SHE’LL BE APPLES: Festival major boost to region

THE Apple and Grape Harvest brought positivity and hope to the region recovering during an ongoing drought.

PROUD AS PUNCH: David Sutton, of Sutton's Juice Factory Cidery & Cafe, with one of the apples grown on his farm (Image Leeroy Todd Photo and Film).

THE Apple and Grape Harvest Festival wrapped up on Sunday, ending the 10-day celebration of the region’s food and wine producers.

In Weeroona Park, stallholders gathered to meet a crowd of eager wine tasters, who enjoyed live music and entertainment from local artists.

For Ballandean winery Twisted Gum Wines, positive community events inspired hope for the region.

“Spirits were high because everything was so green and Stanthorpe put on a fantastic display of local wine and juice,” owner Michelle Coelli said.

“It was lovely to see travellers coming through but also so many of the young people that have left to go and study, come back and there were big groups of ex-Stanthorpe young people around.

“Overall, it was a fantastic vibe and positive which was lovely to see.”

The event had 18 wineries on display, and Mrs Coelli said regional producers could connect and mingle.

“Carnival of Flowers and Regional Flavours in Brisbane are just some of the other events we all do together,” she said.

“We all get on really well, it’s a great opportunity to showcase Granite Belt wine.

“The community side of the wine industry is pretty special – there’s not a lot of regions banding together to promote the area, and not just the wine – there was cheese, some of the breweries and Sutton’s Juice Factory.”

Twisted Gum winery owners Tim and Michelle Coelli with one of their Mountain Orange Gum Trees were happy to support the festival.

Sales were up by about 10 per cent on last year for the winery after three days of trade.

Popular juice and cider factory Sutton’s had a similar trade increase.

“It was more than we’ve ever sold before – it was a great uplift for the community,” factory owner David Sutton said.

“I think they sold about 45 pies on the Sunday but I don’t know what we did on the Saturday.”

As the conversations turned from drought to the green grass sprouting across the region, Mr Sutton said the change was wonderful to see.

“We’re like everyone else; now it’s rained, and it looks green and clean it makes a huge difference,” he said.

“I think it’s going to be a positive year because when you look back in October, we couldn’t see the streetlights because of the smoke from the fires.”

Despite much-needed rain revitalising the region, Twisted Gum Wines will introduce an irrigation system to its vineyards to increase yield.

“At the moment, we’re going to drought-proof the vines for the future,” Mrs Coelli said.

“We are actually going to change our practice from dry grown to having a very small amount of emergency watering. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve put a tank in and in the next few weeks we’ll be laying some irrigation in the vines.”

Re-branding labels to reflect the new production technique, Twisted Gum will become “single vineyard hand-picked” so customers know dry production is no longer used.

Mrs Coelli said it was a tough decision but was necessary to sustain the business during the enduring drought and to continue attending events such as Apple and Grape.

“We’ll be using a fraction of the water you would normally need because we already have 12 years of building carbon soil,” she said.

“We still intend to put out mulch and we think we can still maintain our high-quality grapes with minimal water.

“But I think the region still has a huge advantage over other regions for wine grape production; this is just one little thing we can do to make a very sustainable business.”

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