick Chardonnay for sparkling until 14th April, by which time we had other stuff ready for table wine.
"Constant passes through the vineyard meant we had lots of really small parcels of fruit coming into the winery. We bought a whole lot of new tanks for this year's vintage but they really weren't much help, given the small volumes we were processing.
"Small bunches gave us some really nice batches of wine to work with, but pressing them was just so slow. We had a lot of very very long nights in the winery this year."
Eastford Creek won two trophies at the Australian Sparkling Awards Show back in October 2025. Gaman is hoping his latest crop of traditional method wines will show simialr hallmark qualities when they're ready for release.
It's too bad the vineyard's range of sparkling styles had to be trimmed back this vintage in order to create a significant volume of its flagship Sparkling Rosé. North West farmers are used to coping with constantly shifting production targets.
Gewürztraminer and Gamay, meanwhile, will both be absent from the bottling line when Eastford Creek's 2026 wines have all finished their journey through the winery.
Gaman had good news for winemaking clients Evie and Tim Walker at Spalford's Rusty Roof Vineyard. The couple's 1.5ha vineyard – 13km south of Ulverstone – picked only its second crop in 2026.
A second block of older Chardonnay vines at Kindred spans 0.5ha. Together, they produced more wine than in 2025.
Not only did their fruit reach the high bar Gaman always sets for vineyard harvests, the Walkers beat the odds and delivered small parcels of Grüner Veltliner and Merlot to the busy Eastford Creek winery.
Grüner Veltliner is a premium white variety that produces its best expressions in vineyards located in the North East corner of Austria. The grape also does well in the Adelaide Hills. It typically needs a fair bit of warmth and sunshine, and develops its distinctive spicy flavours quite late in the ripening process.
"A lot of people have never heard of it," says Tim Walker.
"In 2025, our first crop produced the most amazing flavours and people just loved the wine at the cellar door. We had to wait forever for the variety to ripen this year. Even then, we still couldn't get the sugar levels we were after for a dry table wine. We decided to produce a Grüner Veltliner sparkling wine instead. The quality is really amazing, so it looks like being a very exciting new development for us."
Gaman had no great aspirations for Rusty Roof's Merlot in 2026. He grew up seeing the variety really excel in Margaret River, alongside the region's world-class Cabernet Sauvignon. But it seems there's something special going on at Spalford.
Walker says his family's vineyard is neatly tucked into the landscape. That makes it well protected from the buffeting winds that often compromise the variety's flowering and fruit set in Tasmania.
"We didn't harvest our Pinot Noir and Merlot until 28th May," he adds.
"That was late. Really late. We didn't think we'd get our Merlot over the line this year, but when Andrew and I tasted it at the winery, we just rolled our eyes in amazement. It should make a really attractive, early-drinking style. It'll be similar to what we did in 2025 and that wine sold out really quickly.
"Our Merlot has been so ridiculously good that we're just going through the process of taking 1000 cuttings of it to extend our plantings. We'd probably do more if we had the time. If we can continue our success with the variety, we'll be really happy."
Continued success is exactly what the Walkers hoped for when they opened their brand new vineyard cellar door back in early January. The place has been bulging at the seams ever since.
Prior to opening, the vineyard had a small sell-out crowd for a live music event that featured some of the top performers on the Australian rock scene over the past two decades.
"Our Voices Super Group concert included the lead singers from Taxiride (Jason Singh), The Screaming Jets (Dave Gleeson), Boom Crash Opera (Dale Ryder) and Bachelor Girl (Tania Doko), as well as Tim and Caitlin Rizzoli from the 2022 series of The Voice Generations," Walker explains.
"We've got another big event coming up on 23rd January next year, with Dragon, Pseudo Echo, Bachelor Girl and Taxiride already locked in."
Vintage wine. Vintage music. What will these North West Coasters think of next?
Last page update: 23 July 2026