briefs

HEIDENREICH OUT ON HER OWN

LONG-time Sevenhill Cellars winemaker Liz Heidenreich has signed off on her 13-year career with the iconic South Australian winery in order to pursue her own wine brand.

Liz Heidenreich Wines is now open for business with grenache and shiraz sourced from her family-owned Barossa Valley vineyards. There is also a Watervale riesling included in the Heidenreich wine mix, a style she knows very well after her long years working in the Clare Valley at Sevenhill. As yet, no winemaker replacement has been named but Jeremy O’Leary has been promoted to assistant winemaker. Sevenhill Cellars, settled by the Jesuit religious order in 1851, was the first winery in the Clare Valley. The production of sacramental wine soon developed into commercial table wines with priests the winemakers. Heidenreich was not only the first non-Jesuit to take the role but also the first trained winemaker and the first woman.

The popular South Australian winemaker finished off an eventful 2018 year with her marriage to well-known Clare Valley winemaker David O’Leary, of O’Leary Walker Wines.

BEST LAID PLANS

BEST’S Wines has acquired 400ha of premium land in Great Western, 114 ha of which is already under vine and planted to shiraz, cabernet sauvignon and a small amount of merlot.

Currently known as Hyde Park, it is set to be rebadged as Sugarloaf Creek Vineyard. The purchase is viewed as a massive vote of confidence in the Great Western region which has suffered in recent years from the closure and sale by Treasury Wine Estates of its Seppelt Great Western winery.

Best’s director Ben Thomson made the announcement in December, indicating that the vineyard was needed to help supply Best’s top-selling Bin No. 1 Great Western Shiraz and Great Western Cabernet Sauvignon.

“Great Western has always been the home of Best’s,” he said, “and this vineyard acquisition helps to guarantee the supply of wine from our region for future generations.” The acquisition is viewed as the company’s most significant purchase in its history.

ARNEIS FADES AWAY

DOES arneis, the northern Italian grape variety which appeared to have effortlessly settled in Australia, have a problem?

Crittenden Wines, on the Mornington Peninsula, a pioneer of alternative grape varieties in Australia and an early adopter of Italian grapes, in particular, has been forced to graft arneis over to chardonnay, citing a lack of interest from wine drinkers.

Twenty-one years after first planting it, arneis is no longer viable for the producer.

If industry statistics are anything to go by, arneis is in trouble. In 2010, 159ha of arneis was grown across Australia. By 2012 it dropped to 81ha and in 2015 it was just 38ha.

Fittingly, the last Arneis made at Crittenden Wines from the 2018 vintage has been labelled “Endangered Arneis.” Garry Crittenden has used the wine to raise funds to help save marine life from plastic straws and $20 from each dozen sold will go towards the Australian Seabird Rescue.

So what is the problem with Arneis? “It’s not the taste, I suspect,” says founder, Gary Crittenden, “but more a combination of the name. Consumers were intimidated by how to pronounce it and the fact that unlike other Italian varietals there is no proper heritage as a white varietal.

“It was largely and still is used as a blend with nebbiolo for earlier consumption in the Roero region (of Italy), although today is far more commonplace in Piemonte as a straight varietal than it once was.”

GLOBAL APPEAL

THE Hunter Valley is set