Tim's Ravings

I wrote this a year ago, just before our lives were turned upside down, causing us all to reflect on our lives, families and careers. This “Raving” is about why we do what we do and now, with the hope of an end to Covid in sight, its time has come...

My grandfather, a Queensland cattleman, was the healthiest man I have known.

He loved butter, he loved salt, and he ate two red meat meals a day. He never saw the inside of a gym in his life but was fitter than any of his bulls. He’d drink an occasional can of VB. I never could get him to sit down and enjoy one of my wines.

His life straddled world wars, recessions, a depression, countless droughts, and floods.

He started work at 15, labouring for his father’s sawmill. It must have been a fascinating and tough work life – one day he would be driving a bullock dray, the next a basic truck over rutted, bumpy tracks.

Before long he discovered his real calling. He bred cattle, turning them over to others to finish. His skill was to breed cattle that could survive, prosper, and fatten in the best and

worst of conditions.

His eye, his sense of a beasts’ conformation and what made it a good fattening prospect,

was unerring and almost mystical to me. This is the real lesson he taught me – work hard,

listen and learn, then trust y our instincts. I'm a winemaker and we need the same sort of 'eye'.

The most common question I am asked is, "How do you know a particular wine will age?" It’s a variation on the same question I repeatedly asked Pappy when I was younger – only I wanted to know about the noisy weaners in the yard just separated from their mothers. I never did get a satisfying answer. He just knew and was invariably proved right.

Late in 2019, at 103 and a half years old, his aged and exhausted body failing but his mind still sharp, he died peacefully in his sleep.

Just like Pappy’s satisfaction in breeding great cattle, I get joy from growing and making wine that matures, becoming more complex and delicious. And the best bit about doing it at Huntington Estate is that I know there are a whole group of you out there that are right alongside us for this increasingly dramatic ride. In the last few years alone, we have survived horrendous drought, a lost vintage to smoke taint and Covid shutdowns.

The vines at Huntington Estate celebrated 50 years in 2019, less than half Pappy’s remarkable journey. I can earnestly testify that the best is yet to come.