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.
Is it possible to own and operate a small Tasmanian vineyard when you've been city-bound for all of your working life? Bronya Dance and Jade Nicholls believed you could. When they first set eyes on their 3ha vineyard in northern Tasmania, it was early 2021 and they were in Melbourne, looking to jump off the corporate treadmill.
When Clinton Mead entered his vineyard's first commercial release of Pinot Noir in the 2023 Tasmanian Wine Show, no-one was more surprised than he when it won one of the only two gold medals awarded in its class.
"When you're in your own lane, there is no traffic." US film-maker Ava DuVernay gave good advice to those who dared to take it. The reality is most of us join the queue. But not Will Adkins.
As a young bloke growing up on the edge of Western Australia's Margaret River wine region, all Andrew Gaman wanted to do was to contribute to running his family's 11ha vineyard and winery. The idea of making cool climate wines in northern Tasmania never entered his head.
Greg Melick was underage and living at home when he made his first significant wine investment. He won the daily double with a dollar bet and bought two cases of Hunter Valley red with his ill-gotten gain.
Like their peers among the farming fraternity, Australia's wine producers pride themselves on their capacity to innovate and diversify. You want to plant or expand an existing vineyard? There are more than 160 different grape varieties currently being used for wine production in Australia, according to Darby Higgs and his Vinodiversity website.
