Wine enthusiast nabs five awards for stellar wine at Ipswich Show
For 20 years, Val has been entering the Ipswich Show’s wine section
Ipswich
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FOR Val Lloyd, making wine was the natural progression of enjoying a glass or two of the beverage.
The Ipswich wine lover and long-term member of Western Suburbs Amateur Wine Club took out several awards at the 2021 Ipswich Show.
It isn’t the first time the Show Society Steward has received ribbons or certificates for her wine.
Ms Lloyd nabbed five awards, including multiple first places, for wines spanning red and white varieties such as merlot, pinot gris, pinot noir, and cabernet sauvignon.
For the past 20 years, Ms Lloyd has been entering the contest at each year’s show, after becoming involved in the wine club.
“I liked wine so it made sense to try (making it),” she said.
She began making wine using kits which include grape juice – so stomping on grapes isn’t necessary.
Though she had previously sourced grapes from a Kilcoy vineyard, a change of ownership led her to return to the kit.
“The kit comes with a bladder of the juice,” she said.
“We used to pick the merlot grapes and do everything – we would go up about July, August.”
Ms Lloyd encouraged anyone keen to try out wine making to give it a go.
“It’s quite easy and it’s very enjoyable at the finish,” she said.
Alan Brown, Bellbird Park, also nabbed a win.
He said making wine was a good way to use up excess fruit and shared a tip with aspiring winemakers.
“Not being clean enough with your equipment (can set you back),” Mr Brown said.
“It’s so important you sterilise properly or you can get bad yeast, bad bugs and, when your wine’s finished, you’ll get off flavours.”
The champion wine ribbon was awarded to Robyn Hedge for his jaboticaba fruit wine.
Read more news by Ebony Graveur.
Originally published as Wine enthusiast nabs five awards for stellar wine at Ipswich Show
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