Visitation booming at Ballandean Estate despite coronavirus restrictions
Lots of businesses suffered as a result of border closures – but for this Granite Belt business, COVID-19 and its associated restrictions appear to have had the opposite effect.
Toowoomba
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The coronavirus pandemic has brought a silver lining for Granite Belt winemaker Ballandean Estate.
The winery’s cellar door has experienced an extraordinary increase in visitation as Queenslanders were freed to travel in their home state, doubling their number of visitors year on year.
Off the back of the huge increase in numbers, Ballandean Estate will be “bringing the love” to Brisbane at Saturday’s Drink Queensland Cellar Door Festival.
Fourth-generation vigneron Leeanne Puglisi-Gangemi said cellar door visitation at Queensland’s oldest family-owned and operated winery had doubled to 30,000 people over the last five months, compared to 15,000 for the same period last year.
“What we’ve been thrilled to discover is that a huge proportion of our Queenslander visitors were here on the Granite Belt for the first time. And we’d like to see them again,” she said.
“COVID-19 slowed down our ability to visit our wine amicis. The Drink Queensland Cellar Door Festival is giving us the perfect opportunity to share some of our rare alternative wines with our new amicis and to bring the love back to Brisbane.”
Ballandean Estate will be sharing and selling some of its best wines, including their “truly rare and alternative Saperavi/Durif blend”.
“It’s a deep ruby wine with a full body, savoury blue fruit, intense bouquet, dry palate and, smooth finish with lingering French oak. This Strange Bird is even more unique as it is a vintage variance — hence the name Sinatlis, a lighter-style Saperavi,” Mrs Puglisi-Gangemi said.
“Festival-goers can also sample our single-vineyard 2016 cabernet sauvignon, our 2018 shiraz viognier sourced from 50-year-old shiraz vines, the ever popular 2020 semillon sauvignon blanc and our much-loved 2017 Opera Block chardonnay, which spends 14 months in French oak barriques.”
The festival is offering two wine tasting sessions, with DJs and food trucks.
Ballandean Estate will be joining over 20 Queensland wineries at the RNA Showground’s John Reid Pavilion on Saturday, November 14.
Tickets are available here.
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Originally published as Visitation booming at Ballandean Estate despite coronavirus restrictions