Tim's Ravings

Thousands of years ago at town festivals, winemakers marched carrying large phalluses, firmly believing they would impress Dionysus, Greek God of wine.

I am going to hazard a wild guess that it made no difference, except maybe to boost the amusement levels of those watching.

Now, I have only been making wine for 25 years, but I reckon there are 2 ways to do it.

The first is to ignore science and the necessary graft, hope for the best and make wine that is ordinary, often faulty, but that relies on a gimmick for the sale. Holding up a huge penis to your adoring fans is no longer socially acceptable (social media posts excepted apparently) but brazen artifice remains THE strategy for many winemakers today.

The second way of making wine is to follow the science, be fastidious and then allow creativity and craft to fashion unique wine that tastes great.

I won’t list the dodgy ploys for fear of getting lost in the reeds. Suffice to say their trickery is inevitably exposed by the quality of the product in the glass.

The section of winegrowing I definitely don’t include in this 'dodgy' category is the organic movement, which has helped advance our scientific knowlegde of how to grow great wine grapes, particularly in the area of soil and vine health.

Making an excellent organic wine relies on a combination of great skill and experience in the vineyard, and a large slice of luck. Consistency of quality across vintages and wines is a massive challenge. For example, in the wet season just completed, most organic producers failed to get both the acceptable yields and the excellent quality that the best non-organic producers enjoyed.

At Huntington Estate we are not organic, but are not far from it, and call ourselves sustainable. In the pursuit of consistently excellent quality, now and for the future, we employ many techniques in the vineyard that are rooted in the pioneering work of the best organic producers.

The 2021 vintage pushed us to be precise with our disease spray program. We used two tried and tested sprays not available to organic producers, that proved crucial in giving us excellent yields and fault-free, high quality wine.

This is something we have been doing for many years - as you, our longstanding customers, can testify.

Which brings me to the suite of wines we are releasing this newsletter. From the 2018 Basket Dried Shiraz to the 2006 Vintage Port, these wines collectively are the best group I have seen released at Huntington Estate and I highly recommend them all.

What you will get from us is a bottle of wine that is supreme in the glass and truly expressive of our unique vineyard site. No gimmicks, no distractions needed. And no plans to build a Big Penis on our vineyard either.