Not only did our Old Vine Shiraz win gold at the Australian Small Winemaker’s Show, it also took out the two top awards for Queensland wines. The trophies for Best Queensland Red Wine 2014 and the Dick De Luca Memorial Trophy for Best Queensland Shiraz 2014 were presented at a gala dinner at the Queensland College of Wine Tourism on the Granite Belt.

For the first time in many years I was speechless and Brad could only manage a few words of thanks to all the winemaking team and the judges – leading wine industry figures from all over Australia.

The really poignant thing about winning the Dick De Luca Memorial Award was that the old vines that produced the fruit for the wine, came from cuttings taken from Dick De Luca’s own vineyard more than 40 years ago.
The perpetual trophy was sponsored by Dick De Luca’s family (he was a pioneer of the wine industry on the Granite Belt)

The Australian Small Winemaker’s Show received almost 1500 entries this year from every State, the ACT and New Zealand. Granite Belt wineries represented around 10% of the total wines submitted but won about 15% of the gold medals, 17% of the silver medals and 12% of the bronzes.

The only sad note in all this celebrating is that we lost our Old Vine Shiraz to hail in 2013 and to frost in 2014 vintage, so there will be no more until we release our 2015 vintage (assuming the weather gods allow us a harvest), probably in late 2017 or early 2018. The good news is that after Brad’s expert decapitations of last year and his lovingly administered nutrition and organic spray program since then, the vines are looking happy and healthy.

Angelo Puglisi of Ballandean Estates gave us the advice after the frost disaster to just cut off their heads. We did it with trepidation but it worked perfectly. Angelo came up to us at the awards dinner and said with a laugh “I should have told you just to pull those old vines out!” before enveloping me in a giant bear hug.