For a wine-growing region that accounts for just 1.5 percent of Australia's total wine grape production, Tasmania has more than its fair share of talented industry professionals. The good news is that growers and winemakers around the country are becoming increasingly aware of it.
It's been almost 35 years since Hobart wine educator Phil Laing and former Meadowbank winemaker Greg O'Keefe put their heads together and staged the 1991 Tasmanian Regional Wine Show. A show for wines made exclusively from Tasmanian wine grapes. There was no budget for the event. No organising committee. Just a two-man band.
Open by appointment only. Seen that on a winery website or your Discover Tasmania app? Yes, it's disappointing if you like to buy wines from the people who grow them and make them. But set sail for the State's sunny East Coast anytime from Thursday 23 October to Sunday 26 October (inclusive) and you're in for a pleasant surprise.
It's been three years since James Oliver and Constance Olivier moved from Victoria's Yarra Valley to take on ownership of Moores Hill Estate. You wouldn't think so. To see them working their way through their vineyard at the start of another new season is like watching two kids in the proverbial lolly shop.
Back in the 1980s, it seemed all you could expect from your local council were clean water, decent roads and paths, and regular garbage collection. One Tasmanian council stood apart from the rest – Hobart's City Council. In 1988, it introduced the State's iconic Taste of Tasmania.
In the quest to make great sparkling wine, time is a critical factor, says Derwent Valley winemaker Steve Lubiana. Time to discover a site ideally suited to growing grapes for the style. Time to unravel the complex relationships that link grape varieties, vineyard sites and winemaking regimes.
With average wind speeds this month nudging 25kmh – and gusting up to 90kmh – Flinders Island winemaker Barry Kooij admits much of the romance associated with cool climate viticulture can be hard to sustain when you're out of doors and have 6000 vines to prune over winter.
As one door closes, another door opens. That's how life has changed this past fortnight for two key players in Tasmania's steadily evolving, cool climate wine industry. Leaving through the shed door was former Tolpuddle Vineyard manager, Carlos Souris.
It's been 10 years since award-winning winemaker Don Buchanan sadly succumbed to cancer at his Gold Coast home. Decades earlier, the Roseworthy College graduate became the talk of the town when he and his wife Judy and their two young children moved from the Barossa Valley to begin Buchanan Wines in the Tamar Valley.
Vineyards have a habit of transforming people's lives. One minute, they're just sticks in the ground and the next they're all shoots and leaves, with bunches galore. For up-and-coming growers and winemakers, that's the fun part. It's what comes next that's hard. Selling wines.
