Long-time growers and makers in the Tasmanian wine industry – those producing commercial wines in the 1990s – frequently acknowledge the tremendous encouragement and support they received from James Halliday and Huon Hooke back in the day.
For a State that contributes little more than one percent to Australia's total wine grape crush each year, Tasmania hardly seems fit to qualify as a prime tourist destination for many of the country's most ardent wine enthusiasts.
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.
With vines across Tasmania now undergoing their annual winter dormancy, vineyard management over the past few weeks has been pretty routine on most sites. Snip, snip, snip. Snip, snip, snip.
When respected author, wine judge and Coldstream Hills founder James Halliday AO published his first annual guide to Australian wine, some 1150 wines from 400+ wineries were reviewed. The 2026 Halliday Wine Companion provided tasting notes for 7000+ wines from more than 900 wineries when it was released last year.
With vintage now done and dusted and many of the new wines from 2026 resting safe and sound in barrels and tanks around the country, you could be excused for thinking there's not much going on at the moment. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Especially in cool-climate Tasmania.
Tasmanian Premium Land isn't exactly the catchiest name for a significant new vineyard project. That's just fine with GO.FARM Australia's Liam Lenaghan. The leading asset management company doesn't do catchy. It does smart. Cutting edge. Big picture.
Play to your strengths. It's an old cliché but one that's good advice when it comes to getting the best out of a team's resources. Nowhere is that more evident in Tasmania's tourism and hospitality sector at the moment than at Bird in Hand's smart new bistro, kiosk and tasting room at Hobart's renowned Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens (RTBG).
For a small, quality-driven industry that accounts for little more than one percent of all Australian wine by volume, Tasmania is big on accessibility. Drop by many of our cellar doors and the chances are the hands that pour your Chardonnay or Pinot Noir also grew the grapes and made the wines as well.
When Linda Morice and Vaughn Dell bought the old Golders Vineyard at Pipers Brook in 2005, the couple couldn't wait to settle down and make their own mark on the property. Just 23 years old, Dell had devoted almost half his lifetime to Aussie Rules football.
