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By CAITLIN CROWLEY
GRANITE Belt wineries are embracing their unique identity as the home of alternative varieties, shrugging off outdated stereotypes and finding a niche which may just help future-proof the sector from climate change.
Peter O’Reilly from the Queensland College of Wine Tourism said he could remember coming to the region in the 1990s and leaving less than impressed with the wine on offer.
“I think we were trying to make other people’s wine,” he said.
“We were trying to make Shiraz like the Barossa. As a wine drinker I would come up here knowing Shiraz from the Barossa – big fruit bombs, high alcohol – come up here and it was medium-bodied and peppery.
“Actually far more like Shiraz from the Rhone Valley in France but nothing like my expectations and I’d go away thinking – what was that? Whereas now, people come up and they go into a cellar door and get introduced to Albariño or Tinto Cao.
“There’s a journey of discovery and you start to hear about the district and why it’s so different.
“By the time you get to Shiraz, you’re expecting something different to the Barossa and it’s a real learning experience for people.”
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Bent Road Winery’s Glen Robert (main picture) said because the Granite Belt was such a small player in the Australian wine industry, it could make its own rules.
“The Granite Belt only represents 0.2-0.3 percent of the national crush so we are minuscule compared to other wine making areas in Australia,” he said.
“If we were in the Coonawarra we would have to make Cabernet Sauvignon. If we were in the Barossa we would have to make Shiraz.
“Here in the Granite Belt – because we are on the outer edges of the Australian wine industry – there are no rules and so we can make up our own rules.”
Bent Road is perhaps the most experimental of the region’s wineries right now, using an ancient Georgian technique where wine is fermented underground in large terracotta vessels, called qveries.
“We took the initiative to import 14 Georgian qvevries direct from Georgia and we’ve buried them in the ground outside, in a horseshoe shape in between two vineyards,” Robert said.
“The only thing we’re doing differently today compared to the Georgians 8000 years ago is we’re constantly monitoring the microbiological stability of the wine to make sure we’re not going to make vinegar, we’re going to make wine and make wine that is delicious.
“That’s a whacky thing to do and we can do that sort of whacky thing because we have no rules in the Granite Belt.
“We’re able to experiment, we’re able to come up with crazy ideas and go for them.”
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Back at the College of Wine Tourism, 94 different varieties of grapes are being grown in its ‘Vineyard of the Future’.
“Most of them, we only have 4 vines of each,” Peter O’Reilly said.
“What we do is monitor how they grow, when they ripen, so we get an idea of their growth characteristics.
“We can do a harvest and a vintage and produce just two bottles – so we do a harvest from four vines and end up with 1.5 litres of wine but that’s enough to go and sit down with local winemakers and say, what do you think of this?”
Not only are they looking for varieties that are easier and cheaper to grow, the experimentation ensures the local industry stays ahead of the climate change curve.
It’s what drew Bent Road winemaker and distiller Andrew Scott to the industry after working as a sommelier.
“When you’re lucky enough to work in a good restaurant you get to taste a lot of wine and after a while it’s like- that’s a good Shiraz, that’s another good Shiraz, and then something interesting comes along – something different, something with a story behind it,” he said.
“Things are changing, the climate is changing and a lot of that work they’re doing at the college is about future-proofing the industry.
“That, tied in with the fact we’re not pigeon-holed like so many Australian wine regions are, we don’t have a particular thing that we’re associated with, other than we do lots of things.”
Including experimenting with gin; Bent Road is producing its first batch in recent weeks with the second being planned now.
The Winery has also just opened a cellar door at Ballandean and expanded its vineyard by 18 hectares on the back of the region’s tourism boom through the pandemic.
“We see how the area is growing and booming and we feel confident to expand,” Glen Robert said.
“I feel that innovation is important – to grow we need to experiment, we need to think of new things and we need to stay in front of the curve.”
While other Aussie wine regions stick to what they know, Peter O’Reilly believes the Granite Belt’s greatest strength is its focus on alternative varieties.
“It’s never ever found its own hero variety and now, we’re ok with that. In fact we like the idea of being an exciting wine journey for people.
“We’ve got to now just convince the wine drinking public that hey – we actually have now got our act together. We know what we can grow, we grow it well, we make great wine.
“I think that reputation from last century was possibly deserved but it’s certainly something of the past now.”