Time to re-visit coast
Anyone who visited Tasmania's drought-ravaged East Coast last August will remember all too clearly the looks of anguish that accompanied grower predictions of their forthcoming year in the vineyard. For many, only the drenching rains of September 2019 averted what looked like becoming a potentially disastrous journey to vintage.
What a difference a year can make.
That's the message now being echoed by wine producers up and down the coast.
On the face of it, Priory Ridge's David Llewellyn has every reason to be optimistic about the immediate future of intensive viticulture in this part of the State. His vineyard rain gauge has already topped 550mm this year. That's 120mm more than the 6ha site outside St Helens received during the whole of 2019.
So it's not more rain the former ALP Member of State Parliament is hoping to see when he looks out at the vineyard's picturesque setting. It's cellar door visitors he and his wife Julie really need at the moment.
East Coast visitor numbers had been booming until March 2020. Estimates published by Tourism Tasmania show that since 2016 the region's Great Eastern Drive Touring Route has been among the State's top three tourist destinations. Annual visitor numbers have exceeded 300,000.
While all business activity in Tasmania has been adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic, Priory Ridge felt the tourism downturn more than many, especially when compared with industry peers located near the large urban centres of Hobart and Launceston.
"We're just outside St Helens in the Priory Valley, so we're quite distant from the wineries located further down the East Coast," Lewellyn says.
"Before COVID-19, our cellar door trade comprised 40 percent overseas visitors and 40 percent interstate visitors. Only 20 percent or so were from around the Tasmania. The popularity of the new mountain-biking trails in and around Derby really helped us add visitor numbers to those we'd been seeing from the coast's tourism operators."
"We were very well supported by Tasmanians during the challenges of 2020," adds Julie Llewellyn.
"Once local travel restrictions were lifted, we had really good spring and summer trading. People don't just come here. They go to St Helens and places nearby like Pyengana. Business activity is spread all over the north-east."
The couple's passion for this part of Tasmania runs deep. Julie Llewellyn is a St Helens local who literally grew up on the coast. Her husband David was born and raised at St Marys, only 40km away. Better known for a parliamentary career spanning almost three decades, the former Deputy Premier of Tasmania is always on home-turf, no matter where he is in the north-east.
When the Llewellyns bought their 20ha property at auction in 2002, it marked a new beginning for the former Tarpot Farm. It had been in Julie's family for more than a century.
John Clifford was a distant convict forebear. As an 18-year-old stable groom, he had been convicted in London's Old Bailey for stealing a mare valued at £8, the property of Wimbledon blacksmith John Hayter. Sentenced to 10 years' transportation to Van Diemen's Land in 1841, Clifford was one of 77 English prisoners that survived the wreck of the convict ship The Waterloo. The vessel sank while in transit in August, 1842.
"Women and children were among the 189 convicts, passengers, soldiers and seamen that lost their lives when the ship went down off Cape Town," Julie explains.
"Clifford eventually completed his voyage and later became a coachman at Ross. He married Mary Viney from Campbell Town and they moved to St Helens in the 1850s. In 1860, the couple and their children settled here at Priory, three miles from St Helens. They were among the district's founding families.
"Clifford spent more than half his life living here at Tarpot Farm. At the time of his death in 1919, he was over 100 years old, perhaps the oldest person then living on Tasmania's East Coast."
The Llewellyns waited six years before planting 4ha of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir on their property's north-facing slopes in 2008.
"In the meantime, we installed data-loggers across the property, conducted soil tests and took advice from renowned viticulturist Dr Richard Smart," David Llewellyn recalls.
"This is the only vineyard in Tasmania that is planted on Devonian granite-based soils. Although our climate and geography are very different, that puts us on a similar footing to some renowned vineyards in Germany."
Around 2ha of Pinot Gris and Sauvignon Blanc – along with a smattering of Gewürztraminer and Siegerrebe – were added in 2011. After a wet summer that year – and a meagre 2012 harvest – Priory Ridge hit pay-dirt with the following vintage. The vineyard's barrel-fermented Sauvignon Blanc topped its category at the annual Wine of the Year Awards conducted by Winestate Magazine.
The South Australian-based publication typically evaluates around 10,000 wines in 12 different categories during the year. Wines come from all parts of Australia and New Zealand.
Priory Ridge's 2013 winner was made at the Gulch, Bicheno, by renowned Apsley Gorge winemaker and Pinot-phile, Brian Franklin.
"I don't suppose we should have been surprised by our success," David Llewellyn muses.
"Richard Smart's assessment of the site almost a decade earlier noted that we have a very similar microclimate to that of Blenheim in New Zealand. That's been the home-base of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc since the 1980s."
The couple opened a vineyard cellar door at Priory Ridge in 2017. Established on the property in a former shearing shed, its long-held connections to local and family history make it a significant community asset as well as a warm and inviting wine centre. Julie Llewellyn has since become the curator of a wonderful collection of historical memorabilia. Much of it marks the pioneering endeavours of the families who settled these parts during the 18th and early 19th centuries.
With rich history and rich wines being shared in equal measure, Priory Ridge offers some truly unique and compelling cellar door experiences. Visitors are welcome Wednesday to Sunday, 11.00am to 4.00pm.
First published 21 August 2020: tasmaniantimes.com