Jim Forchini was a NASA engineer who retired and bought a vineyard in Sonoma County in the early 1970s. By the time Sierra Blair reached her mid-teens, the kid from California knew she wanted to follow in her grandfather's footsteps.
Nice guys finish last. That's a familiar catchcry in the sporting world but it could easily be applied to winemakers. You seldom hear much of Ricky Evans's exploits but his wines are as reliable as a Swiss watch, and frequently deliver similar rolled gold quality. It's just that he doesn't enter wine shows, doesn't blow his own trumpet or do...
Australia has climbed from the world's 27th largest Rosé market in 2014 to 10th largest in 2024 and is expected to grow at a rate of 1 per cent per year over the next five years. That was one of the take-home messages from a Wine Australia market bulletin distributed last October. Driving the trend in Australia are Gen Z and Millennials....
Now this is something different. Pinotage from northern Tasmania. Not South Africa. Northern Tasmania.
In the beginning there was just Dalrymple Pinot Noir. Pinot Noir from vines planted at Pipers River by Dr Bertel Sundstrup and his family back in 1987. Then came the release of the 1996 Dalrymple Special Bin Pinot Noir and the good doctor was off to the races with his finely-tuned, limited release wines.
Poor old Riesling. The classic cool-climate variety just can't take a trick. It was the dominant white variety when the industry in Tasmania was starting to pick up steam in its development through the 1970s and 1980s.
Reserves seldom make it onto the field in big games like footy finals. Reserve wines are a different matter entirely. They're key players when it comes to producing traditional method sparkling wine.
In the late 1980s, Steve and Monique Lubiana travelled almost 10,000km in search of an ideal place to grow grapes and make cool-climate wine. They considered parts of Western Australia, South Australia and southern Victoria, but really wanted a site where traditional method sparkling wine could find a new home in Australia.
Bide your time. That was Dr Andrew Pirie's message for Tasmanian wine consumers 30 years ago when asked to comment about the 17 different vintages of Pipers Brook Vineyard Riesling he had poured for visiting wine judges James Halliday and Huon Hooke.
Looking back, it seemed only a matter of time before Luke Andree's small-batch Sonnen Wine project would see Glenelg Estate in the Derwent Valley as the perfect place from which to source his Chardonnay for this label.
