What this award for our wine actually does is showcase the quality of our grapes. It recognises the Blaxland quality – it puts us on the map. transports water from the Murray Valley water system. The Tanunda Hill Vineyard is one of the largest shareholders in the BIL scheme. Since the appointment of Craig Thomas as commercial director in 2011, Blaxland Vineyards has gone from producing grapes for a number of Barossa brands, to selling their own wine to a small number of key export markets and through some independent domestic retailers. Before arriving at Blaxland, Thomas had spent 10 years as an export manager for Australian Vintage. “Our focus over the last four years has been to move up the value chain, away from just being a grape grower, to developing our own brands and selling our own wine, both domestically and internationally,” Thomas said. “It’s a decision that has paid off with our wine sales increasing by $2.5 million over the past five years.” The brand development has not just focussed on Tanunda Hill, but has included Barton Steer Limestone Coast and seen the recent acquisition of established brands Duck Duck Goose and Domain Barossa. Blaxland’s wine sales figures rose from $500,000 in 2010 to $3 million in 2015, allowing them to employ more staff and grow their international markets. “While we’re still relatively small, we’re committed to providing local employment and we’re also planning on re-opening the Domain Barossa Cellar Door in the main street of Tanunda in August, which will see further growth,” Thomas said. The Decanter award hasn’t been the only positive news for the wine quality, either. The 2014 Barton Steer Limestone Coast Shiraz scored a gold medal win at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show last year. Thomas is confident that Blaxland is producing the competitively priced and great tasting wines Australian and international consumers are looking for. “The Decanter World Wine Award is the wine industry’s equivalent to an Oscar, so it really is a great honour to be seen as one of the ‘best’ in this category,” he said.
Neil MacKenzie, Blaxland executive chairman, said the business has always worked with the top 10 Australian wine companies. “When we diversified into making wine we initially did that through the bulk market, then moved into bottle product,” MacKenzie said. “About 90 per cent of our output is still sold as grapes and we are engaged with all the major wine companies. “What this award for our wine actually does is showcase the quality of our grapes. It recognises the Blaxland quality – it puts us on the map.” MacKenzie, a Chartered Accountant, has more than 25 years of wine industry experience in senior roles. He was the chief executive officer at ASX-listed Simeon Wines from 1994 to 2003, prior to its merger with Brian McGuigan Wines. More recently he was the chief executive officer of Warburn Estate from 2007 until 2011. Blaxland Vineyards has a team of more than a dozen vineyard staff and also engages consultants. It has a serious focus on water conservation programs and has spent about $300,000 recently on a mulching project to help in this area. Blaxland actually invests in all the raw ingredients and makes its own mulch. “We buy in the manure, chips and grape marc; then we ferment it and prepare it ourselves,” Thomas said. “What we’ve found is we can get all the ingredients and do it ourselves for about half the price of buying in the finished product. Now we have established that, it might even become another branch of the business for us.” While the winemaking is contracted out to local production sites, the process is overseen by Blaxland’s own contract winemaker, Chris Polymiades, who also has a background with Australian Vintage. “Owning a winery is a very tough gig,” MacKenzie said. “We processed about 1400 tonnes of our own fruit for the 2016 vintage and for what we are doing, that doesn’t merit owning our own winemaking facility.
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Grapegrower & Winemaker
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