industry profile
Marty Smith Absolute Viticulture Tasmania Manages more than 500ha, including 4ha of Smith family vines Tell us about your current role: I’m a viticulture consultant, project manager and vineyard owner. I work closely with around a dozen Tasmanian vineyards and wine businesses providing a wide range of support services covering all facets of viticulture and vineyard management. Over the past 18 months I have also been directly involved with around 100 hectares of new vineyard development and including project managing the second largest single-year vineyard development in Tasmania’s history, planting is set to commence in September this year. During vintage I keep myself busy by running my own contract machine harvesting operation around the state.
Can you tell us more about your career in the industry so far? I spent eight years with Taltarni/ Clover Hill in Tasmania and Victoria whilst doing my viti degree through CSU via distance education. I moved to SA in 2009 to work as the viticulturist with Bleasdale Vineyards. Then moved back to Tasmania in 2013 to start my own viticulture consultancy and vineyard March 2016 – Issue 626
management business. In late 2015 my wife and I bought a property on the east coast of Tasmania and are in the process of developing a small vineyard of our own.
What are you most proud of? Re-working and re-trellising old vines in Langhorne Creek with Bleasdale and turning D-grade blocks into A-grade with a bit of love. One particular highlight was re-working a 30 year old box pruned Shiraz block and turning it into a cane pruned VSP vineyard that has provided a single-vineyard wine (Bleasdale Powder Monkey) and received a score of 98 from James Halliday. Successfully starting my own business in 2013 is a definite achievement and watching my clients receive accolades along the way is always rewarding. Being nominated for the ASVO ‘viticulturist of the year’ was a proud moment and I’m also very excited about the future of our own vineyard and the journey ahead.
What are the current challenges you are facing? One of my biggest challenges is to find ways to increase production on a number of client vineyards so they can meet market demand for their wine, and also finding suitable land and willing land www.winetitles.com.au
owners to plant more vineyards around the state. The little piece of water between Tasmania and Victoria is also a huge logistical and economic challenge. The cost of moving goods in and out of Tasmania is astronomical.
Where do you go for support on these issues? We are lucky in Tasmania to be well supported by industry organisations such as WFA and AWRI and also larger wine companies like Brown Brothers, Yalumba, Accolade, TWE, who are all investing in Tasmania and helping us build our image. There is also some local government talk about the freight issues between us and mainland Australia, but this will be a slow burner.
How important is the Grapegrower & Winemaker magazine a source of information: Extremely important! One thing I have noticed when moving back to Tasmania is that it’s easy to get disconnected from the greater wine industry and get stuck in our own little bubble. G&W also puts time into articles that are practical for vineyard owners and viticulturists, something we can actually use in the field and I can pass onto my clients. Grapegrower & Winemaker
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