Michael Downer, winemaker at Murdoch Hill
and the son of the gregarious Peter, Tom Barry grew up in a house energised by the permanent parade of wine people enjoying the conviviality for which this industry is famous and at which the Barry’s excel.
Tom Barry, third generation winemaker at Jim Barry Wines
For Simon Killeen it’s a sensory memory that remains crystal clear - the smell of fermenting muscadelle in his father Chris’ winery that he fell in love with at five years old.
Tom Barry and Simon Killen come from the genetically guided camp. Both are the sons of winemakers and knew their way around vineyards before they could even reach high enough to steal a few ripe berries. Anita Goode and Michael Downer were generational farm kids, she at Mt Benson on South Australia’s Limestone Coast and he at Oakbank in the Adelaide Hills, who watched parents plant vineyards as part of diversifying the family property.
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And Stephanie Dutton had plans to be a geneticist before part-time jobs working the floor in some great Melbourne restaurants introduced her to the pleasures of wine and inspired her to pack her bags and enrol in a Masters of Oenology in Adelaide. They have travelled to different routes, but all find themselves now at the same point. As winemakers with a firm grasp on their craft and a strong vision for where they want that to take them. As the grandson of the legendary Jim Barry,
Michael Downer’s earliest vinous memory is tasting the first crop of sauvignon blanc from the vineyard his family had just planted, never really imagining then that twenty years later this vineyard would be at the heart of the impressive line-up of wines he makes under the Murdoch Hill label. Anita Goode is another who harks back to a sensory memory when recalling her earliest memories of wine. “I would be hanging out in the Bleasdale Cellar Door while Dad stopped for a break because the car had ‘hiccups’ on our way to our Victor Harbour holidays as kids,“ says Goode, who has used the vineyard planted on the family property, Wangolina, to create an