Angelo Puglisi’s pioneering built an award-winning wine empire
Angelo Puglisi set the wheels of his humble wine making dream in motion in the late 1960s, and through freezing cold climate and severe drought he built an empire which helped establish Queensland’s wine industry.
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The Granite Belt has had the pleasure of lining their palettes with Ballandean Estate Wines’ award-winning array of Italian blends for more than 50 years.
An empire which sadly endured the region’s worst period of drought, resulting in the loss of 12,000 grape vines and a stinging $80,000 in water carting fees.
This was a result of the 18-month period Stanthorpe’s Storm King Dam was bone dry.
Ballandean Estate Wines Angelo Puglisi said the estate was forced to source water from 70km afield to keep the vines alive as the properties dams had also suffered from the lack of rain.
“We looked after the younger and more sort of in the middle vineyards as well as the really old vines,” he said.
“Some of them were a little bit stressed out for other reasons, they died and we pulled them all out and now 90 per cent of them have been replaced.”
Despite this unfortunate period for the estate they managed to preserve its now oldest thriving grape vine, which is now 54 years old.
“In the 50s and 60s after I’d left school I thought about what was happening in Australia with people drinking wine and only the old people, the old European's were drinking wine,” he said.
“Australians only drank beer and I thought that doesn’t make sense to me, because millions of people in Europe drink wine for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
Although you wouldn’t drink wine with your porridge or cornflakes Mr Puglisi said, after working in the fields during a stinking hot summer day a few glasses with lunch wouldn’t hurt.
“My dream was that I was going to change this culture if possible, to teach people to drink wine and I started growing wine grapes and getting into the wine industry.” he said.
The cold climate of the Granite Belt and the disaster of the 2019 drought for the estate weren’t the only obstacles in the way for the estate.
Growing his wine empire encompassed earlier challenges for Puglisi with many wine connoisseurs unconvinced he would achieve his dream for Queensland’s wine culture.
“I got laughed at by the people down south who said, ‘are you joking? How do you think you’re going to make good wine in Queensland living in the tropical state’,” he said.
“(I was told) ‘they only grow bananas, pineapples and pears’ so I invited the people to come up here in the winter and spend a couple of weeks with me to find out what quite cold climate really meant.
“It’s only really been in the past 10 years they’ve started to recognise the fact that maybe you can grow some good grapes in the Granite Belt.”
For quite some time his dreams were subject to the disbelief and joke of his peers and locals of the region Mr Puglisi said.
Puglisi’s pioneering to change not only how the Granite Belt views wine but the industry in Queensland paid off with the estate’s wine recognised internationally winning a gold medal.
The estate has also gone on to win awards across the state, featuring in the Royal Queensland Wine Show Awards for the first time in 1978.
Puglisi celebrated his 80th birthday at the Ballandean estate with family and friends on Saturday and is hopeful his empire will continue to thrive long into the future.
Ballandean Estate Wines is now managed by his two daughters Robyn and Leeanne.
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